Winner of the Irving Lowens Book Award, Society for American Music A pioneering work of revisionist scholarship. With a fresh eye, Feisst investigates not only Schoenberg's American years
constituting almost a third of his careerbut also the reception and impact of his music in the U.S. across much of the twentieth century.Walter Frisch, author of The Early Works of ... Read moreArnold Schoenberg
This is an almost overwhelming study of the life, work, and even world of one of the most important and influential of composers.
Milton Babbitt, Princeton University/The Juilliard School
An exceedingly thorough study of Schoenberg's American years, has been long in the making and is worth the wait. Feisst's book shows how much there is left to be learned about this astonishing figure in modern cultural history, whose true, full biography has yet to be written.
Alex Ross, TheRestIsNoise.com
Feisst's description of Schoenberg's proudly held triple identity
Jewish, German, and Americanis richly detailed and provides insights not only into his personality but into the several masterworks he produced in his final years.Opera News
As a musician I think [Feisst] won her argument with earlier historians while also accomplishing something more valuable. She has provided a rich portrait of the life and times of a significant musician as he came to terms with his new home, and I am grateful that she illuminates not only his work and his thought, but also his complicated humanity.
John Steinmetz, Chamber Music
A satisfyingly thorough and probing study of Arnold Schoenberg's life in America...You'll find it absorbing to read about how this most European of composers came to grips with the strange new world of southern California, which he liked far more than is generally realized.
Terry Teachout
Meticulously researched, richly revealing...Feisst...has brought together a wealth of information that challenges old myths, offering a more balanced and multivalent account of Schoenberg's late years.
Boston Globe
An important book, extensive in its research, lively in its presentation, smartly revisionist in its attitude
all in all, an inspiring homage to and celebration of Schoenberg's later years. I imagine that no one who reads it will think about the New World or for that matter the Old World Schoenberg in quite the same way again.Notes
Highly recommended.
Choice
A very readable but also thoroughly and meticulously documented work. Feisst supplies a compendium of recent research and further readings in footnotes and in a bibliography for interested scholars and students...Schoenberg's New World is a pivotal work that sets an example for future musicological research on émigré composers.
American Jewish Archives Journal
The thoroughness and insight that she brings to this [work] makes Schoenberg's New World an invaluable and engaging source of information for Schoenberg specialists, Americanists, film music scholars, and anyone with an interest in the history and development of Southern California's rich musical community during the second quarter of the twentieth century.
American Music
Schoenberg's New World is a gold mine of historical and biographical information, the fruit of diligent and resourceful research.
Journal of the American Musicological Society
...[A]n important book, extensive in its research, lively in its presentation, smartly revisionist in its attitude
all in all, an inspiring homage to and celebration of Schoenberg's later years. I imagine that no one who reads it will think about the New World or for that matter the Old World Schoenberg in quite the same way again." - Howard Pollack
Feisst's groundbreaking work presented documentary proof consisting of correspondence and interviews that Schoenberg's American years have wilfully been misinterpreted as years of "selling out" or of frustration with a nation incapable of understanding his musical values. It... places both arrivals within a new context.
The Times Literary Supplement
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