Schoenberg's quartets and trio, composed over a nearly forty-year period, occupy a central position among twentieth-century chamber music. This volume, based on papers presented at a conference in honor of David Lewin, collects a wide range of approaches to Schoenberg's pieces.

The first part of the book provides a historical context to these works, examining Viennese quartet culture and traditions, Webern's reception of Schoenberg's Second Quartet, Schoenberg's view of the Beethoven quartets, and the early reception of Schoenberg's First Quartet. The second part examines musical issues of motive, text setting, meter, imitative counterpoint, and closure within Schoenberg's quartets and trio.


Cultural landscape and geography have affected the history of Western music from its earliest manifestations to the present day. City, Chant, and the Topography of Early Music brings together essays by thirteen leading scholars that explore ways that space, urban life, landscape, and time transformed plainchant and other musical forms. In addressing a broad array of topics and regions--ranging from Beneventan chant in Italy and Dalmatia, to music theory in medieval France, to later transformations of chant in Iceland and Spain--these essays honor and build upon Thomas Forrest Kelly's work in keeping cultural, geographic, and political factors close to the heart of the musicology of chant, early music, and beyond. Two essays complement Kelly's scholarly and pedagogical interests by investigating the role of the city in premieres of works composed long after the end of the Middle Ages.