About the analyses:

I grew up imagining that some analytical compendium of at least a few canonical compositions existed, but even Tovey’s ‘bar-to-bar’ analyses of Beethoven’s piano sonatas were lacklustre in detail compared to what it could be.

After many years of studying, I have developed my own analytical presentation style and methodology — based on a combination of Schenkerian and Formenlehre principles — that I hope will help students and likeminded individuals of all abilities to understand almost anything they could want to understand relating to the form, structure and harmonic language of a piece.

This ultimately allows me to present a hierarchical breakdown of musical structures nested within others, each with their own core harmonic identity, and decoration thereof. If Tovey’s analyses are ‘bar-to-bar’ (and they’re really ‘phrase-to-phrase’), the ones you’ll find here are ‘note-to-note’ in the truest sense.

As a side effect, the analyses can be used in many ways:

• as a practice tool for practicing those tricky passages homophonically or for memorisation;

• use it as a sketch to base improvisation upon;

• identify any particular chord and its surrounding harmonic context for any and every musical event;

• quickly and easily see how to replicate any musical event;

• learn how structural units (phrases etc.) are nested within others to generate the form of a piece, and learn what qualities each of these structural options has;

• learn to interpret and identify large-scale/important cadential moments;

• trace a particular chord to its source in the skeleton ‘background’ structure that underpins the whole piece;

• looking for composition inspiration or you like a certain passage and want to know what gives it that special flare;

• interpret how the reduced homophonic foreground is decorated with rhythm and texture to create the score.

I have aimed to make these analyses as detailed and thorough as possible to help answer any questions you might have when studying a piece. Whether it is for composition, learning to play, preparing for a performance, or understanding music theory and analysis to a greater depth, I hope that these analyses will be an excellent tool.