Book excerpt: In this text, Allen Shawn puts aside ultimate judgements about Arnold Schoenberg's place in music history to explore the composer's world in a series of linked essays that are searching and suggestive. Approaching Schoenberg primarily from a listener's point of view, Shawn plunges into the details of some of Schoenberg's works while at the same time providing a broad overview of his involvements in music, painting and the history through which he lived.