Sechter taught in the Vienna Conservatory during the first half of the century. He was a composer, organist, and teacher who published a three-volume theory/composition textbook near the end of his life. The first volume is on harmony; the others are on melody, rhythm/meter, and counterpoint. Robert Wason gives a nicely compact description of Sechter's treatment of the ninth chord:
Sechter introduces the ninth chord after the suspension (Grundsätze, pp. 30f), for it is always the result of the 9-8 suspension, not third stacking. No chords beyond the ninth are discussed in the Grundsätze, although Sechter has a habit of referring to the "suspensions of the eleventh and thirteenth." The 9-8 is shown resolving over a held bass on the dominant, as well as with change of bass to the tonic. "Concealment" of the fundamental enables Sechter to explain such apparent progressions as VII7-I, and delay of the resolution of the ninth beyond the change of bass is used to explain such apparent progressions as VII7-VI6. Sechter also introduces the ninth chord into the sequence. (1982, 78n16)Unlike most others we have encountered so far, Sechter does not attempt an acoustical explanation, whether by supposition or by stacking thirds, but he then effectively derives the independent ninth chord from suspensions (rather than separating the acoustical/stacked-third entity from suspensions, as other authors do). His first example shows the suspension, with preparation:
The next example leads to the independent ninth chord (that is, one that resolves directly) by means of a "delayed resolution" (verzögerte Auflösung). Like his contemporaries, he is obviously of two minds about this chord: "to the ninth, which is introduced here arbitrarily and really only delays the entrance of the octave, one can attribute an (admittedly inauthentic) independence, in that one calls
simultaneous sounding of root, third, fifth, seventh and ninth a ninth chord" (Wason 1982, 138; Sechter, vol. 1, p. 30; in Müller's translation, p. 59).
As do most other authors, he allows the other diatonic ninth chords in suspension figures and sequences:
Remarkably, he allows the dominant ninth to engage with the interpolated root needed to explain root progressions by second:
As demonstration that Sechter can be said to admit the dominant ninth chord as an independent harmony, even if "unofficially," the examples below show that it may be used to prepare a 6-5 (or 6-5/4-3) resolution. Note also that he explains the viiø7 chord in the now familiar way as the ninth chord without its root. "Verschweigung" is Wason's "concealment"; the word literally means "silencing."
Sechter's commingling of abstract fundamentals with passing-chord figures will have far-reaching consequences in Schenker (and will be roundly rejected by Schoenberg). In the second example below, we can see again the typical uncertainty about the status of the ninth chord--if it looks independent in the earlier examples, now it is the result of passing tones.
Sechter's student Anton Bruckner "promoted the conservative theories of his mentor despite his own compositional innovations. He did, however, introduce several new ideas into Sechterian theory, most notably his treatment of the ninth chord, which he considered a fundamental harmony rather than the result of a suspension" (Bernstein 2002, 791). This is hardly surprising for the later 19th century, but Bruckner apparently differed from Sechter not only in this, but from his mentor and almost other textbook writers in that he largely ignored suspension figures (Wason, 138-39). If Schenker saw something suggestive in the linearity promoted by Sechter's abstract fundamental basses, Schoenberg might well have seen in the intense vertical emphasis the path to his own denial of non-chord tones.
Wason summarizes the differences between Sechter and Bruckner on the ninth chord:
In Sechter's system the ninth is always the product of suspension, there are no inversions of the ninth chord, and scale-degree ninth chords can only occur in the sequence through delayed resolution of a suspension beyond the change of bass. Moreover, the dissonances of the eleventh and thirteenth do not form chords. In Bruckner's system, on the other hand, the ninth chord is a "fundamental harmony”; the eleventh and thirteenth are on some occasions the result of suspension, while on others they are part of a six- or seven-note chord on the dominant. (142-43)Reference:
- David W. Bernstein, "Nineteenth-century Harmonic Theory: The Austro-German Legacy," in The Cambridge History of Western Music Theory, ed. Thomas Christensen (2002), 778-811.
- Arnold Schoenberg, Harmonielehre (1912/1922). Source: Internet Archive; digital facsimile of a copy of unknown provenance.
- Simon Sechter, tr. C. C. Müller, The Correct Order of Fundamental Harmonies: A Treatise of Fundamental Basses, and their Inversions and Substitutes (1871). Source: Internet Archive; digital facsimile of a copy in the Brigham Young University Library.
- Simon Sechter, Die richtige Folge der Grundharmonien, oder vom Fundamentalbass und dessen Umkehrungen und Stellvertretern (1853). Source: Internet Archive; digital facsimile of a copy in the Wellesley College library.
- Simon Sechter, Die Grundsätze der musikalischen Komposition. Part 1: Die richtige Folge der Grundharmonien, oder vom Fundamentalbass und dessen Umkehrungen und Stellvertretern (1853). Part 2: (1854). Part 3: (1854). Source: Google Books; digital facsimile of a copy in the Harvard University library.
- Robert W. Wason, Viennese Harmonic Theory from Albrechtsberger to Schenker and Schoenberg (1985). Reprint edition, 1995. Edited version of "Fundamental Bass Theory in Nineteenth Century Vienna," PhD diss., Yale University, 1981. I am using this last as source.
