A study of the innovative music of the twentieth-century composer, Arnold Schoenberg.

Portrays Schoenberg's atonal music as successions of motives and pitch-class sets that flesh out 'musical idea' and 'basic image' frameworks.

First Published in 2001. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Jack Boss presents detailed analyses of Arnold Schoenberg's twelve-tone pieces, bringing the composer's 'musical idea' - problem, elaboration, solution - to life.

Synthesises and refocuses the wealth of recent research into two of Arnold Schoenberg's major compositions from the years 1899-1909.

Musical Currents from the Left Coast, edited by Jack Boss and Bruce Quaglia, presents a timely snapshot of the analytical concerns and methodologies that have proliferated throughout the current moment in North American music theoretical circles. The repertoire spanned within this volume is extensive. It covers music from J.S. Bach through the late 19th Century and continues finally to the modernist, avant garde, and post-modernist repertoire of the past century. Previously neglected aspects of musical structure, such as rhythm and meter, are presented here on equal footing with the traditional preoccupations of harmony and thematic process. Meter in particular is treated in great depth here: it is explored from the perspectives of both listener and performer and treats repertoire as diverse as Bach, Chopin, traditional African music and the popular music throughout the world that has disseminated from that tradition. The music and ideas of composer Arnold Schoenberg are central to many of the essays presented here. Schoenberg’s oft remarked upon masterpiece, Klavierstuck, Op.11, No.1, forms the focus of an entire section of the book. Four notable Schoenberg scholars of the younger generation revisit this seminal work on the eve of its centenary in order to reflect not only upon the work itself, but also upon the prodigious discourse that has surrounded it since nearly the date of its composition. More broadly, Schoenberg’s compositional and analytical concerns resonate through many of the other essays presented here, too. His concepts of “The Musical Idea” and “Developing Variation” are treated extensively in relation to the music of Anton Webern and Johannes Brahms, respectively. Musical Currents from the Left Coast will be of great interest to any individuals and institutions with an investment in the contemporary discourse of music theory and will be of special interest to scholars beyond that field who are also engaged with the work of Arnold Schoenberg.

Schoenberg's Program Notes and Musical Analyses is a comprehensive study of the composer's writings about his own music. The texts include program notes, letters, sketch materials, pre-concert talks, public lectures, scholarly writings, newspaper articles, interviews, pedagogical materials, publicity fliers, radio broadcasts, and liner notes.

This book examines the origin, content, and development of the musical thought of Heinrich Schenker and Arnold Schoenberg. One of the premises is that Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s inner musical lives are inseparable from their inner spiritual lives. Curiously, Schenker and Schoenberg start out in much the same musical-spiritual place, yet musically they split while spiritually they grow closer. The reception of Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s work has sidestepped this paradox of commonality and conflict, instead choosing to universalize and amplify their conflict. Bringing to light a trove of unpublished material, Arndt argues that Schenker’s and Schoenberg’s conflict is a reflection of tensions within their musical and spiritual ideas. They share a particular conception of the tone as an ideal sound realized in the spiritual eye of the genius. The tensions inherent in this largely psychological and material notion of the tone and this largely metaphysical notion of the genius shape both their musical divergence on the logical (technical) level in theory and composition, including their advocacy of the Ursatz versus twelvetone composition, and their spiritual convergence, including their embrace of Judaism. These findings shed new light on the musical and philosophical worlds of Schenker and Schoenberg and on the profound artistic and spiritual questions with which they grapple.

Gift of Gail P. Runnfeldt.

Models for Beginners in Composition (1943) represents one of Arnold Schoenberg's earliest attempts to reach a broad American audience through his pedagogical ideas. In this newly revised edition, Gordon Root incorporates many of Schoenberg's corrections to the original manuscript. Significant commentary also traces Schoenberg's development of the two-measure phrase as the main component of his pedagogical method.