Rating: 
Summary: Good introduction to 20th Century Theory
Review: This book is an excellent primer for the basics of twelve-tone and atonal theory. The book's biggest strength is its pedagogical approach and clarity of difficult concepts. One can attempt to learn atonal theory through Allen Forte's book (and many did), but much of his book is theoretical, not practical, causing difficulty in distilling the main topics. Fortunately Straus's book has been revised, so I hope the repertoire has been expanded a bit, to move beyond the canon composers (Bartok, Schoenberg, Berg, Webern, etc). In short, if you're looking to understand the musical materials behind atonal music, this book is a fine place to start.
Rating: 
Summary: from the trenches
Review: This is simply the best introduction to musical set theory in print, and one of the most pedagogically sound theory texts available for any topic. Straus writes exceedingly well, and his organization and pacing are excellent. This is not "watered-down Allen Forte," it is a humane spin on rather abstract musical concepts in language musicians can understand. Forte's and Perle's works are invaluable to the discipline, but their books are almost unreadable.Straus's revised edition expands the repertoire only minimally (more could be done here), but the new exercises (particularly the composition sections) are an excellent addition. An average undergraduate class can make it through the text in a single semester with plenty of time left -- about four or five weeks -- to cover additional repertoire and topics. Dr. O
Rating: 
Summary: Inaccurate
Review: You will find that Straus's method for determining prime form on pages 31-34 does not work. He suggests in the case of a tie to look to the second-to-last number compared to the first, and continue moving right to left until the tie is broken. Try the set [0,3,4,5,8,10,11], and you will find that his method will not result in prime form. For the most accurate information, Forte is still the best, despite all the problems. Strangely, I found Straus more confusing than Forte in a number of instances, in regards to the basics.
| 
