Schoenberg on Ornamentation and Structural Levels

Abstract

In his 1932 radio lecture on his Vier Lieder, op. 22, Arnold Schoenberg makes a claim about a particular pitch in Seraphita, the first song.' See example 1.2 Schoenberg calls the A4 in his example 23 an to the BI64 and B4 on either side of it. (The German original uses the adjective umschreibend.) This seemingly insignificant assertion elicits two questions whose answers are significant. First, does Schoenberg promote the idea of structural levels in atonal music here, despite passages in his other writings that seem to reject the notion of structural levels altogether? And if he does, what criteria does he suggest for determining which notes are structural and which ornamental? This article will attempt to answer both questions, interpreting Schoenberg's example 23 and other examples from the radio talk in the light of more recent literature that suggests criteria for distinguishing between structure and ornament in atonal music. In his article The Problem of Prolongation in Post-Tonal Music, Joseph Straus points out that two criteria used in tonal music to distinguish structural from ornamental pitches generally do not apply in atonal music: first, the support of structural pitches by consonant triads or intervals; second, the higher position of that support in a hierarchy of consonant harmonies.3 To explain why Schoenberg calls