(Ger.: ‘pull’, ‘draught’, ‘stress’, ‘procession’, ‘progression’).
In Schenkerian analysis (see Analysis, §II, 4), a conjunct diatonic succession of notes, encompassing a certain interval, by which movement from one pitch, register or part to another is established; hence one of the chief methods of Prolongation of a basic musical structure. As a technical term, Zug is usually translated as ‘progression’ or, more precisely, as ‘linear progression’. In identifying these progressions in Schenkerian analyses, the interval forms part of the name, thus Terzzug, Quartzug, Quintzug, Sextzug, Septzug, Oktavzug (‘3rd-progression’, ‘4th-progression’, ‘5th-progression’ etc.).
At the most basic level of an analysis, the background Layer, the function of a Zug is to connect the fundamental upper voice (Urlinie) with an inner voice. In ex.1, for instance, the Terzzug d''–c''–b' delays the completion of the Urlinie movement to c''. Because this progression prolongs a note in the Urlinie itself, it is called a Terzzug erster Ordnung (‘3rd-progression of the highest order’).
At
subsequent structural levels, a linear progression tracks movement in one
direction between two voices; in some instances it may be extended to embrace a
third voice. In Schenker’s analysis of the first movement of Mozart’s G minor
Symphony, for instance, the initial Quartzug d''–a' in bars 3–10 is
extended downwards by a third, to f
'. This is explained in Das Meisterwerk in der
Musik, ii (1926), p.113 and fig.1c–d, and summarized in
Schenker’s Der freie Satz (1935), fig.89/3, on which ex.2 is based; the example also shows how the Quartzug
and the Terzzug combine to form a Sextzug.
Schenker occasionally used the term Zug with a secondary meaning of ‘trait’ or ‘feature’, on which he often punned. Thus Stimmführungszüge may be taken to mean the various linear progressions that make up a contrapuntal design or simply ‘the characteristics of the part-writing’.
WILLIAM DRABKIN