Should one fear Schekerian analysis?

Abstract

Schenkerian analysis is confronted in France today with attacks as virulent as and as
ill-informed as in the United States around 1945. The problem arises from the fact
that commentators know only Free Composition (L’Écriture libre), which gives
only a partial view of the theory. The paper shows, among others on the basis of
Schenker’s analyses of Bach’s Little Prelude BWV 924 and of Schumann’s
Träumerei, that the most dogmatic aspects, in particular the theory of the
fundamental structure and of its descending line, appear only quite late inSchenker’s writings. They appear there, in addition, as empiric results of numerous
analyses, not as axioms.