Music editing formed a key part of Schenker's programme to restore the values and practices of classical musical culture. Taking as its starting point Schenker's treatise on ornamentation (1903), this chapter pursues an extended comparison between his work and the contemporary Viennese debate about ornamentation in the visual arts and particularly architecture: the aim is to set Schenker's thought in its broad cultural context and to locate the tension between its modernist and conservative dimensions. A similar tension can be found in the architectural and critical practice of Adolf Loos,...

Music editing formed a key part of Schenker's programme to restore the values and practices of classical musical culture. Taking as its starting point Schenker's treatise on ornamentation (1903), this chapter pursues an extended comparison between his work and the contemporary Viennese debate about ornamentation in the visual arts and particularly architecture: the aim is to set Schenker's thought in its broad cultural context and to locate the tension between its modernist and conservative dimensions. A similar tension can be found in the architectural and critical practice of Adolf Loos, while key aspects of Schenker's thought resonate with the writing of the art historian Aloïs Riegl.