The author of this work, the son of the noted musician, Karl Klauser, was one of the most profound, original and philosophical of American musical thinkers. He was born in 1854, and died in 1907. Stated as understandably as possible, his contention was that our harmonic system is really founded upon the tones embraced in the notes used in proceeding diatonically from the dominant to the seventh above (in the key of C--, G, A, B, C, D, E, F), rather than upon the tonic scale. According to his theories the harmony systems of the past are all in error. The way of the innovator is always hard, particularly an innovator with the sincerity and profundity of Julius Klauser. Whether his system is right or not, he has not, so far as our information goes, left a work which could be placed in the hands of the average student of harmony and lead to a practical knowledge of the workings of harmony and composition. Perhaps if Klauser had lived longer, he might have accomplished this. The writer of this review has taken the greatest possible interest in Klauser's writings, but he does not advise anyone but the most earnest and most advanced students to read them. To the musically uninitiated they can only bring confusion.
-Etude: The Music Magazine, Volume 28 [1910]