Dahlhaus and the origins of harmonic tonality.

Abstract

Untersuchungen über die Entsebung der harmonischen tonalität (Studies on the origin of
harmonic tonality), Carl Dahlhaus’ Habilitation dissertation at the Kiel University,
consists in a comparative study of modality and tonality as compositional systems. the
present article aims at stressing some fundamental ideas of this controversed work. On
the basis of theoretical treatises and of analyses, Dahlhaus purports to demonstrate that
the first manifestations of tonality are to be found in the xvii
th century. before this time,
he notes the existences of precursory signs of tonality, among others in the writing of
cadences, but these phenomena do not yet result from a truly tonal conception of music.