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Summary: traditional harmony text by inventor of serial composition
Review: Schoenberg presents a systematic method for learning/teaching traditional harmony. He gets into fairly advanced levels of harmony, but does not really get into 12-tone composition, except fleetingly toward the end of the book. You have to remember that at the time he wrote this, he was still only beginning to work out his ideas about serialism, and all his works prior to and surrounding the publication of this book were still written in his earlier harmonic style. One of his major premises is that it is necessary to the _craft_ (a very important word) of music to be intimately familliar with the older ways, because it guarantees the ability to at least write music of "established effectiveness."He leads the reader from scales and diatonic triads, through modulations and diminished chords, and into "wandering" non-diatonic chords. He does not have the student realize figured bass lines, or harmonize chorales, and he goes into great detail describing the fallacy of these teaching methods. Rather, he has the student composing from the outset, manipulating musical materials in a manner more like the act of "real" composition.
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Summary: Not only does he play a good game, he talks one, too!
Review: Such is the ongoing dilemma of Arnold Schoenberg. Most people would strive for the other way around. Of course, when you consider Schoenberg was largely self-taught, it seems only natural he would write about music AFTER creating music. Whether Schoenberg was right or not with his theories, whether they be atonal or harmonic, is beyond the point now. Considering the legacy of his students/acolytes (Berg, Webern, Klemperer, Cage, Raskin), you'd have to suspect he could teach a little. And, OK, Walter Piston was a better teacher. Walter Alston was a better manager than Babe Ruth, too, but who would you rather see play? I'm certainly no music scholar or musicologist, but after wading through some thick style and ideas that went totally over my head in some instances, I will say this. To me, it reinforces that Arnold Schoenberg was the 20th Century's greatest musician because this book shows that if he had wished, he could have written popular pieces in the key of C major that would have been some of the finest music ever written. If you have ever heard some of his band music or choral music, you also know he could have written any type of music and made it great. The fact that he chose to write some of the finest music ever written in the way that he did only makes me admire this guy even more. So maybe he did become verbose and a bit boring in his attempt to put written parameters on atonalism. Again, how many artists can create, write legibly and teach their craft on the same exalted level? Schoenberg is really one of those rare few. Yet even this talent has not helped his popularity. But it certainly does make him more fascinating.
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Summary: Let's be reasonable.
Review: The argumentum ad hominem (and thus logically invalid) attacks in three of the reviews below are rather disconcerting. For the record (nevertheless): It happens I have a Master's degree in Music Theory; it happens I scored a high 99% on the Music Subject Test of the GRE; it happens I have taught college level music theory professionally. I think I have some (this is understatement) "competence" in music theory. I do not, nor do any of the reviews below, say that the book in question is useless. I say it is unsuitable for freshman and sophomore classroom instruction and also for self-instruction except as a supplement. It is nevertheless an interesting and quirky artifact, and I do recommend it for persons interested in quirky artifacts who have already acquired a basic understanding of the rudiments of music theory. It is only fair to point out, however, that in doing so I am not recommending it for the use for which it was clearly intended, and it is only fair that my star-rating reflect this.
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Summary: Quality thinking, endearlingly verbose
Review: The reader from Berkeley has obviously missed Schoenberg's reasons for writing a text on harmony and voice-leading. Of course Schoenberg knows that the tendency of a diminished fifth is to cave into a major third. What Schoenberg attempts to do in this text is to avoid simple statements about traditions as if they are eternal laws. Schoenberg gives us researched reasons on why tonal music is as it is, rather than saying, "This behaves this way because it sounds good, and not that way because that sounds bad." He assumes we know diminished fifths resolve to thirds; what he knows he can teach us is WHY.
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Summary: A Masterpiece for every musician
Review: This book is a must for a musician. It is not a textbook. You need another standard one for this purpose. But it is essential as a companion, if you want to UNDERSTAND the reasons behind the rules. And you better read it in parallel with a standard textbook. Schoenberg starts from the most ancient sources to the most modern and EXPLAINS everything! You are his pupil because this book was written for his real pupils. (And btw a 6th chord is a 6th chord for every classical harmony manual...). I agree that sometimes some digressions may be questionable and some "rules" are introduced and then eliminated in a questionable way, but he is undoubtely an artist, and this book reflects it. The way he explains, for instance, the minor mode is unsurpassed. You can't break harmony rules if you don't know what's behind them. AMM
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Summary: An Historical Study in Pedagogical Verbosity
Review: This book is a virtual time machine. It takes the reader back to early twentieth century Vienna, a fertile time and place of cultural development. Schoenberg addresses the reader as the "pupil," and holds forth at great length on all manner of digressions and tangential topics. His style is dense, complex, pedagogical, and further obscured by having been translated from German. For the music student of today, this can be exasperating. It takes Schoenberg an entire page to introduce the idea that a chord tone other than the root can occur in the bass. He then goes on to refer to the first inversion of the major triad as the "sixth chord" throughout the book, presumably because the root appears a minor sixth above the third? This is at odds with our present-day notion of a sixth chord. At one point, by way of analogy, Schoenberg digresses at length as to what caused the downfall of the Roman Empire. Does the student of harmony really need this? Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony is an interesting book from an historical perspective, for the reader willing to slog through page-long paragraphs. It stands alongside the works of contemporaries such as Sigmund Freud. As a student of harmony, for whom this book was written in a distant time and place, I find it tedious. Two stars, in deference to Schoenberg's work as a composer.
Rating:
Summary: An Historical Study in Pedagogical Verbosity
Review: This book is a virtual time machine. It takes the reader back to early twentieth century Vienna, a fertile time and place of cultural development. Schoenberg addresses the reader as the "pupil," and holds forth at great length on all manner of digressions and tangential topics. His style is dense, complex, pedagogical, and further obscured by having been translated from German. For the music student of today, this can be exasperating. It takes Schoenberg an entire page to introduce the idea that a chord tone other than the root can occur in the bass. He then goes on to refer to the first inversion of the major triad as the "sixth chord" throughout the book, presumably because the root appears a minor sixth above the third? This is at odds with our present-day notion of a sixth chord. At one point, by way of analogy, Schoenberg digresses at length as to what caused the downfall of the Roman Empire. Does the student of harmony really need this? Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony is an interesting book from an historical perspective, for the reader willing to slog through page-long paragraphs. It stands alongside the works of contemporaries such as Sigmund Freud. As a student of harmony, for whom this book was written in a distant time and place, I find it tedious. Two stars, in deference to Schoenberg's work as a composer.
Rating:
Summary: Schoenberg's Theory of Harmony
Review: This is a classic in music theory--the 1983 English translation of the Schoenberg's third edition of the Theory of Harmony. Written as a textbook, it almost is never used as such; rather, it is used primarily by Schoenberg scholars and, more generally, academic music theorists. Schoenberg's ideas differ frequently from more "standard," American curricula (Piston, Schenker) and for this reason make for interesting reading. In addition, viewing Schoenberg's output as theorist as compared with a his output as a composer is always a rich topic.
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