Editing Prolongation

{{Short description|Process in tonal music}}
{{Other uses|Prolongation (disambiguation)}}

In [[music theory]], '''prolongation''' is the process in [[tonality|tonal music]] through which a [[pitch (music)|pitch]], [[interval (music)|interval]], or [[triad (music)|consonant triad]] is considered to govern spans of music when not physically sounding. It is a central principle in the [[musical analysis|music-analytic]] methodology of [[Schenkerian analysis]], conceived by Austrian theorist [[Heinrich Schenker]].<ref>"It is one of the most valuable services of Schenkerian theory to have revealed for the first time the unity of composing-out and the prolonged application and validity of the laws of voice leading."  [[Oswald Jonas]], ''Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker'', trans. John Rothgeb (New York: Longman, 1982), p. 54. 2nd English edition (Ann Arbor: Musicalia Press, 2005), p. 59.</ref> The English term usually translates Schenker's ''Auskomponierung'' (better translated as "composing out" or "elaboration"). According to [[Fred Lerdahl]], "The term 'prolongation' [...] usually means ''''composing out''''<!--emphasis added--> (Schenker's own intention for the term<!--prolongation--> is open to debate)."<ref>Lerdahl, Fred (2001). ''Tonal Pitch Space'', p.15. Oxford. {{ISBN|0-19-517829-7}}.</ref>

Prolongation can be thought of as a way of generating musical content through the linear elaboration of simple and basic tonal structures with progressively increasing detail and sophistication,<ref name="Drabkin">William Drabkin. "Prolongation." Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 2 Aug. 2011 <http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/grove/music/22408>.</ref> and thus analysis consists of a reduction from detail to structure. Important to the operation of prolongation is the [[hierarchy|hierarchical]] differentiation of pitches within a passage of tonal music. Typically, the [[Musical note|note]] or [[harmony]] of highest hierarchical significance is the [[tonic (music)|tonic]], and this is said to be "prolonged" across durations of music that may feature many other different harmonies. (However, in principle any other type of [[consonance and dissonance|consonant]] [[chord (music)|chord]], pitch, or [[diatonic function|harmonic function]] can be prolonged within tonal music.) "In chord prolongation, one chord governs a prolongation of various chords; these different chords are subordinated to that one chord which they help to express and prolong."<ref>Salzer, Felix (1962). ''Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music'', p.111. {{ISBN|0-486-22275-6}}.</ref> 

A pitch is located in a pitch class, a pitch class is located within a chord, a chord is located in a key region, a key is located in pitch space including the circle of fifths and their relative minors. A rhythmic event is located within the meter which is located within the form. Thus "'''reductions'''" are often made at different levels excluding the prolongational from the structural events; these may express the relationships through time-reductions or prologational reductions (which may be ''[[fundamental structure|Urlinie]]n'' or tree diagrams).

==Prolongation in Schenkerian theory==
The early 20th-century music theorist Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935) was responsible for developing both the conceptual framework for prolongation and a means of analyzing music in terms of prolonged musical structures (called ''Schenkerian analysis'').

Schenker’s own usage of the term differs from the modern one.<ref>See N. Meeùs (2021), [https://revistas.udesc.br/index.php/orfeu/article/view/20054/13597 Prolongation], ''Orfeu'' 6/3, pp. 109-124.</ref> The German word ''Prolongation'' is not common, and Schenker first used it in a very specific meaning (maybe originating in legal, possibly Viennese vocabulary), referring to the extension of the primal laws (''Urgesetze'') or of the primal concepts (''Urbegriffe'') of strict composition in free composition<ref>For instance when he explained that the task of the study of counterpoint is to reveal how its fundamental laws can be extended to apply to free composition: "But to reveal the basic form together with its variants, and [thereby] to uncover only prolongations of a fundamental law even where apparent contradictions hold sway – this alone is the task of counterpoint!" ''Kontrapunkt'' I (1910), p. 315; English translation (1987), p. 241. This is the usage to which Oswald Jonas refers in the quotation from note 1 above. See also J. Dubiel, "When You are a Beethoven: Kinds of Rules in Schenker's ''Counterpoint''", ''Journal of Music Theory'' 34/2 (1990), p. 293, and R. Snarrenberg, "The Art of Translating Schenker: A Commentary on 'The Masterwork in Music,' Vol. 1", ''Music Analysis'' 15/2-3 (1996), p. 324.</ref> and the phenomena resulting from the extension of these laws.<ref>Schenker claims among others that three-voice counterpoint is subject to the same laws as two-voice counterpoint, of which it represents a "Prolongation": "In three-voice settings, the [laws of] two-voice settings actually continue to apply; three-voice setting therefore represents merely a prolonged phenomenon". ''Kontrapunkt'' II (1922), p. 1; English translation (1987), p. 1.</ref>  He used the word mainly to denote the transformation of a given level of [[Voice leading|voice-leading]] to the next one, describing the passage from level to level as a ''Prolongation''. [[Adele T. Katz]] appears to be responsible for the shift of meaning where "prolongation" became the American translation of ''Auskomponierung''.<ref>Adele T. Katz (1935). "Heinrich Schenker's Method of Analysis", ''The Musical Quarterly'' 21/3, pp. 311-329. This conception of "prolongation" may have its origin in the teaching of Hans Weisse.</ref>

In his analysis of [[Johann Sebastian Bach|J.S. Bach]]'s ''[[Twelve Little Preludes|Little Prelude in D minor]]'', BWV 926, in ''Der Tonwille'' 5, Schenker proposes what may be his earliest figure showing the steps through which the ''[[Ursatz]]'' develops into the [[Structural level|foreground]]. He explains that this figure "shows the gradual growth of the voice-leading prolongations, all predetermined in the womb of the [[Urlinie]]".<ref>''Der Tonwille'' 5 (1923), p. 8, Fig. 1; English translation (2004), p. 180. Later in the same volume, p. 33 (transl., p. 202), Schenker describes a similar figure as showing "the succession of prolongations, that is, the layers of the voice-leading."</ref> The "gradual growth" illustrated is a global phenomenon, always concerning the piece as a whole. The figure is further commented upon on p.&nbsp;45 of the same volume. Schenker stresses that it starts with the two-voice setting of the ''Ursatz'' – an expression, therefore, of the fundamental laws of strict [[counterpoint]]. Each of the following steps is described as a ''Prolongation'', a specific freedom taken with respect to the laws expressed in the previous step. And in ''Freie Satz'', he confirms that the word still refers to the passing from one voice-leading level to another: "For the sake of continuity with my earlier theoretical and analytical works, I am retaining in this volume the words of Latin derivation ''Prolongation'' and ''Diminution'' as designations for the voice-leading levels in the middleground".<ref>''Der freie Satz'', 2d edition (1956), § 45, p. 57; English translation (1979), p. 25.</ref>

The concept of ''Prolongation'' is important for Schenker because he believes that showing how a masterpiece of free composition remains rooted in the laws of strict counterpoint explains its utter unity, its "synthesis".<ref>Deriding the lack of the "art of prolongation" in Bruckner, he writes "his ear could not hear the beginning and end of a motion as an entity. The two points remain without inner relationship to one another; and everything shoved and squeezed in between, though executed with so much art on an individual level, exhausts itself purely physically without any concern for connection." ''Der Tonwille'' 5, p. 46; English translation, p. 213.</ref> The means and techniques of passing from one level to the next are subsumed in Schenker's notion of "composing out" or "compositional elaboration" (''Auskomponierung'', a German neologism), which for him is a mechanism of elaborating pitch materials in musical time.<ref name="Drabkin"/> The means of elaboration are described below as "prolongational techniques", in conformity with the modern Schenkerian English usage, but should better be termed "elaborations".

The broadening of the meaning of "prolongation" has been described by [[Anthony Pople]]<ref>Anthony Pople, "Using Complex Set Theory for Tonal Analysis: An Introduction to the 'Tonalities' Project", ''Music Analysis'' 23/2-3 (2004), pp. 162-164. Pople describes "prolongation" as "a Humpty-Dumpty Word".</ref> in seven steps: (1) Schenker proposes it as an operational concept in his teaching; (2) [[Felix Salzer]],<ref>''Structural Hearing'', 1952/1962</ref> [[Allen Forte]]<ref>1959: "Schenker's Conception of Musical Structure", ''Journal of Music Theory'' 3/1, 1959.</ref> and others, disseminate and clarify it; (3) it is used within attempted formalisations of Schenkerian analysis;<ref>e.g. Forte and Gilbert, ''Introduction to Schenkerian Analysis'', 1982.</ref> (4) new theories evoking Schenker<ref>e.g. Lerdahl & Jackendoff, ''A Generative Theory of Tonal Music'', 1983.</ref> make use of it; (5) it is used within theories amplifying Schenker's own;<ref>Neumeyer 1987, Beach 1988, 1990</ref> (6) definitions are proposed in theories beyond the Schenkerian canon;<ref>Morgan, 1976.</ref> and (7) definitions of the term are proposed in relation to [[Atonality|atonal]] music.<ref>Straus, 1987, 1997.</ref> The replacement of Schenker's own term ''Auskomponierung'' by "prolongation" appeared in step (2), as an English translation. 

The English "prolongation" has been used in ''The Masterwork in Music'' to translate German words including ''Auskomponierung'', ''ausdrücken'' and ''Auswicklung''.<ref>Robert Snarrenberg, "The Art of Translating Schenker: A Commentary on 'The Masterwork in Music'", ''Music Analysis'' 15/2-3 (1996), p. 325.</ref> In ''Free Composition'', "prolongation" is more than once used to translate ''Auskomponierung'' and "prolonged" for ''auskomponiert''. Oster otherwise translates ''Auskomponierung'' as "composing out" and others use "compositional elaboration" or, short, "elaboration."<ref>Nicolas Meeùs, "''Formenlehre'' in ''Der freie Satz'': A Transformational Theory", ''Rivista di Analisi e Teoria Musicale'' XXI/2 (2015), p. 105, note 12.</ref> Drabkin quotes as "methods of prolongation" techniques that include ''Anstieg'', ''Ausfaltung'', ''Koppelung'', ''Tieferlegung'', ''Übergreifen'' and ''Untergreifen'',<ref>William Drabkin, "Prolongation," in I. Bent and W. Drabkin, ''Analysis'', The New Grove Handbooks in Music, London, Macmillan, 1987, p. 128.</ref> which Schenker would rather have described as techniques of ''Auskomponierung''.

==Prolongational techniques==

[[File:Auskomponierung arpeggiation.png|thumb|150px|[[Arpeggio|Arpeggiation]], the first technique of composing-out.<ref>Jonas (1982), p.37.</ref> {{audio|Auskomponierung arpeggiation.mid|Play}}]]
[[Image:Ursatz 321IVI revised.png|thumb|right|150px|[[Urlinie]]: {{music|scale|3}}–{{music|scale|2}}–{{music|scale|1}} over I–[[dominant (music)|V]]–I {{audio|Ursatz.mid|Play}}. [[Linear progression]]s prolong harmonies through elaboration.<ref>Pankhurst, Tom (2008). ''Schenker Guide: A Brief Handbook and Website for Schenkerian Analysis'', p. 28. {{ISBN|0-415-97398-8}}.</ref>]]
[[File:Bass prolongation.png|thumb|120px|'''Bass prolongation''': I–IV–V–I {{audio|Progression en cercle I IV V I.ogg|Play}} as elaboration of I–V–I {{audio|Progression en cercle I-V-I.ogg|Play}}.<ref>Pankhurst (2008), p. 51.</ref>]]
[[File:Bach Sinfonia 15, BWV 801 prolongation of arpeggio, measures 3-4.png|thumb|150px|Fleshing out the structural tonic arpeggio as prolongation of that chord in Bach's Sinfonia 15, [[Inventions and Sinfonias (Bach)|BWV 801]], mm. 3-4<ref name="Practice">Forte, Allen (1979). Tonal Harmony in Concept and Practice, p.426. Holt, Rinehart, and Winston. {{ISBN|0-03-020756-8}}.</ref> {{audio|Bach Sinfonia 15, BWV 801 prolongation of arpeggio, measures 3-4.wav|play}}]]
[[File:Chopin Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48-1 prolongation of arpeggio, measures 1-4.png|thumb|150px|...and on a larger scale in Chopin's Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48-1, mm. 1-4<ref name="Practice"/> {{audio|Chopin Nocturne in C minor, Op. 48-1 prolongation of arpeggio, measures 1-4.mid|Play}}]]

In Schenkerian analysis, the analyst discerns ways in which prolongation creates the details of a musical composition by elaborating the background structure. Most of these methods involve contrapuntal processes, to such a degree that Schenkerian theory is a theory that almost completely synthesizes harmony and linear counterpoint in the service of the more global phenomenon of tonal prolongation. [[Schenkerian analysis#Techniques of prolongation|Prolongational techniques]] include [[Schenkerian analysis#Arpeggiation.2C neighbour note.2C passing note|arpeggiations]], [[linear progression]]s, [[Schenkerian analysis#Unfolding|unfoldings]], etc., in general aiming at the ''horizontalization'', "the elaboration in time of a governing vertical sonority – a chord or an interval. [...] When an interval is horizontalized, its tones unfold against a background determined in the vertical dimension by the governing sonority of which it is part."<ref>Salzer, Felix and Carl Schachter (1989). ''Counterpoint in Composition'', p. 144. {{ISBN|0-231-07039-X}}.</ref>

==Conditions for prolongation==

Schenker intended his theory to apply only to music of the [[common practice period]], and there to a select class of mostly Austro-German composers in a line from [[J.S. Bach]] to [[Johannes Brahms]].{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} Developments in more recent music theory have sought to clarify the conditions under which prolongation may obtain, so that other repertoires may either be opened up or more justifiably be precluded. Schenker pupil Felix Salzer, for example, detects the rudiments of prolongational horizontalization in music as early as 12th-century plainchant and argues that it is a musical principle that persists through [[Post tonal|post-tonal]] music as well, such as [[Paul Hindemith]] and [[Igor Stravinsky]].<ref>Salzer, Felix (1962). Structural Hearing: Tonal Coherence in Music, p. 267. {{ISBN|0-486-22275-6}}.</ref> Music theorist Robert Morgan has argued that a central tenet of Schenkerian thought—that only consonant triads are capable of prolongation—needlessly excludes a class of [[Consonance and dissonance|dissonant]] sonorities, such as diminished sevenths or a more arbitrarily defined set of pitches; Morgan claims that, starting in the 19th century, composers such as [[Franz Liszt|Liszt]], [[Richard Wagner|Wagner]], and [[Alexander Scriabin|Scriabin]], began "composing out" these dissonant configurations as rigorous a manner as is usually ascribed to the triadic prolongation of tonal composers.<ref>Morgan, Robert (1976). "Dissonant Prolongation: Theoretical and Compositional Precedents" in ''Journal of Music Theory'' 20/1, 49–91.</ref>

[[Atonal music]] poses a stark challenge to prolongational hearing and analysis, as its harmonic makeup by definition eschews the long-range controlling force of [[monotonality]], and in most cases purposely abstains from consonant triads, or indeed referential or centric sonorities at all.{{Citation needed|date=August 2011}} Music theorist Joseph Straus has attempted to define more rigorously what it is about atonality that precludes prolongational hearing. His own definition of prolongation is "the sense of continuation of a musical object, particularly when not literally present ... prolongation is a cognitive act of the listener".<ref>Maisel, Arthur, "Voice leading as drama in ''Wozzeck''," C. Schachter and H. Siegel, eds. (2006). ''Schenker Studies 2'' (pp. 160-186), p.178. {{ISBN|0-521-02832-9}}.</ref> He formulated four conditions for the possibility of Schenkerian prolongation in any musical style (1987)<ref>Straus, Joseph N. (1987). "The Problem of Prolongation in Post-Tonal Music", ''Journal of Music Theory'' 31, p. 1-21. cited in Lerdahl (1989).</ref> These are:

#Consistent distinction between [[consonance and dissonance]].
#A scale of stability among consonant harmonies [see [[diatonic function]]].
#Ways in which less structural pitches embellish more structural pitches.
#A clear relationship between harmony and [[voice-leading]].

Straus concludes that such conditions do not exist in atonal music and therefore that "atonal prolongation" is impossible; although he is open to the possibility that prolongation is a possibility in other [[Post-tonal music theory|post-tonal]] music (he gives the example of music composed with the [[octatonic scale]]), he argues that in practice most post-tonal music does not display this. Instead, he suggests that in post-tonal music, including atonal music, a model of 'association' is more defensible than strict prolongation. However, Lerdahl argues that Straus' argument is based on circular criteria.<ref>Lerdahl, Fred (1989). "Atonal Prolongational Structure", p.67, ''Music and the Cognitive Sciences''. McAdams, Stephen and Irene Deliege, eds. {{ISBN|3-7186-4953-5}}.</ref> Lerdahl's own formulation of prolongation is more amenable to atonal structures. For example, in [[atonality|atonal music]], strong prolongation may be distinguished from progression, [[repetition (music)|repetition]] of an event versus movement to a different event, while weak prolongation, repetition of an event in altered form, may not easily be distinguished due to the lack of a referential triad ([[klang (music)|klang]]).<ref>Lerdahl (1989), p.74.</ref> [[Miguel Roig-Francolí]] has proposed a related theory of 'Pitch-Class-Set Extension', in which contiguous harmonic units are linked through common-tone or chromatic connection and successive harmonies are understood to 'extend' earlier ones.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Roig-Francolí |first=Miguel |date=2001 |title=A Theory of Pitch-Class-Set Extension in Atonal Music |url=https://symposium.music.org/index.php/41/item/2179-a-theory-of-pitch-class-set-extension-in-atonal-music |journal=College Music Symposium |volume=41 |pages=57–90}}</ref>

==Sources==
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{{Schenkerian analysis}}

[[Category:Post-tonal music theory]]
[[Category:Schenkerian analysis]]