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M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I
IRASM 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |
Marcus Zagorski
College of Musical Arts
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403
USA
email: mzagor@bgsu.edu
zagorski@stanfordalumni.org
Hearing Beethoven, Truth,
and »New Music« UDC: 78.01
Research Paper
Izvorni znanstveni rad
Received: September 4, 2012
Primljeno: 4. rujna 2012.
Accepted: March 5, 2013
Prihvačeno: 5. ožujka 2013.
49
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IRASM 44 (2013)
** 1
1 1: I
49-56
andI I and »New
M „Za9orsk'' »New Music« Hearin9 Beethoven, Truth,
Music«
lien, sondern als entfaltete Wahrheit, stehen unter einer Art mora
kennenzulernen. Überdies werden sie ihnen etwas gewähren, was
nicht einmal verlangen: eine Einführung in die neue Musik aus d
heraus, die im Zeitalter der Tonalität geschrieben wurde.« The
Süddeutsche Zeitung (22.12.1964) and is reprinted in Theodor W. ADO
Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984, 535-538, h
unless noted otherwise.
50
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M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I ¡rasM 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |
model for so-called »new music«? As Adorno was well aware at the time of writing
in 1964, many composers had been consciously distancing themselves from the
genres, forms, and gestures of tonality. How, then, could they find guidance from
Beethoven, the pillar of the tonal canon? There is no short answer to this question,
for any answer must give an account of Adorno's concept of »new music« and an
account of his understanding of Beethoven. Brief accounts of both follow in this
article, and I argue that Adorno's theory of »new music« is profoundly indebted to
his image of Beethoven. In order to make this argument, I outline Adorno's theory
of new music, and then consider his image of Beethoven- an image that, despite
the philosopher's erudition, bears a remarkable resemblance to a popular image of
the composer. Finally, the question about truth, suggested by the first sentence
quoted above, is addressed; for the truth Adorno claimed this recording was able to
reveal is the same truth embodied in so-called »new music.«
What, then, is new music? It is, to begin with, a topic to which Adorno devoted
a great deal of ink: in addition to the book Philosophie der neuen Musik and numerous
essays, lectures, and radio addresses with »new music« in their titles, one must also
consider his writings on twentieth-century composers and compositional techniques,
among which the late essay on Stravinsky and »Vers une musique informelle« merit
special attention. The breadth of this literature followed from the breadth of the
concept: »new music,« for Adorno, was not merely contemporary music. New
music differed from other music not according to the period in which it was
composed, but according to the intention with which it was composed and the
expressive character he claimed it embodied. Or, as he stated succinctly in an essay
titled »Music and New Music« from 1960, »the distinction between new music and
music in general [is] the distinction between good and bad music as such.«2
It is nothing less than the distinction between good music and bad music.
And not only the distinction between good and bad, but the distinction, also,
between good and evil: among the many threads in this weave, and surely the
most important, is the ethical thread. The appeal to ethics animated nearly every
page of Adorno's writings about new music, and this appeal inspired a fervency
and conviction that was perhaps better suited to sermons. For, indeed, it was the
salvation of the individual that was at stake, as Adorno noted tersely in another
essay on new music. »Above all,« he wrote, »the goal of new music must be the
complete liberation of the human subject.«3 That is a program that bears repeat-
2 Th. W. ADORNO, Music and New Music, Quasi una fantasia, trans. Rodney Livingstone, Lon-
don and New York: Verso, 1998, 249-268, here 268. See also Th. W. ADORNO, Musik und Neue Musik,
Quasi una fantasia ( Gesammelte Schriften 16), ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978,
476-492.
3 Th. W. ADORNO, Classicism, Romanticism, New Music, Sound figures, trans. Rodney Living-
stone, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, 106-122, here 121. See also Th. W. ADORNO, Klassik,
Romantik, Neue Musik, Klangfiguren (Gesammelte Schriften 16), ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 1978, 126-144.
51
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IRASM 44 (2013)
* * '' 1:I49-56
and I and »New
^.Zagors' »NewMusic«
tí: Music« Hearing Beethoven, Truth,
52
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M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I iras M 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |
53
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IRASM 44 (2013t 1 ' 1* 49-56 I M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth,
(2013t 1 ' 1* 49-56 I and »New Music«
music, 'The Man Who Freed Music'.«16 And this point takes us back to Adorno's 1964
review of the Beethoven symphonies, the final paragraph of which forms the start-
ing point for the present article. There Adorno reviewed a recording of the complete
symphonies, conducted by René Leibowitz and released in 1961. This recording's
connection to Busoni's assessment of Beethoven, and to a greater part of the recep-
tion history of the composer, is evident in the liner notes printed with the original set
of vinyl LPs. For there, printed in bold capital letters, is a heading that would reas-
sure even the most demanding consumer: »BEETHOVEN: THE MAN WHO SET
MUSIC FREE.«17 Is this, perhaps, the truth that Adorno found in this recording?18
One of the questions posed at the beginning of this article has been answered: the
question as to why Beethoven figured as a model for Adorno's theory of new music.
The answer has led us now to the other question: that is, how could a Beethoven
symphony, or a particular interpretation of a Beethoven symphony, reveal truth?
A symphony or its recording cannot really reveal truth, as noted already.
Adorno, ever the theologian, used truth claims to lend his personal preferences
the irrefutability of the absolute. But he did try to support his claims with argu-
ments, and this is where his writings become interesting, or at least revealing. His
review of the Leibowitz recordings suggested, though never explicitly stated,
where one might find the truth said to be present. He found the conductor's
strength in his ability to convey a nuance befitting chamber music: »the saying
about creating chamber music with an orchestra is, this one time, no cliché.«19 He
praised the clarity of interpretations that revealed the structure of the music, and
he argued that such adherence to the musical text, including the choice of tempo,
restored the Beethoven symphonies after one-hundred years of abuse suffered at
the hands of conductors interested only in virtuosic exhibitionism. He particu-
larly liked the interpretations of the early symphonies in this collection- above all
the Third and Fourth- and the Sixth Symphony, »the end of which,« he wrote,
»achieves an effect of true humanity.«20
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M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I ¡rasivi 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |
Like Busoni, then, and others, Adorno pointed to the human element in this
music. This human element resided partly, one can infer, in what Adorno claimed
was of primary significance in the recording: its ability to present a corrective to
the prevalent evils of musical commodification.21 In this respect the recording
offered the kind of hope that was also offered by his concept of new music: it
preserved a space from which the voice of the subject could pierce through the
gloom of commercialization and standardization that covers our world and
controls our lives. Therein lay the truth content. But, ironically, therein also lay the
commercial value of the recording. For, as truth rears its irrefutable head, it
provokes the question as to whether it followed from the qualities of the record-
ing, or if it merely served to help sell a recording conducted by Adorno's friend
Leibowitz. Sure, there are many recordings of the Beethoven symphonies, Adorno
seemed to say, but this one is better, and it allows listeners to hear the works as
nothing less than »unfolded truth.«
Adorno knew Leibowitz and admired his work as a composer, conductor,
teacher, and author. Leibowitz, who had studied with Webern and known Schoen-
berg, is characterized in Adorno's review as »the true carrier of the tradition of the
Viennese School. . . .He translates the musical insights and experiences of the Schoen-
berg School into performances of universally known, authentic works of the past.«22
Even if such questionable claims were true, they would rankle none the less. For
they provide yet another example of Adorno's tendency to invoke the concept of
truth (and authenticity) to support his cause. And this might lead one to question
the extent to which Adorno's music philosophy was a sophisticated argument for
the supremacy of his own cultural background, or an effort to rehabilitate the
cultural goods that had been misused in the years of National Socialism.
Adorno felt called to defend certain products of his cultural heritage, in no
small part, precisely because they had been soiled by their association with Nazi
propaganda. And he chose to hear Beethoven in a way that restored the human
element a pre-war Bildungsbürger was taught resided therein. He theorized the
concept of »new music« in a similar way, and his theory has had lasting effects on
the history of composition, especially in Germany.23 But if his ideas seem less
21 This new series of Beethoven symphonies, Adorno stressed in the opening of the review, repre-
sented »ein Korrektiv des herrschenden kommerziellen Unwesens.« Th. W. ADORNO, Beethoven im
Geist, 535.
22 »René Leibowitz. . .der eigentliche Träger der Überlieferung der Wiener Schule in Paris. . ..Er über-
trägt die musikalischen Erkentnisse und Erfahrungen der Schönbergschule auf die Wiedergabe allgemein
bekannter, authentischer Werke der Vergangenheit.« Th. W. ADORNO, Beethoven im Geist, 535-536.
23 As recently as 2009, the composer and theorist Claus Steffen Mahnkopf claimed that »New
Music should be understood. . .as a consequence of something that began with Beethoven: the compo-
sitional self-determination of the musical subject out of freedom.« Claus Steffen MAHNKOPF, Musi-
cal Modernity from Classical Modernity up to the Second Modernity- Provisional Considerations,
Search Journal for New Music and Culture 4 (Spring 2009) www.searchnewmusic.org/index4.html
(accessed 15. 08. 2012).
55
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IRASM 44 (2013) * 1 1:49-56 I M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth,
* 1 I and »New Music«
Sažetak
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