In Schoenberg and His School, René Leibowitz performs a threefold task. He relates the music of Schoenberg and his followers to the age-old tradition of Western polyphony, of which, he says, it is but the latest product. He discusses, with numerous musical examples, all known major works of Schoenberg and of his two great disciples Alban Berg and Anton Webern. And, in the final section of the book, he considers what the tradition represented by these three men could bring to the future, if carried still further by the young composers of today.

Contents: Prolegomena to Contemporary Music; Arnold Schoenberg: The Origins and Foundations of Contemporary Music; Alban Berg: The Awareness of the Past in Contemporary Music; Anton Webern: The Awareness of the Future in Contemporary Music; The Structure of Contemporary Musical Speech.