Like so many other classical music lovers, musicians, and bloggers, I too am impressed by the new book by Alex Ross, “The Rest is Noise”, and am enjoying this perceptive, engaging and big spirited work. But I would like to comment on a suggestion or appraisal made in the book concerning the deep difficulties a listener faces with Schoenbergian atonality — and I don’t dispute for a second that many fair minded listeners have difficulties with Schoenberg and his atonal colleagues and progeny. Schoenberg understood this as well.