According to its introduction, this book intends to explain and explain sympathetically the free atonal music of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg. According to its introduction, this is its sole intent, its reason for existing. Its introduction calls the free atonal music of Schoenberg, Webern, and Berg "refractory", difficult to understand. "The Structure of Atonal Music" (the book, in contradistinction to the structure of atonal music, the thing) is not at all difficult to understand, though, because, in fact, it teaches you nothing whatsoever about the free atonal music of Schoenberg, Berg, and Webern. It doesn't require you to be able to read music (though it purports to require you to and is stuffed with examples in musical notation that are referred to in the text and never transcribed into any other kind of notation) because it teaches you nothing whatsoever about music. If you want to kid yourself, rose-colored glasses are cheaper.