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The Master Musicians are the classics of the repertoire. Nicholas Kenyon, The Sunday Times Malcolm MacDonald, an eloquent advocate for Arnold Schoenberg, has done away with the dry and cerebral bogeyman of modernism. In his place is a complex, multi-faceted, and often contradictory personality whose music pulses with wit, passion, and spiritual depth. MacDonald ably guides us past the 'how' of technical procedures to the 'what' of expressive substance, toward a vast universe of human thought and emotion, at once challenging and entrancing, terrifying and breathtakingly beautiful. This is a Schoenberg of vital relevance to our own fractured world. Christopher Hailey No general survey of Schoenberg is more alert than this one to the paradoxical yet productive tensions between tradition and innovation, secular and spiritual in the composer's life and work. Returning to his original text after three decades, Malcolm MacDonald has not only updated the narrative but also intensified his interpretation in ways which fit the book's governing qualities of enthusiasm and admiration for Schoenberg's special capacity to transcend the negative. The result is an absorbing and accessible tribute to one of musical modernism's greatest masters. Arnold Whittall, author of Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century and Exploring Twentieth-Century Music The Master Musicians are the classics of the repertoire. Nicholas Kenyon, The Sunday Times Malcolm MacDonald, an eloquent advocate for Arnold Schoenberg, has done away with the dry and cerebral bogeyman of modernism. In his place is a complex, multi-faceted, and often contradictory personality whose music pulses with wit, passion, and spiritual depth. MacDonald ably guides us past the 'how' of technical procedures to the 'what' of expressive substance, toward a vast universe of human thought and emotion, at once challenging and entrancing, terrifying and breathtakingly beautiful. This is a Schoenberg of vital relevance to our own fractured world. Christopher Hailey No general survey of Schoenberg is more alert than this one to the paradoxical yet productive tensions between tradition and innovation, secular and spiritual in the composer's life and work. Returning to his original text after three decades, Malcolm MacDonald has not only updated the narrative but also intensified his interpretation in ways which fit the book's governing qualities of enthusiasm and admiration for Schoenberg's special capacity to transcend the negative. The result is an absorbing and accessible tribute to one of musical modernism's greatest masters. Arnold Whittall, author of Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century and Exploring Twentieth-Century Music

No general survey of Schoenberg is more alert than this one to the paradoxical yet productive tensions between tradition and innovation, secular and spiritual in the composer's life and work. Returning to his original text after three decades, Malcolm MacDonald has not only updated the narrative but also intensified his interpretation in ways which fit the book's governing qualities of enthusiasm and admiration for Schoenberg's special capacity to transcend the negative. The result is an absorbing and accessible tribute to one of musical modernism's greatest masters. * Arnold Whittall, author of Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century and Exploring Twentieth-Century Music * Malcolm MacDonald, an eloquent advocate for Arnold Schoenberg, has done away with the dry and cerebral bogeyman of modernism. In his place is a complex, multi-faceted, and often contradictory personality whose music pulses with wit, passion, and spiritual depth. MacDonald ably guides us past the 'how' of technical procedures to the 'what' of expressive substance, toward a vast universe of human thought and emotion, at once challenging and entrancing, terrifying and breathtakingly beautiful. This is a Schoenberg of vital relevance to our own fractured world. * Christopher Hailey * The Master Musicians are the classics of the repertoire. * Nicholas Kenyon, The Sunday Times * No general survey of Schoenberg is more alert than this one to the paradoxical yet productive tensions between tradition and innovation, secular and spiritual in the composer's life and work. Returning to his original text after three decades, Malcolm MacDonald has not only updated the narrative but also intensified his interpretation in ways which fit the book's governing qualities of enthusiasm and admiration for Schoenberg's special capacity to transcend the negative. The result is an absorbing and accessible tribute to one of musical modernism's greatest masters. * Arnold Whittall, author of Musical Composition in the Twentieth Century and Exploring Twentieth-Century Music * Malcolm MacDonald, an eloquent advocate for Arnold Schoenberg, has done away with the dry and cerebral bogeyman of modernism. In his place is a complex, multi-faceted, and often contradictory personality whose music pulses with wit, passion, and spiritual depth. MacDonald ably guides us past the 'how' of technical procedures to the 'what' of expressive substance, toward a vast universe of human thought and emotion, at once challenging and entrancing, terrifying and breathtakingly beautiful. This is a Schoenberg of vital relevance to our own fractured world. * Christopher Hailey * The Master Musicians are the classics of the repertoire. * Nicholas Kenyon, The Sunday Times *

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Malcolm MacDonald (1948-2014) was a freelance writer and frequent lecturer and broadcaster. He served as the Editor of Tempo, the independent quarterly review of modern music, and wrote a number of books on composers including the Master Musicians volume Brahms.

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