The New Music. Theodor W. Adorno

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Название The New Music
Автор произведения Theodor W. Adorno
Жанр Философия
Серия
Издательство Философия
Год выпуска 0
isbn 9781509538096



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very little known. But the amazing thing I discovered is that these songs – that is, the one song I know – could genuinely be said to contain the Brahmsian and Wagnerian elements alongside each other, meaning that this aspect of a confrontation between these two separate and opposing schools that Schoenberg discovered in his youth, this confrontation can be traced back to very concrete things, namely stylistic elements that were found in his own work. First I will play you the beginning, where you will immediately see the connection to the Serious Songs by Brahms.12 I will then play you a further extremely Brahmsian passage, and after that one in which the Wagnerian influence – almost like a piano reduction from the Ring – displays itself in an almost touching manner. So it begins like this, and is incidentally in the same D minor as the first of the Four Serious Songs by Brahms [plays ‘Abschied’ [Farewell], Two Songs, op. 1, no. 2], and so on. And then the entire Brahmsian passage […] [plays], and so forth. […] And the Wagnerian passage that follows it goes like this [plays], and so on. So, you can see from this how these elements truly stand alongside each other in an exceedingly honest way. I would like to point out how little Schoenberg – and I think this is very characteristic – how little Schoenberg concealed this. After all, any normal New German composer would have been clever enough, shall we say, to hide such things. But this peculiar Schoenbergian sincerity or naïveté, whatever you wish to call it – and Schoenberg was essentially a very naïve composer; the concept of naïveté is a crucial part of him – simply registered these things the way they initially appeared in his own musical conception. Incidentally, Schoenberg always held the view that a younger composer could certainly refer to models if he were truly original, which went completely against the mindset of those who want to throw Wozzeck on the scrap heap as soon as they discover that the long interlude in the third act13 is similar in its overall idea to Siegfried’s funeral music from Götterdämmerung,14 yet have no trouble whatsoever if some so-called modern composer imitates composers of the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries in a laughable and paltry fashion. I have never been able to understand why there should be such oversensitivity on the one side and this indescribably low standard on the other, but perhaps that is because I am one of these evil intellectuals.

      From the sea-green pond

      near the red villa

      beneath the dead oak

      the moon is shining.

      Where her dark image

      gleams through the water,

      a man stands, and draws

      a ring from his hand.

      Three opals glimmer;

      among the pale stones

      float red and green sparks

      and sink.

      And he kisses her,

      and his eyes gleam

      like the sea-green depths:

      a window opens.

      From the red villa

      near