Customer Reviews

Schoenberg and the New Music: Essays by Carl Dahlhaus

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My familiarity with Dahlhaus primarily comes from reading his "Esthetics of Music," a book I highly recommend to anyone with an interest in the philosophy of music. I was hoping for more of the same, this time dealing with my favorite musical era - the so-called "new music" of Schoenberg and the second Viennese school.

The essays are not limited to Schoenberg, but cover Webern, Berg, and some larger and more theoretical issues. Some sections are straightforward theoretical analysis, while others feel something like a response to Adorno's "Philosophy of New Music," not in the sense of a counterpoint or a confirmation, but as a different angle. Where Adorno's book is polemical, Dahlhaus seems to be much less confrontational. He isn't saddled with the responsibility of defending the music and can thus spend his time examining it historically and theoretically. Dahlhaus does not feel the need to defend its existence as Adorno did years earlier.

The translation is quite readable. Derrick Puffett and Alfred Clayton successfully translate Dahlhaus's dense prose into decent English that is elegant, but never flashy or overly obscure as one sometimes finds with translations of German.

I'm not exactly sure why the book is so expensive. In early 2008, the price has held steady for well over a year at $43. It's not inordinately thick or anything. Cambridge U.P. paperbacks aren't usually this pricey. It may pertain to the most recent reprint occurring back in 1990. Regardless, the price should not dissuade you from picking it up - the essays within are worth it, provided you're interested in 20th century Western art music. The range of topics and the variety of approaches (historical, theoretical, philosophical) make this a excellent text on a very interesting period in Western music. I highly recommend "Schoenberg and the New Music".