Fundamentals of Musical Composition

by Arnold Schoenberg, Gerald Strang (Editor), Leonard Stein (Editor)

Fundamentals of Musical Composition represents the culmination of more than forty years in Schoenberg's life devoted to the teaching of musical principles to students and composers in Europe and America. For his classes he developed a manner of presentation in which 'every technical matter is discussed in a very fundamental way, so that at the same time it is both simple and thorough'.

This book can be used for analysis as well as for composition. On the one hand, it has the practical objective of introducing students to the process of composing in a systematic way, from the smallest to the largest forms; on the other hand, the author analyses in thorough detail and with numerous illustrations those particular sections in the works of the masters which relate to the compositional problem under discussion.

Genres: Music, Nonfiction, Art, Textbooks, Theory, Science, German Literature

224 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1967

About the author

Noted Austrian composer Arnold Schoenberg abandoned tradition and developed the twelve-tone system for music.

Associated with the expressionist movement in German poetry and art, he led the second Viennese school. He used the spelling Schönberg until his move to the United States in 1934, whereupon he altered it to Schoenberg "in deference to American practice."

His approach in terms of harmony developed among the major landmarks of 20th-century thought; at least three generations in the Europeans and Americans consciously extended his thinking or in some cases passionately reacted in opposition. During the rise of the Nazi party, people labeled jazz as degenerate art.

People widely knew Schoenberg early in his career for his success in simultaneously extending the opposed German romantic styles of Johannes Brahms and Richard Wagner. Later, his name came to personify pioneering innovations, the most polemical feature of 20th-century art. In the 1920s, the technique, a widely influential method of Schoenberg, manipulated an ordered series of all in the chromatic scale. He also coined the term variation, and this first modern embraced ways of motifs without resorting to the dominance of a centralized melodic idea.

Schoenberg, an important theorist, also painted and influentially taught his students, who included Alban Berg, Anton Friedrich Wilheim von Webern, Hanns Eisler, Egon Wellesz, and later John Milton Cage, Lou Harrison, Earl Kim, and many other prominent. Avant-garde thought throughout the 20th century echoes many of practices, including the formalization of method and his habit of openly inviting audiences to think analytically. His crucial, often polemical views of history and aesthetics influenced many significant critics, including Theodor Adorno, Charles Rosen, and Carl Dahlhaus,of the 20th century. His thought also considerably influenced the pianists Rudolf Serkin, Artur Schnabel, Eduard Steuermann, and later Glenn Gould.

The Arnold Schönberg center in Vienna collects his archival legacy.

Reviews

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book isn't really a manual for learning how to compose. It's about how musical form works, from small units to large forms like sonata-allegro. Schoenberg is very thorough and methodical, arranging the material into a completely logical progression. Although his style and approach may be a little old-fashioned, he is extremely good at writing educational texts. Even though this book covers things I already know, I found it to be an excellent and engaging explanation of form.

[Lucy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Echoing other reviews: this is not a “how to” book. It gives detailed descriptions for musical forms and many, many examples. I could have spent ages looking up and listening to the examples given. I think it would be very worthwhile to go back through slowly, tackling one form at a time and really spending a long time with each one. I don’t think reading this straight through (which I did) is the best - or even a very good - way to experience this exhaustive and rather dry text. I think you could use this as an encyclopedia of sorts and it does not have to be read chronologically. A valuable resource but only with much time and effort.

[Serge Pierro · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although Schoenberg is primarily known for his atonal 12 tone row compositions, he is able to set that aside in order to provide the reader with a wealth of information to explore and digest. Using the Beethoven piano sonatas as the primary means of analysis, he explores all of the levels of composition, from the simple Phase and Motive, up to the larger compositional forms. It should be noted that there are numerous examples throughout the book that aren't based on Beethoven's sonatas, and prove to be quite interesting.

This is not a "how to" book on Composition, but it does provide the student with a means in which to begin exploring the discipline. His experience as a teacher comes through in his presentation, though it is often dull and to the point.

My main complaint about the book is that the musical examples and the corresponding analysis are often separated by several pages, thus forcing the reader to keep flipping back and forth. It would have been nice to have the analysis either above or below the examples so that the reader could concentrate on the task at hand instead of needles page turning.

Overall this is a decent introduction to the fundamentals of composition and would be a welcome addition to any composer's library.

[Kristian Bjerke Dalen · Rating 2 out of 5]

"A composer does not add bit by bit, as a child does in building with wooden blocks. He conceives an entire composition as a spontaneous vision"

FUCK OFF

[Grady Arant · Rating 3 out of 5]

A straightforward book that does it’s job and nothing more. Schoenberg expertly describes the foundations of music composition without making them complicated. I often found myself being able to identify occurrences of these building blocks in many different songs, which of course was one of my hopes from reading this book. He also provides many different techniques for real-world use and exercises that allow for an applicable and effective reading.

Three stars for a book that educates and allows for lots of practice, but was a dry and unexciting read (to no fault of the author).

[Acer Pseudoplantatus · Rating 4 out of 5]

While there is definitely a lot to be learned from this book, it won't suffice just reading it. Playing or listening to the examples and analysing them (within the context of the work and by putting thought into it) is crucial to get the most out of it.

The main focus of the author are van Beethoven's piano sonatas, although he does draw from other common practice repertoire in order to illustrate approaches to writing themes and to explain forms.

I would, however, not recommend taking anything as gospel; The claim, for example, that the inversion, retrograde and retrograde inversion of a theme are considered "exact repetitions" of a motive is ridiculous, especially as the author defines exact repetitions as those preserving all features, which would imply that direction of melodic movement and orientation are of no relevance.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nothing earth-shattering, but a good book for music teachers to have on the shelf. Schoenberg’s textbook takes students through the construction of melodies, phrase-structures, and short and long forms: ternaries, rondos, sonatas, and others. More an annotated collection of music examples than a narrative, “Fundamentals of Musical Composition” is a dry read: if you’re not obsessed with this stuff beforehand, go for Charles Rosen’s “Sonata Forms” instead; it covers much of the same material in a more humanistic way. But “Fundamentals” is a great grab bag of illustrations of musical forms and will make a music teacher’s search for examples of periods, sentences, and sonata rondos much quicker. Assumes a knowledge of tonal harmony.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

Schoenberg is exhaustive, as always, in his examination of theme and form, though the points in this book are left more open than in his others, as compositional style is not something that can be taught by rote. The text is divided into two sections that explore, respectively, the construction of motives and themes and the most common forms of Western classical music. The material is firmly rooted in common practice and tonal harmony and unfortunately doesn't offer much at all for compositions that do not adhere to these standards.

[LaShana Claude · Rating 1 out of 5]

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Learning music theory and writing sheet music will allow you to better hone your skills as a singer and a composer.

This guide offers both beginners and more advanced singers and songwriters the skills and information to learn how to read, write and compose music.

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[Michael Medlen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Presented in a very clear and concise manner, this text is a must read for anyone interested in becoming a music composer.

I would back this research up with The Study of Orchestration by Samuel Alder, and then branch out into more advanced texts in harmonies and other forms.

A background in music theory is a must, however. I would recommend a basic college course for anyone interested in gaining such knowledge....

[Lee Barry · Rating 3 out of 5]

While my general feeling is that Schoenberg is much too academic, he does make some good observations about composition that remain contemporary. The structure of our brains to comprehend musical sequences is innate and therefore there are patterns that we should follow for the sake of the "consensus of brains".

[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hi Jamie, I know that you'll probably never see this in your life, but I just wanted to say that Arnold Schoenberg is the best Schoenberg and Claude-Michel Schoenberg is the second best Schoenberg.

[Dennis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Written as a companion and outgrowth of his music courses at USC and UCLA, this book, contrary to what its title may imply, will not teach you how to compose. Let me clarify; this book, by itself, will not teach you how to be a composer. To benefit from the wisdom of this text, you must have some substantial musical experience or a good teacher. Schoenberg likely understood this since he was more accustomed to delivering this information in a class setting.

Schoenberg provides an array of loosely organized morsels of profound knowledge with many, many examples as illustrations. The information starts at the motive level building gradually to themes, concluding with discussions of longer forms. Schoenberg provides very brief explanations of concepts, devoting far more space to naming and examining musical examples. While one certainly learns composition best by studying scores, the text suffers somewhat from this format, coming across as more of a study outline than a textbook. Passages occasionally strain for coherence as Schoenberg, a native German speaker, attempts to translate his ideas into concise statements in English.

The ultimate result is a wealth of wisdom in a short format that is unfortunately difficult to grasp without either a knowledgeable teacher to fill the gaps or some prior understanding of music adequate to decipher the author's meaning. The text is most useful when Schoenberg is discussing practice rather than theory or shining light on notable examples from the repertoire. The ultimate lesson of the book boils down to this: composition is learned through looking at the work of people who have come before you. Read this way, Fundamentals of Music Composition provides the tools you need to start learning how to compose.

[Juan Pablo Fernandez · Rating 2 out of 5]

Debería titularse "Apología de Schoenberg".

Difícil puntuar a este libro. Creo que el problema esta en que no es tanto un manual de composición como una defensa de la manera de componer del autor. Esto nos lleva al debate de ¿que seria un manual de composición? ya que este concepto cambió mucho a lo largo de la historia. Creo que si bien muchos de los conceptos que explica Schoenberg se adecuan a mucha de la música de la primera mitad del siglo XX, también es cierto que muchos otros no. Ocurre también que intenta permanentemente poner como ejemplo música del pasado (principalmente Beethoven) con lo cual el libro queda, en mi opinión, a medio camino entre un libro de composición clásica y uno de siglo XX. Por esto es que digo que suena a defensa de la teoría de Schoenberg, ya que pareciera que intenta demostrar como su método de composición es en realidad una continuación de lo que hicieron grandes maestros como Beethoven, Haydn, Mozart, etc. Tampoco me queda claro a quienes esta dirigido ya que es algo básico para quienes quieran profundizar en su estilo y es algo tendencioso para quienes se inician en la composición.
En resumen, es interesante leerlo más como una manera de conocer a Schoenberg que de aprender a componer.

[Alexander Shaneyfelt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fundamentals of Musical Composition is a book which has reigned as a standard source of study for any prospective composer seeking a traditional approach to the craft. While it does succeed in its goal, and is a must-read for any aspiriing composer, the book suffers a few flaws which prevent me from confidently giviing it a rating above a 3/5. The book is well structured and does indeed go over all of the Fundamentals as the title suggests, however it suffers from convoluted explanations along with unfamiliar and frankly innacurate application of terminology. Schoenberg can sometimes provide explanations that require several rereads to sufficiently understand, and even then can fail to sufficiently cover a concept. Schoenberg has also gained a reputation for using terms outside of what is conventionally taught, and his application of such terms can sometimes cause a subject to be more confusing. I highly suggest reading this book alongside Alan Belkin's Musical Composition Craft and Art. Belkin covers many of the same concepts and expands upon them while presenting them in a way which is much easier to digest.

[Josh Eustis · Rating 5 out of 5]

I learned how to write music from reading this book, I'm not shitting you.