Introduction to Post-Tonal Theory (3rd Edition)

For undergraduate/graduate-level courses in Twentieth-Century Techniques, and Post-Tonal Theory and Analysis taken by music majors.

A primer–rather than a survey–this 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 music–through playing, singing, listening, and analyzing–it 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

Joseph Straus is Distinguished Professor of Music at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York.  He taught for many years at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and Queens College (CUNY).  The author or editor of twelve books and numerous articles, mostly on topics in twentieth-century music, he is a former President of the Society for Music Theory.