Under the Sign of Tonality: Arnold Whittall explores a new music–theoretical approach to understanding the ‘Ring’

You won’t find an entry for Hugo Riemann (1849–1919) in the Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia, but a single reference for him in the index directs you to a section of the ‘Music Theory’ article: this comments on the usefulness in recent times of ‘Neo- Riemannian’ harmonic analysis, specifically designed in the later 20th century to tease out consistencies and connections in the often determinedly undiatonic but not quite atonal harmony of composers like Wagner. As a theorist Riemann was more concerned with music like Beethoven’s that relished the full potential of tonality than with the seismic upheavals in contemporary music, especially after 1900, which saw diatonicism and even tonality itself under attack, especially from Schoenberg and his ‘school’ of pupils including Berg and Webern.