Schenkerian analysis Schenkerian analysis is a method of musical analysis, analyzing tonal music based on the theories of Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935). The goal is to demonstrate the organic coherence of the work by showing how the "foreground" (all notes in the sco ...

, a structural level is a representation of a piece of music at a different level of abstraction, with levels typically including foreground, middleground, and background. According to Schenker musical form is "an energy transformation, as a transformation of the forces that flow from background to foreground through the levels." For example, while details such as melodic notes exist at the lowest structural levels, the foreground, in the background the

fundamental structure In Schenkerian analysis#Ursatz, Schenkerian analysis, the fundamental structure () describes the structure of a tonal music, tonal work as it occurs at the most remote (or "Background (Schenker), background") structural level, level and in the mo ...

is the most basic structural level of all

tonal music Tonality is the arrangement of pitches and / or chords of a musical work in a hierarchy of perceived ''relations'', ''stabilities'', ''attractions'', and ''directionality''. In this hierarchy, the single pitch or the root of a triad with t ...

, representing the digression from and necessary return to the tonic that motivates

musical form In music, ''form'' refers to the structure of a musical composition or musical improvisation, performance. In his book, ''Worlds of Music'', Jeff Todd Titon suggests that a number of organizational elements may determine the formal structure of a ...

. It may be conceived of in a specific piece as the opening in the tonic and the return to the tonic with a

perfect authentic cadence In Western musical theory, a cadence () is the end of a phrase in which the melody or harmony creates a sense of full or partial resolution, especially in music of the 16th century onwards.Don Michael Randel (1999). ''The Harvard Concise Dict ...

(V-I) after the

development Development or developing may refer to: Arts *Development (music), the process by which thematic material is reshaped * Photographic development *Filmmaking, development phase, including finance and budgeting * Development hell, when a proje ...

of sonata allegro form. Strata is the translation given by John Rothgeb for ''Schichten'' ("Levels") as described by Oswald Jonas in his ''Introduction to the Theory of Heinrich Schenker''. This translation did not gain wide acceptance in modern Schenkerian literature and the translation of ''Schichten'' as "levels" usually has been preferred. "Structural level" may not exactly correspond to Schenker's own concept. Schenker thought that the levels were levels of elaboration of the piece of music, so that the first level was not the background itself (the starting point), but its first elaboration at the early middleground. He called levels "the voice-leading and transformation levels, prolongations, elaborations, and similar means." The image hereby shows Schenker's earliest presentation of levels in a figure, his analysis of J.S. Bach's Little Prelude in D minor, BWV 926, in ''Der Tonwille'' 5 (1923), p. 8. Schenker writes: The expression "structural level" (completing ''Schicht'', "level," by "structural") may have been created by Felix Salzer in ''Structural Hearing''.F. Salzer, ''Structural Hearing'', Boni, 1952, pp. 119, 121, 122, 125, 155, 205 and 264. Salzer apparently never uses "level" alone to mean ''Schicht''.

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{{Schenkerian analysis Schenkerian analysis

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