The Apollonian Clockwork: Extracts from a book by Elmer Schönberger and Louis Andriessen

What is most conspicuous about this book is what it isn't. It isn't a biography. Even the question as to when the main character was born isn't answered. It certainly isn't a survey of ‘life and works’. There are enough of those books. It isn't even a surveyable book, even though it is about a composer whose music is easily ‘surveyed’. Survey and summary are simplification, which in themselves aren't bad so long as it's apparent that that is the case. But because there have been so many surveys of Stravinsky already written, it appears as if something like a survey is possible. And that is just not true. The facts alone are too numerous for one to be able to write, with a good conscience, a surveyable book. A thorough investigation of the historic and musical relationship between Stravinsky and Schoenberg would supply enough material for a heavy volume.