The Second String Quartet in F-Sharp Minor, Opus 10

Arnold Schoenberg’s Second String Quartet revolutionized western art music.

For nearly a century, it has inspired composers, scholars, critics, performers, and visual artists.  Severine Neff re-creates for her readers the quartet's historical, cultural, and musical background–its introduction of the human voice, its genesis during a personal crisis in the composer's life, the scandal at its premiere, and its endlessly controversial reception, both critical and analytic.  This volume includes a newly edited, authoritative score of the quartet, as well as previously unavailable and newly translated texts by Grant Chorley.

"Indispensable for understanding one of the central compositions of the twentieth century."―Walter Frisch, Columbia University.

Severine Neff, Ph.D. Princeton, Eugene Falk Distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, is one of the foremost scholars in Schoenberg studies. She has received research awards from Arnold Schönberg Center, The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, The Newberry Library, The National Endowment for the Humanities, and The Fulbright Association. She also has published in numerous journals including Music Theory Spectrum and has edited or translated several other books on Schoenberg and his music.