The New Music. Theodor W. Adorno

LECTURE 3

      Contrapuntal corner points; the ‘energetic’ idea of counterpoint; op. 7 (continued) – Interpretation and shaping – Relationship of two contrapuntal passages to each other – ‘Axial rotation’ (II) – The unification of relatively independent voices; determinate negation – Form as the result of counterpoint; op. 7 (conclusion) – Shortening and balance – op. 9 Chamber Symphony

       LECTURE 4

      Pierrot lunaire, transition to the twelve-note technique – The ‘roots’ of counterpoint: the need for polyphony and integration – Dodecaphonic counterpoint as a mediation of these aspects, unity within diversity – Model: ‘Der Mondfleck’ from Pierrot lunaire; the transition to the twelve-note technique as an ‘organic necessity’

       Criteria of New Music (1957)

       LECTURE 1

      Method – Fixed values or relativism – The dialectical approach – Immanent critique – The concept of judgements of taste in Kant – The objectivity of aesthetic judgements and the immanent ‘correctness’ of the matter – Against pluralism of aesthetic judgement – The attitude of musical historicism – How can one actually formulate the question of the musical criterion? – Aesthetic questions are technical questions, questions of procedure – Once again: ‘The Aging of the New Music’, the dialectic of the progress of artistic rationality – The relationship between science and art; aesthetic necessity and ‘effect without cause’

       LECTURE 2

Critique of definition, the concept of musical sense – The concept of the development – Misunderstandings of the concept of musical sense, the so-called poetic idea – Problematics of categories of sense, Dilthey – Sense and senselessness historically mediated – Discussion with Eduard Steuermann about the Leonore Overtures, the stringency of the work of art – Discussion: can there be several solutions to a problem? – Discussion about Hindemith – Discussion about Schoenberg’s supposed calculation errors in Accompanying Music for a Film Scene – Conversation about it with Gertrud Schoenberg – Spiritual content and subjective reception – The concept of musical material – Discussion with Erich Doflein about the polemic against Hindemith

       LECTURE 3

      The question of musical quality, the formal level – Primitivity and complexity; inadequacy of technical categories – Craft and control over material – The danger of entire layers of composition withering away through a fixation on craft – Pierre Boulez, new characters and technical correlates – Originality – Misconceptions about originality – The intensification of the problem: the aim of uniqueness today – Convention and expression; reception of the twelve-note technique – Discussion about the problem of stylistic inconsistency

       LECTURE 4

      Musical character; danger of rationalization and quantification – Preservation of characters in Boulez and Stockhausen – Two approaches to composition: symphonic type and character-piece type – Schoenberg: the concept of gestalt – Totality – Pointing beyond the gestalt; progression over time – Determination and function – Insistence on the full functional crafting of every detail – The criterion of formal level: abundance of forms – Clarity – The concept of development, musical time – Irreversibility of time – Simultaneity of memory and expectation; balance and homeostasis in Schoenberg

      Vers une musique informelle (1961)

       LECTURE 1

      Personal experiences with the ‘Darmstadt school’ – Musique informelle does not obey outside laws and forms – First tendencies as early as 1910, but not followed up consistently – Critique of ‘expression’ and subjectivity – Progress in control over the material – Loss of tension – Dodecaphony as a consequence of this development, aversion to repetition – Reason for the current controversy, the pitch material – Webern’s demand for as many ‘connections’ as possible; no guarantee of truth content – Freedom and ‘large forms’ – Need for order, the semblance of necessity – Schoenberg: the polarity of the thoroughly organized and the free – Serial and motivic-thematic composition

LECTURE 2

      Serial and motivic-thematic composition (continued) – The relational concept and critique of the element concept – No hypostasis of relation, danger of automation – Serial music accused of being mechanical – The mechanical in traditional music – The possibility of liberation from the mechanical, the concept of time – Hatred of the subject, John Cage and his school – Abstract negation of domination of nature, positivism in music, critique – The concept of musical material – Histoire oblige; the subject of music – Music does not communicate – Reconstruction of aesthetics – Demands on a musique informelle – Musique informelle as anticipation of freedom

       The Function of Colour in Music (1966)

       LECTURE 1

      Colour is historically the ‘latest’ dimension of music – Excursus: Riegl’s conception of artistic will – Qualitative differences between musical dimensions – The twofold meaning of the ‘technical’ in composition – Instrumental ‘realization’ of earlier music (Bach) – The sound of the Classical orchestra, Viennese Classicism (I) – The idea of the balanced sound surface – Infinitude of the string sound – The spiritual dimension of orchestration (Beethoven) – The art of orchestration and differentiation – The idea of humanity and starkness of sound; poverty and abundance in instrumentation – The primacy of thematic-motivic work over Klangfarbenmelodie – Emancipation of the sonic dimension – How does one move beyond tonal instrumentation?

       LECTURE 2

      The Classical orchestra, Viennese Classicism (II); Webern and Berg – The twofold character of constructive instrumentation – Berlioz: the separation of colour from composition – The compositional concept of the melodic and of rhythm – Study of instruments and instrumentation; the functional nature of instrumentation – Problems of instrumentation; relation to the other dimensions of composition – The critics’ catchphrase of ‘brilliant orchestration’ – Critique of instrumentation – Incorporation of colour into composition: Wagner – Tendencies towards disintegration in Strauss, Mahler, Debussy – Rupture of unity, the disenchantment of the orchestra

LECTURE 3

      Refunctioning of sound in the Second Viennese School – The structural change in instrumentation in Schoenberg – Chamber Symphony, op. 9 – Five Orchestral Pieces, op. 16 – Mobility of colour, colours are used like thematic shapes – Change in the function of sound – Antagonistic desiderata: clarity and Klangfarbenmelodie – Erwartung, op. 17 – Die glückliche Hand, op. 18: constructive instrumentation as a technique for large-scale form – Pierrot lunaire, op. 21 – Berg’s Wozzeck – Instrumentational variation – ‘Programming from above’; performance instructions in Berg’s Lyric Suite – Musical interpretation and constructive instrumentation – Colour retains something accidental, it is not absolute – The emancipated sonic dimension and the primacy of imagination – Colour is a function of the other dimensions – Polyphony as a condition for productive instrumentation; voice and sound – Current relevance of the sonic dimension – Unity of construction and colour is unity of something internally differentiated

The Young Schoenberg (1955)

Lecture 1: 31 May 1955

      […]¹ that I was not guided by any music-historical interests. Nor do I