Book For Learning Form

What are some widely used and known books for teaching form and structure of various musical pieces?

Schoenberg does have everything you need but you have to remember, it is only a book. It can present the information to you but the rest is up to you. If you really want to get to know forms, I would get hold of some scores of classical piano sonatas and analyse them according to the models you read about from Schoenberg. If you just read about forms you'll only ever have a superficial understanding of them, you need to be able to see them in action to fully understand them.

Schoenberg - Fundamentals of Musical Composition

Wallace Berry - Form in Music; Structural Functions in Music

Leon Stein - Structure & Style

The most used books.

Schoenberg's Fundamentals will be useful only if you want to write and think like Schoenberg, whose vision imo was extremely narrow. He was interested in theory and methodology more than anything else. The Norton Scores, however, contain examples of music of all periods and styles. It is not a manifesto, but rather a compendium of what good composers have done over the years and why.

Schoenberg's Fundamentals will be useful only if you want to write and think like Schoenberg, whose vision imo was extremely narrow. He was interested in theory and methodology more than anything else. The Norton Scores, however, contain examples of music of all periods and styles. It is not a manifesto, but rather a compendium of what good composers have done over the years and why.

While I agree with you about studying scores, I disagree about Schoenberg. If you want to know the theory, you want to read that book. It won't make you write or think like anybody but yourself, it will simply explain how forms work.

With what has been said: the best method is...to practice what you want you do.

Sorry to bump this old thread, but I have Schoenberg's book and I have learned a lot from it. The problem is some of the examples I have no idea which ones he is referring to. For example, on page 120, in the middle of the page, he refers to Op. 2/2-IV (m. 1-16). What the hell page is that on? If he says Ex. 36 a, I can flip through and find it with no problem. Also, for another example, in Chapter three Ex. 21, he shows an example of how to reduce and omit features from a motive, but does not mention what the original motive was. He does that a lot in the first few chapters.

If anyone has this book and knows what I'm talking about, I'd like some help.

To interpolate: Op.2/2-IV(ms1-16) means this:

opus 2: the second major work

IV: fouth movement

first 16th ms.