Schoenberg, Arnold Books

Arnold Schoenberg

Charles Rosen

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Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

In this lucid, revealing book, award-winning pianist and scholar Charles Rosen sheds light on the elusive music of Arnold Schoenberg and his challenge to conventional musical forms. Rosen argues that Schoenberg's music, with its atonality and dissonance, possesses a rare balance of form and emotion, making it, according to Rosen, "the most expressive music ever written." Concise and accessible, this book will appeal to fans, non-fans, and scholars of Schoenberg, and to those who have yet to be introduced to the works of one of the greatest composers of the twentieth century.

"Arnold Schoenberg is one of the most brilliant monographs ever to be published on any composer, let alone the most difficult master of the present age. . . . Indispensable to anyone seeking to understand the crucial musical ideas of the first three decades."—Robert Craft, New York Review of Books

"What Mr. Rosen does far better than one could reasonably expect in so concise a book is not only elucidate Schoenberg's composing techniques and artistic philosophy but to place them in history."—Donal Henahan, New York Times Book Review

"For the novice and the knowledgeable, Mr. Rosen's book is very important reading, either as an introduction to the master or as a stimulus to rethinking our opinions of him. Mr. Rosen's accomplishment is enviable."—Joel Sachs, Musical Quarterly

Arnold Schoenberg's Journey

Allen Shawn

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Total reviews: 5 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Editorial Review:

A composer's study and celebration of a difficult but influential artist, his work, and his time

Proposing that Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) has been more discussed than heard, more tolerated than loved, composer Allen Shawn puts aside ultimate judgments about Schoenberg's place in musical history to explore the composer's fascinating world in a series of "linked essays--soundings" that are more searching than analytical, more suggestive than definitive. In an approach that is unusual for a book of an avowedly introductory character, the text plunges into the details of some of Schoenberg works, while at the same time providing a broad overview of his involvements in music, painting and the history through which he lived. Emphasizing music as an expressive art of rhythms and tones, Shawn approaches Schoenberg primarily from the listener's point of view, uncovering both the seeds of his radicalism in his early music and the traditional bases of his later work. Although liberally sprinkled with musical examples, the text can be read without them. By turns witty, personal, opinionated and instructive, "Arnold Schoenberg's Journey" is above all an appreciation of a great musical and artistic imagination in a time unlike any other.

Schoenberg (Master Musicians Series)

Malcolm MacDonald

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Editorial Review:

In this completely rewritten and updated edition of his long-indispensable study, Malcolm MacDonald takes advantage of 30 years of recent scholarship, new biographical information, and deeper understanding of Schoenberg's aims and significance to produce a superb guide to Schoenberg's life and work. MacDonald demonstrates the indissoluble links among Schoenberg's musical language (particularly the enigmatic and influential twelve-tone method), his personal character, and his creative ideas, as well as the deep connection between his genius as a teacher and as a revolutionary composer.
Exploring newly considered influences on the composer's early life, MacDonald offers a fresh perspective on Schoenberg's creative process and the emotional content of his music. For example, as a previously unsuspected source of childhood trauma, the author points to the Vienna Ringtheater disaster of 1881, in which hundreds of people were burned to death, including Schoenberg's uncle and aunt-whose orphaned children were then adopted by Schoenberg's parents. MacDonald brings such experiences to bear on the music itself, examining virtually every work in the oeuvre to demonstrate its vitality and many-sidedness. A chronology of Schoenberg's life, a work-list, an updated bibliography, and a greatly expanded list of personal allusions and references round out the study, and enhance this new edition.

Music Theory And Analysis in the Writings of Arnold Schoenberg (1874–1951)

Norton Dudeque

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Editorial Review:

Arnold Schoenberg's theory of music has been much discussed but his approach to music theory needs a new historical and theoretical assessment in order to provide a clearer understanding of his contributions to music theory and analysis. Norton Dudeque's achievement in this book involves the synthesis of Schoenberg's theoretical ideas from the whole of the composer's working life, including material only published well after his death. The book discusses Schoenberg's rejection of his German music theory heritage and past approaches to music-theory pedagogy, the need for looking at musical structures differently and to avoid aesthetic and stylistic issues. Dudeque provides a unique understanding of the systematization of Schoenberg's tonal-harmonic theory, thematic/motivic-development theory and the links with contemporary and past music theories. The book is complemented by a special section that explores the practical application of the theoretical material already discussed. The focus of this section is on Schoenberg's analytical practice, and the author's response to it. Norton Dudeque therefore provides a comprehensive understanding of Schoenberg's thinking on tonal harmony, motive and form that has hitherto not been attempted.

Schoenberg and His World

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Editorial Review:

As the twentieth century draws to a close, Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951) is being acknowledged as one of its most significant and multifaceted composers. Schoenberg and His World explores the richness of his genius through commentary and documents.

Marilyn McCoy opens the volume with a concise chronology, based on the latest scholarship, of Schoenberg's life and works. Essays by Joseph Auner, Leon Botstein, Reinhold Brinkmann, J. Peter Burkholder, Severine Neff, and Rudolf Stephan examine aspects of his creative output, theoretical writings, relation to earlier music, and the socio-cultural contexts in which he worked.

The documentary portions of Schoenberg and His World capture Schoenberg at critical periods of his career: during the first decades of the century, primarily in his native Vienna; from 1926 to 1933, in Berlin; and from 1933 on, in the U.S. Included here is the first complete translation into English of the remarkable Festschrift prepared for the 38-year-old Schoenberg by his pupils in 1912; it presciently explored the diverse talents as a composer, teacher, painter, and theorist for which he was later to be recognized. The Berlin years, when he held one of the most prestigious teaching positions in Europe, are represented by interviews with him and articles about his public lectures.

The final portion of the volume, devoted to the theme Schoenberg and America, focuses on how the composer viewed--and was viewed by--the country where he spent his final eighteen years. Sabine Feisst brings together and comments upon sources which, contrary to much received opinion, attest to both the considerable impact that Schoenberg had upon his newly adopted land and his own deep involvement in its musical life.

Letters

Arnold Schoenberg

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Schoenberg and the New Music: Essays by Carl Dahlhaus

Carl Dahlhaus

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Total reviews: 1 Average rating: 5.0 of 5

Essential reading for those with an interest in the 20th century avant garde 5 out of 5 stars.
1 of 1 people found this review helpful.

My familiarity with Dahlhaus primarily comes from reading his "Esthetics of Music," a book I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in the philosophy of music. I was hoping for more of the same, this time dealing with my favorite musical era - the so-called "new music" of Schoenberg and the second Viennese school.

The essays are not limited to Schoenberg, but cover Webern, Berg, and some larger and more theoretical issues. Some sections are straightforward theoretical analysis, while others feel something like a response to Adorno's "Philosophy of New Music," not in the sense of a counterpoint or a confirmation, but as a different angle. Where Adorno's book is polemical, Dahlhaus seems to be much less confrontational. He isn't saddled with the responsibility of defending the music and can thus spend his time examining it historically and theoretically. Dahlhaus does not feel the need to defend its existence as Adorno did years earlier.

The translation is quite readable. Derrick Puffett and Alfred Clayton successfully translate Dahlhaus's dense prose into decent English that is elegant, but never flashy or overly obscure as one sometimes finds with translations of German.

I'm not exactly sure why the book is so expensive. In early 2008, the price has held steady for well over a year at $43. It's not inordinately thick or anything. Cambridge U.P. paperbacks aren't usually this pricey. It may pertain to the most recent reprint occurring back in 1990. Regardless, the price should not dissuade you from picking it up - the essays within are worth it, provided you're interested in 20th century Western art music. The range of topics and the variety of approaches (historical, theoretical, philosophical) make this a excellent text on a very interesting period in Western music. I highly recommend "Schoenberg and the New Music".

Editorial Review:

This collection of essays examines the works of composer Arnold Schoenberg, one of the most influential and controversial composers of the twentieth century, in the context of the "New Music" that was the historical and cultural movement of his time. In these essays, Schoenberg's work is subjected to historical, technical and theoretical analysis. Studies of other "New Music" composers such as Webern, Schreker and Scriabin are also provided. The collection includes essays of broader cultural-historical and sociological import that should interest those involved with twentieth-century music and theory.

Arnold Schoenberg / Wassily Kandinsky: Letters, Pictures and Documents

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Philosophy of Modern Music (Philosophy of Modern Music Ppr)

Theodor W. Adorno

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Total reviews: 2 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Still a nourishing display of conceptual power. 5 out of 5 stars.
13 of 18 people found this review helpful.

Although out-of-print this is an event in the history of music comparable to primary musical works.It had to be Theodor Adorno a consummate intellect that created a new mode of contemplating contemporary art, music simply being the realm he knew more intimately,literature a close second. His prolific student from the late Fifties, Jurgen Habermas once said of Adorno, that he created theory spontaneously, simply within the course of a discussion, adept at synthesizing his thoughts as he spoke. But Adorno's importance for contemporary expression was assured,in that Adorno brought the complexity of philosophic,social and political thought to music. Something hardly done prior, and is only now within the past ten years beginning to be realized. See numerous studies on Adorno and his approach to speaking about music. To read the "Philosophy of Modern Music" is to understand Adorno's departures for his thought is the most exposed. Written in short cursive, aphorisitic-like paragraphs, almost approaching a sketch of a thought is to reveal a complexity, but one which engages his subject. The two polar opposites here are composers, Arnold Schoenberg(representing the progressive elements in music), and Igor Stravinsky(representing the backward-looking retrogressive elements). Adorno had considered the private artist working in seclusion as the highest form of rebellion, of subversion, for Adorno had contempt for the marketplace and how that magnetized and transformed art. Something of the market, in the late Forties was prevalent in jazz and film. Had Adorno lived into the age of computers and simulation,he would have seen to full extent how his thought has been realized in ever purified forms. Adorno thought Schoenberg's discovery of the 12-Tone dodecaphonic compositional method as a sign of progress. 12-Tone in a profound way was a synthesis, a conduit of the theoretical advancements of the history of music.It was both a beginning and an endpoint. But Schoenberg's method, althought quite new and unfinished allowed for all the parameters of music to be defined and developed, "Total Organization of the Elements of Music" is one paragraph here or section, "Differetiation and Coarseness" yet another referring to thinking about sound, as a sculptor would of his/her materials, shapting them, giving them form and direction. Stravinsky contrarywise indulged in looking backward, at the folksongs of his native Russia for music materials to be manipulated and the projection of sound without its deep attenuation. A view that is subjective now in retrospect,for Stravinsky was a grand orchestrator and a craftsman. But in Stravinsky, in particular his early period of the marvelously powerful ballet music, sound is pulverized,and is forced into suppressed forms,usually ashifting alternating suite of pieces,refocusing our short attention spans as required and, all in the projection of an image, a screeen for which the ballet takes place. But Adorno had takened issue with Stravinsky's subject matter as well as his technical means, a puppet in "Petrouska" one given over to a master without hope nor recourse.Likewise the "Rite of Spring" a virgin is simply sacrificed without recourse and we have the human image portraying the inevitability of natural forces, something Europe was about to experience first hand with the rise of fascism. These sections here are "Depersonalization" and "Fetishism of Means", explains Stravinsky's creativity stepping backwards within himself. In "Modes of Listening" Adorno refers to the "Shock" value that pummels the listener and the degradation of hearing into a music you merely submit to, whereas in Schoenberg there is more a sense of give and take,of the music allowing contemplative time. Again to my mind this is all relative, for these festures I find in both composers oeuvre. Still I find a conceptual power in Adorno,one that still nourishes today in the mileau of after-postmodernity.

Schoenberg: Pierrot Lunaire (Cambridge Music Handbooks)

Jonathan Dunsby

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Mandatory for Schoenbergians 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 5 people found this review helpful.

As many who admire a lot of so-called "difficult" music know, the more you listen, the more you hear. If a work is really inspired and intelligently composed, any open-minded listener can come to appreciate it. After 90+ years, most who care about 20th century music would probably agree that PIERROT LUNAIRE has stood the test of time. It's mesmerizing, beautiful, frightening, all at the same time. Certainly it's challenging too, but what really good music is not?

Jonathan Dunsby had done a service to Schoenberg with this straightforward analysis of PIERROT. Plenty of background information is provided (although more on Albertine Zehme and the early performances of the piece would have been useful). Musical analysis is not forbiddingly technical. Anyone who can read music should be able to follow Dunsby's lead with a score. Those who don't read music should be able to hear what the author points out in precise prose.

It is important to cover as many aspects of PIERROT as possible: because the piece itself is brief and because Schoenberg carefully chose and set each poem. Dunsby treats each melodrama as a separate entity, but he also relates each one to the whole. It is also commendable that he discusses much of PIERROT in terms of melody. The composer was in the process of inventing a new kind of melody and he started an exploratory process that still continues today. Over and over again, Dunsby points out the kaleidoscopic melodic and instrumental variety of this fascinating musical landmark. PIERROT is not an important "museum piece", but an engaging masterpiece that lives on in performance today.

Editorial Review:

Pierrot lunaire (1912) is one of the most important music theater works ever written. This is the first guide in English to a work that continues to be performed, broadcast, and recorded worldwide. The book describes the artistic environment around the turn of the century from which Pierrot emerged, and discusses Schoenberg's working methods and intentions in composition. In a clear and imaginative description of the work itself, the author takes each of the twenty-one melodramas in turn, considering both the music and the narrative. The text of all twenty-one poems is provided in German and in a new English translation by Andrew Porter.