Layer analysis : a primer of elementary tonal structures

With the increasing acceptance (one might even venture "popularity") of the work of Heinrich Schenker, and the recognition of the relevance of various aspects of a Schenkerian (or Schenker-derived) view of tonal music to a wide range of musical activities, both "theooretical" and "practical", a clear need has arisen for introductory texts incorporating his ideas. The timely appearance of Gerald Warfield's Layer Analysis is, therefore, worthy of note. It is beyond the purview of this review to undertake an extensive comparison of the Warfield with the few other texts on the market which acknowledge a Schenkerian influence (e.g., Salzer's Structural Hearing, or the harmony texts of Forte and, more recently, Aldwell and Schachter) though such an undertaking would be worthwhile.* I intend, rather, to examine the Warfield book largely on its own terms, with some reference to the general topic of reductive analysis. Furthermore, it is fair, I believe, to criticize the book specifically as a representation of Schenkerian analysis proper, since even though Warfield is careful in many cases (certainly not all) to note where his method of analysis differs from Schenker's (even to the inclusion of an appendix entitled "Divergences with Schenker"), the book will be read, nevertheless, as a text in Schenkerian analysis. It, after all, is not being marketed as a text in Warfieldian analysis. At the outset, I must admit to being sympathetic to the difficulties of committing such a complex subject as reductive analysis to a pre-