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Explorations in Schenkerian Analysis. Edited by David Beach and Su Yin Mak. (Eastman Studies in Music.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2016. [xii; 358 p. ISBN 9781580465595 (hardback), $135; ISBN 9781782048633 (e-book), $135.] Music examples, tables, index.
My first exposure to the person and work of Edward Laufer was probably not much different from many other budding Schenkerians. I was attending the Fourth International Schenker Symposium at the Mannes School of Music in 2006. There were several familiar scholars presenting, with a constant stream of new insights. But during nearly every pause between papers and during the breaks between the early sessions on that first day, I repeatedly heard other attendees speaking a name unknown to me. This man was to deliver a paper with a rather unassuming title: "On Chopin's Ballades (Opp. 23, 47, 52)." As I eavesdropped, the question "I wonder what the handout will look like" became a constant refrain. My curiosity piqued, I sat in anticipation as the elderly man rose to the stage and the handout was distributed. It was immense and tangled, full of ideas but, at the time for me, nearly impossible to parse. (The published version of these graphs [in the chapter "On Chopin's Fourth Ballade," in Keys to the Drama: Nine Perspectives on Sonata Form, ed. Gordon Sly (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2009), 157-75] hardly do the originals justice insofar as part of the impact of that handout derived from the sheer onslaught of information.) His scattered presentation touched on hidden motivic connections that he tapped out on the piano, but referred to only a mere fraction of the graphic analyses on his handout. I will admit I was utterly bemused.
Over the course of the following weeks, months, and years, I found myself returning to that handout, working my way through its insights and learning to appreciate its author's perspicacity and the clarity of the graphing technique-finally apparent to me once I had become adept at seeing it in the right way. My improved understanding of the graphs led to hearing Chopin in new and compelling ways. It was through the careful perusal of that handout that I came to be enamored with the possibilities that Schenkerian analysis seemed to offer.
Laufer passed away in...