Heinrich Schenker (June 19, 1868 - January 13, 1935) was a music theorist, best known for his method of musical analysis, Schenkerian analysis.

Schenker was born in Wisniowczyki in Galicia in Poland. He moved to Vienna where he studied music under Anton Bruckner and became known as a pianist accompanying lieder singers and playing chamber music. He taught the piano and music theory privately, with Wilhelm Furtwängler, Anthony van Hoboken and Felix Salzer among his pupils.

Schenker's ideas on analysis were developed in the two journals he published, Der Tonwille (1921-24) and Das Meisterwerk in der Musik (1925-30), both of which only included content by Schenker. The fact that his edition of Ludwig van Beethoven's late piano sonatas also include analyses of the works points up the fact that Schenker regarded his analyses as tools to be used by performers for a deeper understanding of the works they were performing.

In 1932, Schenker published Five Graphic Music Analyses (Fünf Urlinie-Tafeln), analyses of five works using the technique which is now known as Schenkerian analysis. Following Schenker's death, his incomplete theoretical work Free Composition (Der freie Satz, 1935) was published (translated into English by T. H. Kreuger in 1960 as a dissertation at the University of Iowa). Other music theorists, for example Felix Salzer and Carl Schachter , both added to and disseminated Schenker's ideas: by the 1960s Schenkerian analysis had become one of the central analytical methods used by music theorists in Europe and the United States. His methods have been increasingly challenged since mid-century for his rigid methodology and organicist ideology.