Hugo Riemann

Hugo Riemann (1849–1919) was a German musicologist and theorist whose influential writings shaped the study of harmony, musical form, and music history.

Harmony: The study and practice of combining pitches into chords and chord progressions. Riemann’s harmonic theories explain how chords relate and function within tonal music.
Riemannian theory: A theory of tonal harmony that interprets chords through their functions and relationships to a tonic. This is the broad theoretical framework associated with Riemann’s harmonic writings.
Berlin University: A German university founded in Berlin in 1810, later named Humboldt University of Berlin. Riemann studied at Berlin University before pursuing musicological work.
Hugo Riemann’s Musik-Lexikon: A music reference work first published by Hugo Riemann in 1882 and repeatedly revised. Its long publication history made Riemann’s name familiar beyond specialist theory.
Stufentheorie: A theory of harmony that identifies chords by their scale degrees within a key. It contrasts with Riemann’s emphasis on a chord’s function rather than its scale-degree root.
Musical form: The organization of musical ideas into larger structures, such as a sonata or rondo. Riemann wrote influential analyses and accounts of how musical forms are organized.
Tonic-dominant relationship: The tonal relation between a home chord and the chord that creates tension and tends to resolve to it. Riemann’s functional account treats dominant harmony as directed toward the tonic.
Leipzig University: A public research university in Leipzig, founded in 1409. Riemann taught at Leipzig, where his scholarship gained institutional reach.
Riemannian function theory: A modern analytical approach that applies Riemann’s functional concepts to tonal music. This approach carries his core harmonic vocabulary into contemporary analysis.
Hugo Riemann’s harmonic dualism: Riemann’s account of major and minor as opposing, symmetrical harmonic systems. This distinctive claim drew debate and separates his theory from one-sided models of major harmony.

Linked from 2 pages