Books by Joseph Straus

For undergraduate/graduate-level courses in Twentieth-Century Techniques, and Post-Tonal Theory and Analysis taken by music majors.A primerrather than a surveythis text offers exceptionally clear, simple explanations of basic theoretical concepts for the post-tonal music of the twentieth century. Emphasizing hands-on contact with the musicthrough playing, singing, listening, and analyzingit provides six chapters on theory, each illustrated with musical examples and fully worked-out analyses, all drawn largely from the classical pre-war repertoire by Schoenberg, Stravinsky, Bartok, Berg, and Webern. Straus takes a paced, methodical, logical approach to each topic. He introduces it in context and perhaps most significantly of all uses language that's so transparent that merely to follow his descriptions, explanations and illustrations carefully is to understand each aspect of the theory under consideration. Mark Sealey, Classical.net