The following review of Professor Piston's book was written for the Crimson by Edward Ballantine '07, associate professor of Music.

WITH his "Principles of Harmonic Analysis" Professor Piston brings invaluable help to the student of harmony toward gaining an insight into the subject, an insight which cannot come through the working out of harmony exercises alone. The study of analysis should begin with elementary works in harmony, but advanced students, including professional musicians (provided they have studied harmony), would profit much by following through Professor Piston's analysis.

While by knowledge and actual practice he is well qualified to expound ultra-modern harmony, Professor Piston confines most of his discussion to what he calls "the common practice" of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. "The technical study of the diversified and apparently unrelated idioms of the twentieth century composers is most logically approached through a clear conception of what harmonic practice has been throughout the preceding two hundred years." The student is led to a more enlightened attitude toward the "rules" by such wise statements as the following: "the so-called rules of harmony represent what is done by all and hence might be termed the platitude of music. If we speak of rules being broken by Bach or Beethoven, we are strengthening the popular misconception that the rules were made for composers to follow, whereas the process is just the opposite."

The most important of his "principles" is explained thus, "Harmonic analysis is more than a description of chords as individuals. In the broader aspects it is a process involving of the shapes, proportions and underlying skeleton of a piece of music, as well as its more superficial texture... The most important observation about a given chord does not concern its make-up as regards intervals between the notes, etc., but rather what its relation is to the rest of the music."

The book consists largely of examples drawn from many composers from Bach to Cesar Franck. These examples are chosen with a keen sense of the aptness in illustrating a given point. They are all interesting in themselves as music and bear witness to Professor Piston's wide and discriminating knowledge of musical literature. The analytical comment is brief but always keen, lucid and consistent with the principles laid down at the beginning. Among the examples there are not only many short excerpts but ten complete compositions showing the relation of chords to an entire piece.