Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground

This free course, Voice-leading analysis of music 2: the middleground, continues our examination of ‘voice-leading’ or ‘Schenkerian’ analysis, perhaps the most widely used and discussed method of analysing tonal music. In this course, this method is explained through the analysis of piano sonatas by Mozart. The course is the second in the AA314 series of three courses on this form of harmonic analysis, and concentrates on the ‘middleground level’ of voice leading. As you work through this course, you will become familiar with the deeper levels of harmony in Mozart’s piano sonatas.

Course learning outcomes

After studying this course, you should be able to:

Understand more deeply the complete movements from Mozart’s sonatas, studied both here and in the course ‘Voice-leading analysis of music 1: the foreground’

Recognise extracts from other Mozart piano sonatas

Recognise typical techniques used by Mozart to organise the harmony of complete short sections within musical works

Understand the use of symbols in voice-leading graphs of the middleground of harmonic structure

Relate this sort of graph to the score of the music it analyses.