Is Tonal Harmony by Stefan Kostka and Dorothy Payne considered the premier textbook concerning tonal harmony?

One of them, yes.

Can you name some more of "them" please?

I've seen Aldwell-Schachter, Benward ,Laitz and Ottman used.

Alright thanks a lot, my library only offered the one I listed. Id like to buy a text on it so I wanted to see all my options.

My college required it for Theory I and Theory II. I don't think it's a terribly good textbook. One of the professors didn't even open the book; he just did his thing on the board and explained everything in a clear and understandable way. The required readings were pointless.

After graduation, I went back to the book to look up some information. I must say that the book does not explain concepts very well. So I stopped using it, and it has been gathering dust on the shelf.

Well Ive been working through it for the last couple days, I do agree with you the book does things in a pretty cut and dry way. This is this, this is that. So far though this hasn't really hindered my progress in the book.

In fact, I prefer to have half of my understanding come from myself if that makes sense. For example, when learning the major scale, I would rather just be presented with w w h w w w and be left to figure out how each scale relates to one another. If you are explained everything all the time, you have a tendency to accept only the way you are explained rather than figuring out many ways it could be explained.

Now that isn't a universal example, of course some concepts are much more challenging than the major scale. Also sometimes the way you figure out usually isn't the best, but if it works and gets correctly from point A to point B efficiently, then its alright. That should give you roughly a view of how I like the learning process to be.

I read this book and did all the exercises, and it was a very enlightening experience for me. I have not read any other harmony textbooks, so I can't really compare. One thing I like about Kostka & Payne is that they view the circle of 5ths as the fundamental harmonic progression, and try to explain everything in terms of that. People that I've talked to who learned from other books often don't seem to get that insight. I would eventually like to read another book to get a different perspective, though.