Sunday, November 16, 2025

Lehmann

See the previous post for information on this continuation of a historical survey of treatises and textbooks.

Friedrich Johann Lehmann, Harmonic Analysis (Oberlin, OH: A. G. Coming, 1910)

Lehmann's experience was quite common for an American musician in the latter half of the 19th century. He was born in Cleveland in 1866, enrolled in the Oberlin College Conservatory where he studied piano and voice, went to Leipzig for further studies that included theory under a pupil of Jadassohn, and then returned to Oberlin, where he taught for 30 years (1902-1932); he died in 1940. (Information from Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, 4th edition (1940), p. 647.)

Harmonic Analysis was published locally but achieved some circulation--this copy comes the library of the University of California. The volume's practical focus, inclusion of contemporary repertoire, and simple reduction techniques clearly show its author's connection to the Leipzig Conservatory tradition of Jadassohn and E. F. R. Richter. (A closely related method can be found in a book of the same title by Benjamin Cutter, who taught in the New England Conservatory.)

Basic instruction in harmony is assumed, and it is for that reason that Lehmann introduces the ninth chord very early.


Each lesson in the book is dominated by musical examples; text is adequate but minimal. Lehmann says the only ninth chord to be analyzed as an independent harmony is the dominant ninth; his examples include both the dominant major ninth and the dominant minor ninth. The latter is in examples from Schumann, Beethoven, and Brahms. The major ninth is in Korestchenko, op. 1n1 (internal resolution), Bargiel Nocturne (direct), and Czerny op. 335 (indirect). See these below.


Textbook survey continued

I began a survey of the dominant ninth chord in treatises and textbooks in 2019 with a post on a figured-bass manual by Simon Sechter (linkand another discussing the repertoire list for a score anthology (link). The work got underway seriously a couple months later, however, with a series of posts in August and September covering Catel through Schoenberg (link to the first post). After a considerable hiatus and following a library visit, I began again in May 2023 and discussed 12 books published in the United States from roughly 1930 to 1970 (link to the first post). 

Here I continue with six more books; these were picked up online through the Internet Archive or Google Books.

Friedrich Johann Lehmann, Harmonic Analysis (Oberlin, OH: A. G. Coming, 1910)

Charles L. Seeger, jr., and Edward G. Stricklen, Harmonic Structure and Elementary Composition (Berkeley, CA: [self-published], 1916)

Carl E. Gardner, Music Composition: A New Method of Harmony (New York, Carl Fischer, 1918)

  Arthur Olaf Anderson, The First Forty Lessons in Harmony (Boston: C. C. Birchard, 1923)

Harold B. Maryott, The Essentials of Harmony (Chicago: Gamble Hinged Music, 1923)

  Gustave Strube, The Theory and Use of Chords: A Text-Book of Harmony (Boston: Ditson, 1928)


As you can see, these revert to the first half of the 20th century. I am now planning another library visit that will focus on post-1970, and I hope to report on those documents in due time. Bringing the work into the present will be more difficult: changes in pedagogical priorities and the now-abundant online resources will pose a challenge, but I hope to draw the thread of dominant-ninth pedagogy forward nevertheless.