Dr. Timothy Jackson

Jackson worked with Schenker's theories for 23 years and is trying to revise Schenker's music.

"Schenker's work is the study of musical structure -- the language of music," he said.

"It is the study of how musical works live."

Jackson said Schenker had tremendous influence on 20th century music and it continues to inspire composers into the 21st century.

"[Composer Gyorgy] Ligeti once told me Schenker was a god to him," Jackson said. "Ligeti doesn't believe in god, but he said god does a lot of things."

Dr. Thomas Clark, associate dean of the college of music, said he has worked with Jackson on Schenker's theories.

"Schenker's influence has been as great as Freud's influence in another field," he said.

"It has affected the way musicians have to think about [musical] structure and form."

One of Schenker's musical theories is based on a "big picture" approach to composition. Schenker simply doesn't want the first measure to flow with the second measure; Schenker wants the first measure to correlate to the 60th measure, he said.

Following Schenker's death in 1935, the Nazi occupation of his homeland of Austria threatened his life works.

Thanks to the efforts of his wife, Jeanette, the majority of his analytical works was given to former students Felix Salzer and Ernest Oster who immigrated to the United States.

A great portion of these papers was presumed lost.

In 1995, Jackson retrieved these "lost" papers in Germany from Kurt Oppel who is the son of Reinhard Oppel, a close friend and associate of Schenker.

Oppel will join Jackson for his lecture.

"In 1999, Kurt entrusted his father's legacy to the NT Library as the Reinhard Oppel Memorial Collection," Jackson said.

"The Collection includes not only analytical material, but many other things including 'hidden music' by Oppel and other members of Schenker's circle. To illustrate this part of my lecture, I shall ask colleagues from the College of Music to present the world premiere of a short piece from the Collection."

Clark said it is important for interested students to attend.

"I think it will be an interesting study for music students as well as the whole campus to see how great ideas are shaped by the interactions of people," he said.

Jackson, an assistant professor of music theory, joined the faculty in the fall of 1998.

He helped found the new Center for Schenkerian Studies at the College of Music and is currently working on books about the early history of the Schenkerian movement.

Reprinted from the NT Daily with permission