The Shaping Forces in Music: Inquiry into the Nature of Harmony, Melody, Counterpoint and Form (Dover Series of Study Editions, Chamber Music, Orchestral Wo) Book

From rear cover notes: "A masterful and original classical composer as well as a renowned composer of film scores, Ernst Toch (1887-1964) made a permanent contribution to music in this important and widely praised book. Based on a series of lectures given at Harvard in 1944 and first published in 1948, this book is a brilliant examination of the materials and concepts that are the basic building blocks of music - harmony, melody, counterpoint and form. An admirable reconciliation of traditional and modern (mainly 12-tone) trends in composition, this book shows how all types of writing must respond to psychological wants of the listener and how similar goals may be achieved in seemingly opposed styles. Illustrating his discussion with 390 musical examples, Toch not only introduces new ideas and approaches, but examines many age-old problems with clarity and precision - consonance and dissonance, melody versus harmony, ornamental and fermentative counterpoint, form versus number, and more. His analyses of the expanding harmonic universe, the wave line of melody, and the formative influecnce of movement are particularly penetrating...."