EricWen, Graphic Music Analysis: an Introduction to Schenkerian Theory and Practice (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2020). xiv + 390 pp. $89 (pb). ISBN 9781538104668.Eric Wen, Structurally Sound: Seven Musical Masterworks Deconstructed (New York: Dover, 2017). xiv + 320 pp. $24.95 (pb). ISBN 9780486806778.
2022; Wiley; Volume: 41; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1111/musa.12188
ISSN1468-2249
Autores Tópico(s)Music Technology and Sound Studies
ResumoSometimes, when I am teaching music theory, a famous cinematic scene pops into my head involving an old, wise and pale-green sage, who exclaims to his apprentice: ‘Always with you it cannot be done. Hear you nothing that I say … [the apprentice interjects …] No! No different! Only different in your mind. You must unlearn what you have learned … [the apprentice interjects again …] No! Try not! Do, or do not. There is no try.’ Like any passionate teacher, this sage is distraught over the (lack of) progress being made by his pupil, who has yet to grasp the depths of their arts and the particular mindset necessary to mastering them. But as a contrivance of Hollywood, and with an underlying musical-dramatic message conveyed to us by no less a composer than John Williams and no less an ensemble than the London Symphony Orchestra, the scene touches upon something of far more galactic proportions than the mere quibblings of a crusty old teacher – for the apprentice, a talented but as yet undeveloped warrior, is still unwilling to take that leap of faith needed to become one with the Force, a leap that the sage sees as the key to restoring freedom to the galaxy …. Similarly, one might say that a teacher of ‘graphic’ (i.e. Schenkerian) analysis is tasked with putting students into a particular mindset about analysing tonal music, which certainly builds on much of what they would have learned in any basic music theory course, but which can also go against the grain of many of their previously established beliefs. Among other things, it is a mindset that understands chords and keys in a context-dependent relationship to one another, that acknowledges the role of counterpoint in transforming and connecting those chords at various levels, that takes musical ‘form’ as a product of such voice-leading levels and, perhaps most difficult of all, that at times interprets some of the most aurally salient features of the musical surface as ‘mere’ passing phenomena. How, then, does a teacher get a student into the mindset for doing graphic music analysis – that is, by hearing, thinking and discussing along the lines suggested by the method? Some may simply cut to the chase and introduce Schenker's theory of the Ursatz at the outset (most, however, would deem this pedagogically unsound and even detrimental). Others may point to a particular ‘motive’ or ‘line’ in a piece that is observable more or less intuitively and from this extract related, more hidden ‘motives’ and ‘lines’ across the music (to whet the Schenkerian appetite, one might say).11 This is the approach by taken by Cadwallader and Gagné (1998; subsequent editions, 2007, 2011 and 2019 [with Frank Samarotto]). For the purposes of this review I have made use of the third edition, as I draw on aspects of the book that predate Samarotto's collaboration. Still others may start on the salient surface of the music: first by labeling chords, identifying prominent melodic notes and distinguishing between chord tones and non-chord tones, and then by showing increasingly nuanced relationships between them. In this last approach, students begin with what they presumably already know and only gradually come to see that what they know needs a good deal of refinement and (oftentimes) a bit of unlearning. The leap of faith thus turns out to be not as big as one might have initially anticipated. Using the Hirtengesang from the finale of Ludwig van Beethoven's ‘Pastoral’ Symphony as his cue, this last approach is the one Eric Wen takes at the outset of each of his two recent books, Graphic Music Analysis: an Introduction to Schenkerian Theory and Practice (henceforth GMA), and Structurally Sound: Seven Musical Masterworks Deconstructed (henceforth SS).22 Wen's use of the word ‘masterworks’ in one of his titles, as well as his choice of white, male and (primarily) Austro-German composers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, may seem off-putting to many scholars in 2022, especially if such choices are construed as a claim to the ‘universality’ of ‘Western’ musical ‘masterworks’ at the expense of other composers, musical styles and cultures (without a doubt an unsavoury connotation that words such as ‘masterwork’ can easily evoke). While as socially responsible scholars we should be ever mindful of the potential pitfalls that such language could engender, in my reading Wen himself exudes no deliberate universalising or hegemonic tendencies in SS or in GMA. Instead, his use of the term ‘masterwork’ and his choice of repertoire can be seen as a reflection of his own musical background, as well as an expression of his personal musical taste and conviction. As he writes in the preface to SS, ‘The seven works discussed in Structurally Sound are all drawn from the so-called common-practice period of Classical music, dating roughly from 1650 to 1900. Contextualized within the long history of Western music – not to mention the wide diversity of cultural traditions around the world – this focus may seem conspicuously narrow. But what is lacking in breadth will, I hope, be made up for in depth and rigor. The Austro-German Classical tradition from which these seven pieces stem represents a pinnacle of musical art. Even as we broaden our analytical range to embrace a multiplicity of popular and global musical styles, we should also strive to keep this great tradition alive’ (p. xii). Whereas one might take issue with the phrase ‘a pinnacle of musical art’ (depending on how one reads into the indefinite article), it certainly makes sense that the repertoire drawn upon by Wen in these books is indeed from the ‘Austro-German Classical tradition’, since this was the repertoire that Schenker's theory was designed primarily to engage (even if it does repeat the status quo). I would like to thank Chris Stover, the Critical Forum editor at Music Analysis, for helping me think through these difficult yet important issues. As a contrast to this, one should acknowledge Wen's prolific work as an editor of violin music, in which a far greater variety of Classical and Romantic composers is on offer. See e.g. Wen, Masterpieces for Violin, 30 World Renowned Works; Solos for Violin; Hebrew Melodies for Violin and Piano and The Spanish Album for Violin and Piano (all published by Carl Fischer). A well-seasoned music analyst, teacher and musician, Wen has dedicated his professional life to the education of aspiring professional musicians, as well as to the promotion of Western classical music as an editor and recording engineer. The fruits of Wen's lifelong labour as a teacher are clearly on display in these books. Whereas SS investigates seven ‘masterworks’ of music in exquisite detail, GMA offers hundreds of graphic examples from the Western musical canon of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, almost all of which are approached with the utmost musical sensitivity and analytical precision. And while his examples are drawn largely from such canonical composers as Beethoven, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Johannes Brahms and other typical Austro-German Meister (excepting a few examples by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky, Camille Saint-Saëns and Antonín Dvořák, among others, and even with a brief nod to the composer of the Star Wars soundtrack), Wen makes use of the full spectrum of instrumental genres: solo, chamber and orchestral music (vocal music, unfortunately, receives relatively little attention). I will deal with each book in turn, with occasional discussion of a musical example, an approach from another Schenkerian textbook author or a particular influence on Wen's work. At first glance, GMA seems to follow traditional Schenkerian methodology. It is a textbook intended for upper-division undergraduate or master's students and includes a vast range of online supplements: a student workbook, an instructor's manual, a lengthy commentary on Schenker's analysis of J. S. Bach's C major Prelude from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier (Schenker [1932] 1969),33 Space does not permit a discussion of Wen's commentary on the C major Prelude analysis in Schenker's Five Graphic Analyses (30 pages in length). But anyone who takes the trouble to study it will be rewarded by the meticulousness of its explanation, as well as by the thought-provoking way it deals with the issue of hypermetre and Schenker's rationale behind the analysis of bars 20–24 (among other passages). a compilation of online scores and links to open-access YouTube channels with performances of most of the examples. The specific topics Wen introduces, though ordered in his own way and with varying degrees of emphasis, can be found in most any standard Schenkerian textbook. While other recent textbook authors, such as David Damschroder, have developed new terminology to highlight some of the more energetic aspects of Schenkerian analysis (‘chordal evolution’, ‘dominant emulation’, ‘surge’ and even ‘supersurge’; see Damschroder 2016), Wen has largely maintained classical Schenkerian terminology. In fact, terminology is not much of a factor at all for Wen; although important concepts and terms are certainly introduced over the course of the text, Wen's focus lies above all on explaining the chosen music at hand. But that is not to say that Wen's approach is not structured or thorough. On the contrary, one quickly sees just how systematic Wen is, whether analysing just a few bars of music or an entire movement. And, despite what I wrote above about Wen's ‘surface’ approach to establishing the Schenkerian mindset, most of Wen's analyses after the first chapter of GMA (‘Highlighting Notes and Making Connections Between Them’) are in fact driven more by a desire to demonstrate how a simple, diatonic harmonic-contrapuntal model can undergird a variety of rich compositional surfaces. In most of Wen's examples, it is only after establishing a model and elaborating it through various ‘stages’ that Wen will arrive at the foreground to show the reader how all of the details hold together and become audible. The way Wen presents a model is different from that of most Schenkerian textbook authors. While simple contrapuntal models will be used on occasion in other textbooks, more often than not such models are intended to show the mechanics of Schenkerian graphing technique, disconnected from any specific piece of music: an Ursatz model, a middleground prolongational technique, a graphic symbol, and so forth.44 This approach is most evident in Damschroder (2016) but can also be found in Cadwallader and Gagné's textbook (especially in later editions, cf. 2011) and in Pankhurst's (2008) textbook. Wen's models, on the other hand, are always coupled with a specific passage of music. In addition, they do not depend on Schenkerian graphing technique per se, at least not at the outset – they are more directly based on species counterpoint or simple diatonic harmonic progressions. That is, Wen's models emanate less from Ursatz-like prototypes and more from simple progressions in strenger Satz. This consistent model-to-music approach may lead some to find Wen's method somewhat dry, seeing that he often follows the same formula for writing about the stages of his many models: ‘Level a shows x; level b demonstrates y; level c then does z; etc.’ But a careful and conscientious reader (who is advised to sit at the piano and play through Wen's analyses while comparing them with the compositional result) will soon discover a deep musicality to Wen's observations. In each case, Wen carefully accompanies the reader from the abstract model to the musical surface, and through this process the piece slowly begins to emerge in his graphs. When he finally reveals his foreground graph (almost always the end result of each analysis), the relationship between the model and the actual sounding music is made abundantly clear. It is as if the student has been taken in circular fashion back into the initial mindset of the book, that of foreground audibility. Even if the reader disagrees with an interpretation (which for me was not often) or sees another option, one can still clearly follow how Wen came to his conclusions. In this regard Wen's attention to both graphic and musical detail is laudable. Wen's model-based approach to graphic analysis is intimately connected to his overarching concern for counterpoint. Most Schenkerian textbooks will give a primer of some sort on species counterpoint. Allen Cadwallader and David Gagné's Analysis of Tonal Music, for instance, dedicates an entire chapter to melody and counterpoint and provides a brief analysis of Mozart's ‘Ah, vous dirai-je maman’ by way of demonstration (Cadwallader and Gagné 2011, pp. 34–8).55 Cadwallader and Gagné's discussion of counterpoint is in many ways a compressed version of Salzer and Schachter's approach (1969). Taking its cue from Cadwallader and Gagné, Tom Pankhurst's SchenkerGuide similarly gives due attention to the five species and how they can be extracted from a musical score (Pankhurst 2008, pp. 6–9 and 17–21). Allen Forte and Steven Gilbert's Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis not only offers a discussion of the five species but also provides numerous historical examples as a way of showing the fundamental pedagogical importance of species counterpoint in understanding Schenkerian analysis (Forte and Gilbert 1982, pp. 41–9). Digging deeper into the history of Schenkerian pedagogy, Felix Salzer's Structural Hearing and Salzer and Carl Schachter's Counterpoint in Composition both give extensive treatment to species counterpoint (Salzer 1952, pp. 52–86; and Salzer and Schachter 1969, pp. 3–113 and 329–93). All of this is grounded, of course, in Schenker's own obsession with species counterpoint (strenger Satz) and its compositional ramifications (freier Satz). One can hardly ignore it when introducing Schenkerian analysis. But in my opinion, the practical import of species counterpoint for the student learning the technique of graphing is often missing or passed over too quickly. Wen's book is different in this regard. Wen too includes but a short discussion of the fives species in his second chapter, ‘Figuration.’ The discussion itself is not all that remarkable. But a topic that comes across initially as a dry and almost obligatory preamble to understanding Schenkerian graphic analysis ends up being one of the most integral components to Wen's approach. In particular, Wen shows the relevance of the so-called combined species like no other textbook author before him, not even Salzer and Schachter. This has to do with Wen's focus, mentioned above, on demonstrating how basic diatonic models can be shown as the basis for innumerable passages of tonal music, no matter how chromatic or richly orchestrated they may be. While such a model- and counterpoint-based approach can be found scattered through the Schenkerian literature, in no other work is it taken with such consistency and rigour. A couple of examples will further elucidate how Wen presents a potential analytical problem and how he solves it graphically. An obvious one concerns the avoidance of parallel perfect intervals at successive levels, a ‘problem’ Wen tackles head-on instead of concealing it within his graphs or glossing it over in a textual comment. As he explains on numerous occasions, progressing from IV to V or from I to II on any level of structure runs the risk of producing parallel perfect fifths, which are generally to be avoided. One of the most common ways of breaking up consecutive fifths is by implementing the so-called 5–6 succession, whereby the fifth above the bass is displaced by a sixth (see Fig. 1a).66 Wen introduces the 5–6 succession early on in GMA, devoting an entire chapter to the technique (Ch. 4). And he continually uses this technique throughout the book, perhaps more than any other single Schenkerian analytical technique. This has the additional effect of creating another chord between IV and V, typically a II6 (which, if chromaticised, could produce other kinds of surface chords). This 5–6 succession can, however, undergo additional transformation by means of a descending linear third in the upper voice, creating the contrapuntal succession ‘8–7–6’ over the IV–II progression. In making use of this transformation (or ‘prolongation’, one might better say) a dissonant passing note emerges between the ‘5-’ (as ‘8’) and ‘6-phase’ (to borrow Damschroder's [2016] terminology) of the IV and II chords (Fig. 1b). This offers the opportunity for yet another consonant chord to emerge in the texture – not a ‘harmonic’ chord, but rather a contrapuntal chord that gives ‘consonant support’ to the dissonant passing note (labelled ‘CS’ by Wen; see Fig. 1c).77 Note that Wen's ‘CS’ (consonant support) chord should not be confused with Salzer's ‘CS’ (contrapuntal-structural) chord, as presented in Salzer (1952). Nor should it be conflated with another common use of the abbreviation, for ‘consonant skip’. A simple example of this can be seen in Wen's analysis of the opening eighteen bars from the Trio of Mozart's G minor Symphony, third movement (see Fig. 2 [Wen's Ex. 24.37]). Already at a fairly advanced stage (most of Wen's graphs begin at an even more rudimentary stage, such as in Fig. 1), this example provides a good illustration of how Wen deals with a modulation from I to V in a major key. The opening tonic chord, G major, is transformed analytically into IV (as a pivot chord) in order to account conceptually for the modulation to D major. Level (a) shows how Wen reads the modulation on an abstract level: IV (supported by G in the bass) is expanded to II6 by means of an 8–7–6 contrapuntal progression (G–F♯–E), whereby the dissonant 7 is given consonant support with a B minor chord (labeled CS). Level (b) then shows how the music around the CS chord is expanded by means of passing sonorities moving both towards and away from it. And at level (c) a chromatic A♯ is added to the bass line while the upper parts are reconfigured to bring the graph closer into alignment with the music's surface. But even at this stage (level c) the analysis seems fairly abstract. The more ‘literal’ interpretation of the music is found in Wen's foreground graph of the passage, which is the outcome of this model (see Fig. 3 [Wen's Ex. 24.38]). Here we see (and hear, I think) the full scope of Wen's understanding of the contrapuntal progression and the expansion of the IV–II6 progression by means of a CS chord. A more challenging example of this technique and approach can be found in an analysis of the opening phrase (bars 5–15) from the third movement of Brahms's Horn Trio in E♭ major, Op. 40 (Fig. 4). Cast in what Wen refers to as a ‘sequential’ period, the music first articulates an antecedent phrase (bars 5–10) which progresses from an E♭ minor tonic triad via IV6 (A♭) to a half cadence on the dominant, B♭ (Fig. 5 [Wen's Ex. 22.20]). Wen then explains how this B♭ chord is transformed by means of a surface chromatic 5–6 succession at bar 10 to G♭ major using another intervening A♭6 chord and a chromatic passing note (Fig. 6 [Wen's Ex. 22.23]). He then, however, questions the status of this G♭ chord at bars 10–11, which opens the consequent phrase and repeats the antecedent a minor third higher, after which the music turns abruptly back to E♭ minor via a ♭II chord (F♭) and a cadential 6 4 ${{6}\atop{4}}$ progression. Given both the placement and the aural salience of this G♭ chord, most students would understand the large-scale harmonic progression of the entire period as an extended I–III–V–I progression, such as is shown in Fig. 7 (shown with two levels of harmonic analysis).88 Note that at level 2, the boldface Roman numerals represent the essential harmonic progressions, while the arrows indicate the directional relation of the chords to one another. Naturally, such a harmonic understanding would have direct consequences for interpreting the deeper voice-leading patterns of the passage. But despite its aural salience and placement at the start of the consequent, G♭ major does not participate in Wen's reading of the large-scale harmonic motion. As Fig. 8 (Wen's Ex. 22.24) shows, Wen interprets an even deeper 5–6 succession emanating from I between bars 5 and 13, again transformed as an 8–7–6 descending passing motion, whereby the G♭ chord of bar 11 takes on the supporting contrapuntal role for the passing ‘7’. The result of Wen's reading can then be found in his final foreground graph of the passage (Fig. 9 [Wen's Ex. 22.27]). While the 8–7–6 motion expanding the opening I (with contrapuntally supporting III) can be seen in the harmonic analysis below the staff, the graph reveals other insights of note. Firstly, the ‘IV6’ chords of bars 7 (A♭) and 13 (C♭) in E♭ minor and G♭ major, respectively, are interpreted differently in the context of the entire phrase: the former (A♭) as a local ‘intermediate’ harmony ultimately progressing to the dividing dominant at bar 9, the latter (C♭) as a deeper transformation of the opening tonic (and hence completing the 5–6 succession, elaborated by 8–7–6 in the upper voice). Secondly, and as a result of the deeper 5–6 succession, the voice-leading structure of bars 5–15 is interpreted as a single, uninterrupted span cutting across the antecedent-consequent phrase division. Not only the III but also the dividing dominant at bar 9 (articulated by a Phrygian half cadence) has to take a structural back seat to the overarching tonic sonority. For Wen, the structural dénouement of the phrase begins to unfold only at bar 14, at the surprise arrival of the ♭II chord. In Wen's added hermeneutic, this arrival signals a return to the ‘dark’ reality of E♭ minor and the ‘overall feeling of loss and grief in this movement’ (GMA, p. 248). This ‘dark’ ♭II, offered in root position, supports 4 ̂ ${\hat{4}}$ in the upper voice, which Wen takes as a substitute for ♭ 2 ̂ ${\hat{2}}$ . Some might view this kind of a substitution as less desirable, viewing the leading note ( 7 ̂ $\hat{7}$ ) in bar 15 as the more normative substitution for 2 ̂ ${\hat{2}}$ , with 4 ̂ ${\hat{4}}$ acting as an incomplete neighbour to G♭; alternately, one might pull out F♭ from the descending arpeggiation in bar 14 and argue for a literal Phrygian 2 ̂ ${\hat{2}}$ in the voice-leading structure, which is restored to F♮ in bar 15. But it is to Wen's credit that he acknowledges the melodic A♭ in bar 14 as an important juncture in the upper voice's linear progression, even if it means sacrificing the literal fluidity of the upper-voice span. Wen concludes from all this that ‘[w]hile it's useful to partition the separate phrases in a piece of music, its overall tonal structure often goes beyond the formal divisions at the surface’ (GMA, p. 249). We will return to the form-structure dichotomy below. It is because of his species counterpoint–driven approach, I believe, that Wen has opted for a fairly simple graphing style. His graphs typically employ only those symbols that are necessary in each situation: stemmed and unstemmed note heads, solid and dotted slurs and standard Roman numerals. Other, more specialised symbols such as flagged notes, unfolding beams, inner-voice stems, motivic brackets, and so forth are certainly used and discussed, but much less frequently. Even the ubiquitous beams used to indicate directed linear progressions are reserved for showing only the most fundamental line and bass progression of a particular graph, forming the Ursatz of the passage. By ‘Ursatz’ Wen refers to any tonally closed passage of music, whether it be three bars in length or three hundred; while it can certainly be inferred by the reader, there is, strictly speaking, no genuine Ursatz presented in the entire book, not even in the chapter that bears its name.99 See Ch. 7 of GMA, as well as the Epilogue to SS. Again, terminology and symbology are not Wen's focus; musical repertoire and musical insight are. Buttressing these insights are simple, often-repeated observations having to do with finding a key-defining interval, identifying chord tones versus non-chord tones, avoiding parallel fifths and octaves, and understanding the underlying diatonicism of a passage, no matter how chromatic its surface. Anyone looking for quick insight into Wen's incredible sensitivity to music emanating from such simple observations can read through his analysis of the opening four bars of Bach's Prelude in B minor from Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier (GMA, pp. 167–71), or his chapter devoted to the introduction to Mozart's ‘Dissonance’ Quartet (Ch. 6). So repertoire-driven is the book that sometimes one loses track of the specific topic of a chapter in the midst of studying his analyses. The same sort of methodological yet musically sensitive explanation is to be found in the online instructor's manual to GMA. The instructor's manual is actually more of an answer key to the exercises in the workbook, which typically offers two to three supplementary excerpts with musical features or ‘problems’ similar to those discussed in the chapter in question. Somewhat less attractive for this reviewer, however, is Wen's ‘template’ approach to the workbook exercises (an example of which is reproduced in Fig. 10). For each exercise, a template is offered in which the passage's main melodic and bass notes are presented as black note heads. Following Wen's instructions, the student is to determine which notes should be stemmed and which not, which notes ought to be slurred together, which Roman numerals and scale degrees are to be employed and whether other Schenkerian graphic symbols are called for. The student also has to make more difficult interpretative decisions about which notes represent essential outer voices and which ones inner, what other notes could be added to the template to fill out the texture or express a substitution or implied note and what the exact ‘span’ of an essential harmony is (one of the most fundamental and most challenging aspects of learning graphic analysis). In attempting a number of Wen's exercises using the note-head templates, I often found myself led astray by the almost sudoku-like puzzle presented to me. In a certain sense, it seemed as if the foreground approach presented at the outset of the textbook became the modus operandi for the entire workbook, despite the shift to a model-to-foreground approach after the opening chapter. In my opinion, the temptation for students to just start graphing before they truly understand the underlying voice leading of the music is too great, and a beginner can all too easily be led astray by the allure of stemming and slurring based purely on aurally salient surface features and/or what appeals to the eye, without taking into account the more fundamental contrapuntal or voice-leading principles at play, or without hearing the (dare I say) deeper Schenkerian interpretation of the music. To me, a more desirable approach would have been for Wen to take the same tack in the workbook as he does throughout most of his textbook: to teach the student how to think in terms of the specific model on which the music is based, or even offer them a model at the outset of an exercise. Once that model is firmly ingrained, the exercise can show the student how to elaborate it through successive stages, and only as a final step encourage them to fill out the foreground (at which point a template can come into play, although it may not even be necessary). To be fair, Wen gives a number of tips to this effect in his extensive textual explanations, but in my experience the graphic musical notation has a far more powerful effect on the student's interpretation and thinking about the analysis. I imagine that Wen, like most Schenkerian pedagogues, would concur. In fact, when I tried to analyse an example from the workbook using Wen's general methodology in the textbook, without using his given template, I arrived at a result much closer to his own in the instructor's manual (despite minor variations in graphing style and use of symbols). There is scarcely a Schenkerian textbook that does not grapple with the way form and voice-leading structure relate to each other. Most often, discussions of form are offered as a final step, after all of the specific prolongational techniques have been taught, in applying Schenkerian graphic analysis to tonal music. And more often than not, the formal categories presented are of the most rudimentary nature: ‘one-part’, ‘two-part’ and ‘three-part’ forms. In some texts sonata form will also be included, and in even fewer will other forms such as rondo and variation be addressed. All of this is in keeping, of course, with Schenker's fundamental conceit that so-called traditional forms are emergent from deeper (i.e. middleground) voice-leading patterns, and that ultimately the latter determine the former, not the reverse. Wen's approach to form, while not fundamentally breaking with this core conceit, is, like the rest of his book, driven less by concept and more by repertoire. The relation between tonal structure and form is presented in three simple, overarching topics: the ‘Parallel Period (or AA′ form)’, ‘ABA(′) form’ and ‘Sonata Form’. Crucial to any treatment of form from a Schenkerian standpoint is the notion of interruption, in which a linear progression from (primarily) Kopfton 3 ̂ ${\hat{3}}$ or 5 ̂ ${\hat{5}}$ is cut off at 2 ̂ ${\hat{2}}$ before restarting at the initial Kopfton and fulfilling its stepwise descent to 1 ̂ ${\hat{1}}$ . As any teacher would insist, the interruption at 2 ̂ ${\hat{2}}$ is accompanied by a dividing dominant in the bass. At the phrase level, this moment of interruption is sonically highlighted by a half cadence, and at larger formal dimensions the interruption can take place at other moments where the dominant prevails (a modulation to V, a retransitional dominant
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