Volume 22, Number 14 · September 18, 1975
Two Modern Masters
By Robert Craft
Style and Idea: Selected Writings of Arnold Schoenberg
edited by Leonard Stein, with translations by Leo Black
St. Martin's, 559 pp., $45.00
Arnold Schoenberg
by Charles Rosen
Viking (Modern Masters Series), 113 pp., $2.50 (paper)
The best of Arnold Schoenberg's occasional writings on music are as richly instructive as his theoretical and didactic ones. Like them, too, many of the essays depend on examples printed in music type, which sets Schoenberg apart from other composer-writers, such as Berlioz, whose many verbal talents the creator of Pierrot Lunaire lacks, or Schumann or Debussy, who are simply more enjoyable to read. But the substance of the musical journalism of these three is less profound than that of Style and Idea, and the rewards of Schoenberg's book warrant the greater effort it requires, especially in the chapters on 'Twelve-Tone Composition.' and 'Theory and Composition.' Yet even these are not difficult for anyone conversant with the general principles of musical forms and of such basic devices of harmony and counter-point as chord inversion and canon. Finally, Schoenberg's own chronological and autobiographical account of the evolution of atonality and twelve-tone composition is still the most accessible.
Review, 4630 words
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