Schoenberg: Why He Matters
A model of concision—a concentrated meditation instead of a panorama. It may be recommended for anybody with an interest in the work of the Viennese-American composer Arnold Schoenberg ... Mr. Sachs’s fine study should inspire a fresh understanding of his life and work.
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[Sachs] is a sterling example of the good old-fashioned and sadly vanishing 'music appreciation' writer, albeit with a sophisticated command of the historical and political back story ... Sachs’ book, despite its urgently prescriptive title...is nonetheless an immensely valuable source for anyone desiring an accessible overview of this endlessly controversial and chronically misunderstood giant of 20th-century music. Too many books about Schoenberg are overly technical for the general reader, or else they assume a kind of hagiographic defensive crouch. Sachs can be refreshingly candid, sharing his feelings at times as if he were whispering confidentially in your ear during a concert intermission.
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Lucid ... Neither an argued thesis nor a full biography drawn from fresh archival research, Sachs’s book is a succinct guide to Schoenberg’s life and work, one designed in part to make the composer’s music accessible to a wider audience. Much of the book’s appeal lies in that implicit promise to help find the beauty hidden in what can seem, to the uninitiated, a writhing mass of noise.
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