"The second edition of Perle's monograph is substantially enlarged by the addition of a new chapter concerned with non-serial aspects of the Lyric Suite. Perle demonstrates that Berg came closer than anyone else to a realization of Schoenberg's expressed and truly revolutionary purpose in formulating the concept of the tone-row - to lay "the foundation for a new procedure in musical construction which seemed fitted to replace those structural differentiations provided formerly by tonal harmonies"--And that Berg accomplished this as fully with the resources of "free atonality" as he did when composing in his own special and personal versions of the 12-tone system." "Perle's contribution in both domains, the analytical and the biographical, have their original and primary impetus in his studies of the Lyric Suite, a work that has preoccupied him since 1937. This Pendragon edition brings the wealth of his earlier writings on the Lyric Suite together for the first time and includes, in addition, new material on the quartet's history, new analytical observations, and a comparative study of the sketches and drafts that allows the reader to convert the currently published score into an authoritatively corrected edition."--Jacket.