[1] His approach, now termed Schenkerian analysis, was most fully explained in a three-volume series, Neue musikalische Theorien und Phantasien (New Musical Theories and Phantasies), which included Harmony (1906), Counterpoint (1910; 1922), and Free Composition (1935).

Despite his law degree, he focused primarily on a musical career following graduation, finding minimal success as a composer, conductor, and accompanist.

His theories proposed the presence of fundamental structures (Ursatz) occurring in the background (Hintergrund) of compositions, which he illustrated with a variety of new specialized terms and notational methods.

"[14] Schenker's negative feelings toward Bruckner are revealed in a quote in his Harmony (1906, written nearly twenty years after instruction), in which he stated that "If the teacher is unable to explain his own propositions ..., the student ... may be content not to understand the proffered doctrine ...

"[15] A footnote adds "My teacher, a composer of high renown [Bruckner, obviously], used to say on such occasions: Segn's, mein' Herrn, dass ist die Regl, i schreib' natirli not a so.

His first major opportunity came with Maximilian Harden, editor of Die Zukunft [The Future] who published his earliest writings.

[23] By 1900, Schenker was actively trying to promote his musical compositions as evidenced by correspondence with Ignaz Brüll, Karl Goldmark, Eugen d'Albert and Ferruccio Busoni.

[25] With letters from d'Albert, Brüll, Busoni, and Detlev von Liliencron, Schenker felt confident in promoting his compositions.

3, in a collection sponsored by the Wiener Singakademie attests to a friendship between composer and the organization's conductor, Carl Lafite.

[32] Though impressed by certain passages, the eventual publisher, Cotta, initially rejected Schenker's manuscript but changed its mind after intervention from D'Albert.

Schenker hoped his monograph on Beethoven's 9th Symphony (published in 1912) would have a revelatory effect, but believed that the book's reception would be clouded by musicians' faulty understanding, due to poor theoretical instruction.

109 (at that time belonging to the Wittgenstein family), Schenker mentioned in a letter to his friend Theodor von Frimmel how his Urtext work was inspired by Ernst Rudorff and Joseph Joachim.

[37] Federhofer credits Schenker with initiating the modern Urtext movement of examining multiple authentic sources to arrive at a reading.

[39] Beginning with the publication of Der Tonwille in 1921, a Latin motto appears on all of Schenker published works: Semper idem sed non eodem modo ("always the same, but not always in the same way").

William Pastille proposed that this is based on a line in Augustine of Hippo's Confessions, Book 8, chapter 3: nam tu semper idem, quia ea quae non-semper nec eodem modo sunt eodem modo semper nosti omnia ("For you [are] always the same thing, because you know in the same way all those things that are not the same nor in the same way").

[40] Based on conversation with an unnamed Latin scholar, William Helmcke added that it could also be based on a passage from Irenaeus's Adversus Haereses (Against Heresies): sine initio et sine fine, vere et semper idem et eodem modo se habens solus est Deus ("Without beginning and without end, only God continues truly and always the same and in the same way").

[42] Over time, Schenker's attitude toward Hertzka and Universal Edition increased from disagreement to hostility, charging the firm with not doing enough to promote his work and accused them of not paying him the proper amount.

[44] In 1931, Hans Weisse left for New York City, where he and subsequently fellow protégé Felix Salzer established Schenkerian analysis as a core curriculum and practice at the Mannes School of Music.

In addition, there were Sophie Deutsch, Angi Elias, Wilhelm Furtwängler, an industrialist named Khuner, and Anthony van Hoboken.

Deutsch, who died in a sanatarium in 1917, left an inheritance that enabled Schenker to publish the second volume of his counterpoint book (1922) and named him to a society of destitute artists.

[47] Not only was Hoboken instrumental in setting up the Photogrammarchivs von Meisterhandschriften in the Austrian National Library, but he was responsible for paying for the publication of volume 2 of Das Meisterwerk and Free Composition.

[49]In 1908, Schenker had hoped for an appointment at the Akademie für Musik und darstellende Kunst (today the University of Music and Performing Arts, Vienna).

Though he could be unsparing in his criticism, the goal of his teaching was on the acquisition of a comprehensive musical education intertwined with the art of performance, as they were dependent on each other.

[54] On a medical examination of 4 January 1935, he received an unfavorable report, noting symptoms including the swelling of his feet and extreme thirst.

[2][3] Ewell wrote that Schenker believed Black people were incapable of self-governance, and that he opposed racial intermarriage on grounds of "mongrelization".

[62] Ewell further considered that Schenker's views on these issues were "whitewashed" by academic music theorists of the late twentieth century.

[64] Ewell's publication has also been criticized by linguist and instructor of music history at Columbia University John McWhorter, who in Substack said that while "[Schenker] was a genius – and also an open racist who wrote extensively of his sentiments thereabout in uncompromising language."

"[65] Kofi Agawu, Professor at the City University of New York, also wrote: if one argues that the hierarchic thinking that lies at the core of Schenkerian theory is white and racist, what is one to make of the fact that in West Africa, too, modes of hierarchic thinking are pronounced and functionally indispensable to an understanding of many an expressive structure, musical as well as non-musical?

The worst consequence of claiming technical procedures for whiteness is denying the existence of shared ways of proceeding, and in effect enjoining our hypothetical West African theorist to go look for something different, a new grounding principle, better if it is anchored in nonhierarchy, something uniquely his own, something 'black.'

[67] More than 500 pages of manuscript compositions are preserved in the Oswald Jonas Collection and some unpublished choral works in the National Library in Vienna.