In this classic work, George Perle argues that the seemingly disparate styles of post-triadic music in fact share common structural elements. These elements collectively imply a new tonality as "natural" and coherent as the major-minor tonality that was the basis of a common musical language in the past. His book describes the foundational assumptions of this post-diatonic tonality and illustrates its compositional functions with numerous musical examples.

The second edition of Twelve-Tone Tonality is enlarged by eleven new chapters, some of which are "postscripts" to earlier chapters—clarifying, elucidating, and expanding upon concepts discussed in the original edition. Others discuss new developments in the theory and practice of twelve-tone tonality, including voice-leading implications of the system and dissonance treatment.

George Perle is a distinguished composer and Professor Emeritus of Music at the City University of New York. His books include Serial Composition and Atonality: An Introduction to the Music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern (Sixth Edition, California, 1991); The Operas of Alban Berg, Volume 1, Wozzeck (California, 1980) and Volume 2, Lulu (California, 1985); and The Listening Composer (California, 1990). He has been a recipient of the Pulitzer Prize and a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

"The precompositional system Perle suggests represents a major intellectual achievement and reveals insights into and a mastery of twelve-tone relationships that anyone might envy."—Bo H. Alphonce, Journal of Music Theory

"Schoenberg would have been fascinated by this book, with its outstanding intellectual vision and its steps towards a reconciliation between notions of tonality and twentieth-century pitch structure."—Jonathan Dunsby, Music and Letters