Twelve-Tone Music in America

[...]a small number of texts (mosdy by Schoenberg and Babbitt) have been allowed to stand for not only their music but, what is even worse, for a highly varied musical repertoire produced by a remarkably diverse group of composers" (p. xxi). When ambiguous questions of interpretation arise, however, Straus tends to fall back to the solid ground of generic metavalues (creative and critical diversity, the whole truth) rather than wading into the hermeneutic swamp.\n procedures of composers/pieces, etc.) and head scratching among new recruits. [...]justice is not blind; Straus's pedagogical/juridical demeanor sometimes masks his own polemic.