Book Review

Reflections of an American Composer. By Arthur Berger. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002. ISBN 0-520-23251-8 (cloth). Pp. vii, 270. $44.95

By the time Arthur Berger entered his ninth decade in the early 1990s, he was already known and respected as a composer, theorist, newspaper critic, author, editor, and teacher. With numerous published writings to his credit, he might easily have approached a final book project as a valedictory exercise—a chance to republish earlier articles, collect representative reviews perhaps, recycle earlier material, or reiterate and polish time-honored opinions and positions. Instead, he started fresh. Of the eighteen essays in this collection, only three are primarily rewrites of previous articles or talks ("Postmodern Music," "New Linguistic Modes and the New Theory," and "The Octatonic Scale"). Even in these, one is aware of a writer in the present revisiting past concerns for the sake of a new perception, or a connection newly made.