Product Description

Describes and cites examples of pitch-class sets and relations in atonal music.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #702066 in Books
• Published on: 1977-09-10
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 224 pages

Customer Reviews

Music, not math
Forte's book is, as its title suggests, a work on
atonal music. In this role, it is regarded as an
important and seminal work. While it uses a quantitative
language, as does all music theory, and indeed music
itself, it is not a treatise on mathematics.

A few reviews below have criticized Forte for what are
claimed to be mathematical flaws. As a researcher with
a PhD in mathematics and a side interest in composition,
I'd like to counter this. As long as Forte is analysing
music, and not claiming to prove Fermat's Last Theorem,
I'm happy to let him use whatever terminology suits his
purpose. I am no more concerned about his set theory
than I am whether classical harmony is a good number
system.

Pedantry about mathematical terminology in this context
may sound impressive to non-mathematicians but is likely
based on shallow knowledge/understanding of mathematics.
More importantly, it certainly distracts from the central
focus, which is how well Forte's framework contributes to
understanding and composing a certain kind of music.

In particular, a review titled "quackery" below has been found
useful (as of this writing) to 5 of 8 readers. The
"quackery" reviewer cites the use of the term "cardinality"
as an abuse of mathematical terminology when applied to
finite sets. In fact, applying "cardinality" to finite
sets is commonplace, about as controversial as using stringed
instruments in an orchestra.

Very Objective and Approachable Writing Style
Sorry, I beg to differ with both "fatuous" and "childish and absurd". As an aspiring composer who is not a formally trained instrumentalist, and is not formally trained, but self-taught, in music theory, this book is FAR more objective than Perle's (I didn't even finish reading Perle's, the writing style was so opaque), and doesn't assume either the ability to read music or an affinity for Schoenberg, Berg and/or Webern. Plus the writing style is way more transparent. Perle's book is mostly a musicological piece, not an objective assessment of available musical materials.

Math Phoney
I can't comment on Forte's book, since it was not *my* introduction to musical set theory. However, I would like to respond to a rather stupid reviewer from Nov. 11, 2001, who seems to believe that cardinality is a concept unique to infinite sets (in mathematical set theory). This is simply not the case. Finite sets have cardinality as well (e.g. the set {X,Y,Z} has a cardinality of 3} . In fact, the concept of cardinality for infinite sets is far more tenuous than it is for finite sets, and due to problems such as the independence of the continuum hypothesis, some philosophers and mathematicians speculate that infinite cardinality may be an untenable concept. Most do not agree, but it is certainly misinformed to criticize Forte for introducing the concept of cardinality to musical set theory with finite sets of pitches.

As to the reviewer from Nov. 27, 2001, if you don't agree with the material, why'd you pick up a book on atonal theory in the first place? You should be commenting on whether this is a good intro to atonal theory, not the merits of atonal theory itself. For that, you may feel free to argue with a sock puppet.