Philosophy of new music

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Philosophy of New Music is an early publication by Theodor W. Adorno , which he wrote during his American emigration as “an extended excursus on the dialectic of the Enlightenment ” (preface). It was published in 1949 by Verlag JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck) , Tübingen, as his first book publication in post-war Germany and is considered to be his main work in music philosophy . It juxtaposes two extreme possibilities of composing in the 20th century: that of Arnold Schönberg and that of Igor Stravinsky .

content

The book consists of an introduction and two parts. The first part, “Schönberg and Progress”, was written in 1940/41, the second part, “Stravinsky and the Restoration”, was written in 1947.

In the introduction, Adorno addresses a radical process of autonomization in modern music, which he interprets as a reaction to the expansion of the cultural industry . The musical avant-garde withdraws from the commercialized music business by renouncing all aesthetic conventions. The analysis carried out in the two main chapters focuses on the term “material”, which describes the entirety of musical means. Adorno understands the material as a “ sedimented spirit, a socially preformed one through the consciousness of people ”. Therefore, for him, the composer's engagement with the material is also an engagement with society. The musical material becomes normative in Adorno's understanding, it demands a “canon of the forbidden”: used sounds, techniques and forms that are no longer available to the composer. The material allows, as it were, "instructions [...] to be given to the composer".

In Schönberg's twelve-tone technique , Adorno sees a total rationalization of the musical material, with which he seeks to radically redevelop the artistic possibilities as it happens in the visual arts with the transition from the objective to the abstract. In contrast, Stravinsky's completely undynamic, “mechanical” and “spatialized” compositions represent a step backwards in mastering the material. Stravinsky's musical regression replaces development with repetition, she knows of no memory and no time continuum.

In his American exile, Adorno had made the manuscript of the Schönberg chapter available to Thomas Mann . For his novel Doctor Faustus , Mann adopted many of the thoughts from this chapter and integrated almost literal quotations into the work.

reception

Günter Figal evaluates the book as a first attempt to "comprehensively test and develop" the basic idea of ​​the dialectic of the Enlightenment for the philosophy of art. Joachim Kaiser published the first review in 1951 under the title Music and Catastrophe in the Frankfurter Hefte . Heinz-Klaus Metzger assesses the acceptance of the font as a simultaneously misunderstood and intended pamphlet :

"It was misunderstood as a pamphlet, and precisely because of the provocation of this misunderstanding, it was strategically calculated without any doubt: a single dialectical lightning bolt was supposed to pass through the darkness and, broken into many points, illuminate Schönberg and kill Stravinsky."

expenditure

  • Theodor W. Adorno: Philosophy of the new music . JCB Mohr (Paul Siebeck), Tübingen 1949.
  • Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 12: Philosophy of New Music . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1975.

literature

  • Maurice Blanchot : Ars nova . In: Ders .: Thomas Mann. Encounters with the Demon , edited and translated from French by Marco Gutjahr, Turia + Kant, Vienna / Berlin 2017, pp. 135–147, ISBN 978-3-85132-839-4 .
  • Andreas Kuhlmann: Philosophy of New Music . In: Axel Honneth (Ed.): Key texts of the critical theory . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, pp. 25–29.

Remarks

  1. ↑ This is the chapter heading in the text (p. 127), while the table of contents reads “Stravinsky and the reaction” (p. 5). See Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 12: Philosophy of New Music . 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1990.
  2. ↑ Andreas Kuhlmann: Philosophy of New Music . In: Axel Honneth (Ed.): Key texts of the critical theory . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 26.
  3. ↑ According to Carl Dahlhaus, "Adorno's concept of material implies the entire musical past as confronted by a composer when he begins to work". Carl Dahlhaus: Enlightenment in Music . In: Josef Früchtl, Maria Calloni (ed.): Spirit against the zeitgeist . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1991, p. 125.
  4. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 12: Philosophy of New Music . 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 39.
  5. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 12: Philosophy of New Music . 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 40.
  6. ↑ Gunnar Hindrichs: The progress of the material. In: Richard Klein, Johann Kreuzer, Stefan Müller-Doohm (eds.): Adorno manual. Life - work - effect. Metzler, Stuttgart 2011, p. 53.
  7. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 12: Philosophy of New Music . 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 40.
  8. ^ Günter Figal: Entry Philosophy of New Music . In: Franco Volpi (Hrsg.): Großes Werklexikon der Philosophie . Vol. 1, AK. Kröner, Stuttgart 2004, p. 11.
  9. ↑ Andreas Kuhlmann: Philosophy of New Music . In: Axel Honneth (Ed.): Key texts of the critical theory . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 27.
  10. ^ Theodor W. Adorno: Gesammelte Schriften , Volume 12: Philosophy of New Music . 2nd edition, Frankfurt am Main 1990, p. 151.
  11. ↑ Andreas Kuhlmann: Philosophy of New Music . In: Axel Honneth (Ed.): Key texts of the critical theory . VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, Wiesbaden 2006, p. 28f.
  12. ^ Günter Figal: Entry Philosophy of New Music . In: Franco Volpi (Hrsg.): Großes Werklexikon der Philosophie . Vol. 1, AK. Kröner, Stuttgart 2004, p. 11.
  13. ↑ Heinz-Klaus Metzger: Remembering not just the anticipation . In: Stefan Müller-Doohm (Ed.): Adorno-Portraits. Memories from contemporaries . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 2007, p. 165.