PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Jack Boss is Professor of Music Theory and Composition at the University of Oregon. His previous book, Schoenberg's Twelve-Tone Music: Symmetry and the Musical Idea (Cambridge, 2014) received the Wallace Berry Award from the Society for Music Theory in 2015. His articles can be found in the Journal of Music Theory, Music Theory Spectrum, Perspectives of New Music, Music Theory Online, Music Analysis, Intégral, and Gamut.
'Schoenberg's Atonal Music offers a study of the endlessly fascinating and enigmatic music Schoenberg wrote from around 1908 to roughly 1920. Jack Boss is a complete master of the music and the surrounding literature; he has an appropriate and effective analytical methodology, and he offers a synoptic understanding of these challenging musical works that greatly enriches our understanding of them. This book is an important prequel to Schoenberg's Twelve-Tone Music (Cambridge, 2014), which deservedly received the Wallace Berry award from the Society for Music Theory.' Joseph Straus, City University of New York 'With this provocative re-interpretation of six of Schoenberg's middle-period works, Jack Boss turns time-honored conceptions of tonality versus atonality and 'amotivicism' on their heads. Through his vividly argued analyses grounded in motivic/set-class relations, the 'conflict-elaboration-resolution model' of the 'musical idea', and the use of 'expressive' tonality, Schoenberg's Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11, reveal a novel structural identity, cohering in a unified cycle. Erwartung, previously understood as the quintessence of amotivicism, finds logic in the development of a 'basic image', two leitmotifs representing the Lover's body and the Woman's sense of loss. With further analyses based on the concepts of 'musical idea', 'basic image', and 'spectres of tonality', Boss thus propounds a fascinating revisionist history - a consistent and steady development to and from atonality, setting the stage for Schoenberg's future twelve-tone works.' Severine Neff, Eugene Falk Distinguished Professor of Music, Emeritus, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill `Schoenberg's Atonal Music offers a study of the endlessly fascinating and enigmatic music Schoenberg wrote from around 1908 to roughly 1920. Jack Boss is a complete master of the music and the surrounding literature; he has an appropriate and effective analytical methodology, and he offers a synoptic understanding of these challenging musical works that greatly enriches our understanding of them. This book is an important prequel to Schoenberg's Twelve-Tone Music (Cambridge, 2014), which deservedly received the Wallace Berry award from the Society for Music Theory.' Joseph Straus, City University of New York `With this provocative re-interpretation of six of Schoenberg's middle-period works, Jack Boss turns time-honored conceptions of tonality versus atonality and `amotivicism' on their heads. Through his vividly argued analyses grounded in motivic/set-class relations, the `conflict-elaboration-resolution model' of the `musical idea', and the use of `expressive' tonality, Schoenberg's Three Piano Pieces, Op. 11, reveal a novel structural identity, cohering in a unified cycle. Erwartung, previously understood as the quintessence of amotivicism, finds logic in the development of a `basic image', two leitmotifs representing the Lover's body and the Woman's sense of loss. With further analyses based on the concepts of `musical idea', `basic image', and `spectres of tonality', Boss thus propounds a fascinating revisionist history - a consistent and steady development to and from atonality, setting the stage for Schoenberg's future twelve-tone works.' Severine Neff, Eugene Falk Distinguished Professor of Music, Emeritus, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
