As a part of a broad research project that aims at elaborating a specific analytical methodology for the procedures of developing variation, the present study examines the possibility of, so to speak, hereditary (extraopus) transmission in the construction of the primordial idea (or Grundgestalt) of a musical piece. Thus, the analysis was focused on the first of the Four Songs op.2, by Alban Berg, of which the Grundgestalt is presented as a complex formed by several transformations of key-elements extracted from three pieces: Tristan and Isolde, by Richard Wagner, the First Chamber Symphony op.9, by Arnold Schoenberg, and the Piano Sonata op.1, by Berg.
Grundgestalt and developing variation; musical symbology; extraopus transmission
