The Musical Idea - Chart of the Regions

Arnold Schönberg’s stature as a music theorist was established with the publication in 1911 of his Harmonielehre (Theory of Harmony). Harmonielehre and the brief Models for Beginners in Compositions, published in English in 1942, were the only theoretical works that appeared during Schönberg’s lifetime. During his years in Los Angeles, when he regularly taught American undergraduates, Schönberg worked with assistants to assemble smaller-scale texts on harmony, counterpoint, and musical form. Still left unfinished at Schönberg’s death were many smaller fragments on theory and two larger ones, among them Der Musikalische Gedanke und die Logik, Technik, und Kunst seiner Darstellung (The Musical Idea and the Logic, Technique, and Art of its Presentation), which was written in two short periods in 1934 and 1936. In the reflections on the structural functions of harmony, fundamental remarks on the cadenza as well as on the tonal levels are incorporated; in addition, Schönberg presents their new division into regions (also by means of the Chart of Regions).