Delves into Theodor W. Adorno’s lesser-known musical career and successful music criticism.
Theodor W. Adorno is recognized as one of the twentieth century’s most prominent social theorists. Though best known for his association with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, Adorno began his career as a composer and successful music critic.
Comprehensive and illuminating, Orpheus in the Underworld centers on Adorno’s concrete and immediate engagement with musical compositions and their interpretation in the concert hall and elsewhere. Here, Adorno registers his initial encounters with the compositions of the Second Viennese School, when he had yet to integrate them into a broad aesthetics of music. Complementarily essays on Bela Bartók, Jean Sibelius, and Kurt Weill afford insight into his understanding of composers who did not fit neatly into the dialectical schema propounded in the Philosophy of New Music. Additionally, essays on recording and broadcasting show Adorno engaging with these media in a spirit that is no less productive than polemical and focused as sharply on their potentialities as on their shortcomings.
Orpheus in the Underworld offers a captivating exploration of Adorno’s musical compositions, shedding new light on his understanding of influential composers and his critical perspectives on recording and broadcasting.
Theodor W. Adorno is recognized as one of the twentieth century’s most prominent social theorists. Though best known for his association with the Frankfurt School of critical theory, Adorno began his career as a composer and successful music critic.
Comprehensive and illuminating, Orpheus in the Underworld centers on Adorno’s concrete and immediate engagement with musical compositions and their interpretation in the concert hall and elsewhere. Here, Adorno registers his initial encounters with the compositions of the Second Viennese School, when he had yet to integrate them into a broad aesthetics of music. Complementarily essays on Bela Bartók, Jean Sibelius, and Kurt Weill afford insight into his understanding of composers who did not fit neatly into the dialectical schema propounded in the Philosophy of New Music. Additionally, essays on recording and broadcasting show Adorno engaging with these media in a spirit that is no less productive than polemical and focused as sharply on their potentialities as on their shortcomings.
Orpheus in the Underworld offers a captivating exploration of Adorno’s musical compositions, shedding new light on his understanding of influential composers and his critical perspectives on recording and broadcasting.
Table of Contents
1.Bela Bartók
2.Bartók’s Dance Suite
3.Remarks on a Few of Bela Bartók’s Works
4.Metronomization
5.Alban Berg’s Early Songs
6.On The Threepenny Opera
7.On Twelve-Tone Technique
8.Bartók’s Third String Quartet
9.A Polemical Exchange with H. H. Stuckenschmidt on the Topic of Lightheartedness
10.Schoenberg: Von heute auf morgen (I)
11.Schoenberg: Von heute auf morgen (II)
12.Stylistic Development in Schoenberg’s Music
13.Bartók
14.Berg and Webern
15.An Initiate’s Reply
16.Brahms’s Present Importance
17.Schoenberg: Songs and Piano Pieces
18.Strictures on Sibelius
19.Introduction to Schoenberg’s Second Chamber Symphony
20.Schoenberg’s Piano Music
21.Haringer and Schoenberg
22.A Letter to the Editors of the Lippsches Volksblatt Regarding Bela Bartók
23.Klemperer’s Don Giovanni
24.Reflections on Music Criticism
25.Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole
26.Orpheus in the Underworld
2.Bartók’s Dance Suite
3.Remarks on a Few of Bela Bartók’s Works
4.Metronomization
5.Alban Berg’s Early Songs
6.On The Threepenny Opera
7.On Twelve-Tone Technique
8.Bartók’s Third String Quartet
9.A Polemical Exchange with H. H. Stuckenschmidt on the Topic of Lightheartedness
10.Schoenberg: Von heute auf morgen (I)
11.Schoenberg: Von heute auf morgen (II)
12.Stylistic Development in Schoenberg’s Music
13.Bartók
14.Berg and Webern
15.An Initiate’s Reply
16.Brahms’s Present Importance
17.Schoenberg: Songs and Piano Pieces
18.Strictures on Sibelius
19.Introduction to Schoenberg’s Second Chamber Symphony
20.Schoenberg’s Piano Music
21.Haringer and Schoenberg
22.A Letter to the Editors of the Lippsches Volksblatt Regarding Bela Bartók
23.Klemperer’s Don Giovanni
24.Reflections on Music Criticism
25.Televised Music Is a Pointless Rigmarole
26.Orpheus in the Underworld