Product Description
Schoenberg and Words disentangles significant aspects of the composer's complex relationship to fin-de-siecle modernism, especially in its Viennese variety. The eleven new essays examine the texts and contexts of works Schoenberg composed from the mid-1890s through 1916 and his writings on theoretical, aesthetic, and ethical issues. ... Read more

Product Description
Along with such Viennese contemporaries as Freud, Loos, Mach, Wittgenstein and Kokoshka, Arnold Schoenberg is one of the supremely compelling figures of history. Most commonly known as the originator of the compositional technique of ultimate chromaticism - the method of composing with 12 tones - he left an imposing body of prose in support of his conclusion that tonality is an expendable musical property, and that music's evolutionary path through Franz Liszt and Richard Wagner had unerringly and inevitably led to the "emancipation of dissonance". This text examines the composer's explanations of musical structure and finds them driven by self-serving interpretations of 19th century ideas, from Nietzche's notion of the artist's cosmic supremacy to Darwin's explanation of biological evolution. This examination further reveals that Schoenberg's perspective was rooted in a severely limited musical repertory (essentially Germanic), virtual ignorance of crucial theoretical abstractions (such as modal theories) and an over-optimistic conception of the integrative powers of human perception. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

weak
basically what you have is a political spinner descending into music criticism.

Outstanding Work
In this treatise, William Thomson has systematically and successfully deconstructed the atonal/serialist theories of Schoenberg, Webern and Babbitt.He reveals them for what they are: subversive, unnatural academic experiments dealing with the interrelationship between music, mathematics and nihilism.Through a complex theoretical analysis, Thomson affirms what many Twentieth Century composers (such as Sibelius, Bartok,Shostakovich, Vaughan Williams and Adams) argued either through their work, through words or both - namely, that the language of tonality is the natural language of music and is essentially an outgrowth of very deeply entrenched human impulses.In creating works which defy natural imperatives and uphold inhuman precepts, the serialist composers managed to stimulate academic interest and controversy, but their work will almost certainly not be recognized in future as the greatest or most meaningful contribution to Twentieth Century music.

A weak attempt at critique...
This book attempts to determine the areas in which Schoenberg 'erred' in the creation of his twelve-tone idea.This book deals less with solid theory but more with the ideals of aesthetics, perception, philosophy, andbasically many unfounded claims.This book assaults Schoenberg's musicalachievments, with very little assesment of his value at all.It seems thatthis book is has is seeking to dismantle the strong history of modernmusic, by claiming that one of it's father's was in error. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One of the Best Schoenberg Books...

Amid the grotesque dearth of good books on Schoenberg, this is one of the best. ... Read more

Product Description
The first full-length study dedicated to Schoenberg's life and music in the United States, Schoenberg's New World dispels many myths and fills significant gaps in the existing literature on Schoenberg. Drawing on much new information, the book traces early Schoenberg pioneers in America, who set the stage for Schoenberg's arrival in 1933. The volume addresses in detail how Schoenberg while coming to terms with his German and Jewish identities, thoroughly adapted to American society both privately and professionally. New light is cast on Schoenberg's relations with Americans, his interest in American culture, and changes in his religious and political thinking and lifestyle. As Schoenberg was committed to the advancement of American music and composed music inspired by and composed for American musicians, his American works are examined anew with regard to their contexts and the history of their performance and publication. Schoenberg's many interactions with performers and publishers in the United States are explored as well. Illustrating how Schoenberg adjusted to the American educational system, the book delves into Schoenberg's American teaching career, teaching methods and materials and features some of the many remarkable students he taught in Boston and Los Angeles. Finally the impact of Schoenberg's music and ideas on American performers, composers and scholars after World War II is gauged in the light of major political and cultural changes during the Cold War era. Schoenberg's New World contributes to a new understanding of one of the most important pioneers of musical modernism and most polarizing figures in twentieth-century music. ... Read more