Philosophy of New Music Theodor W. Adorno Translated, edited, and with an introduction by Robert Hullot-Kentor Table of Contents		$34.95 Cloth/jacket ISBN: 0-8166-3666-4 ISBN-13: 978-0-8166-3666-2
A publishing event—a revealing new translation of Theodor Adorno's manifesto of musical radicalism. In 1947 Theodor Adorno, one of the seminal European philosophers of the postwar years, announced his return after exile in the United States to a devastated Europe by writing Philosophy of New Music. Intensely polemical from its first publication, every aspect of this work was met with extreme reactions, from stark dismissal to outrage. Even Schoenberg reviled it. Despite the controversy, Philosophy of New Music became highly regarded and widely read among musicians, scholars, and social philosophers. Marking a major turning point in his musicological philosophy, Adorno located a critique of musical reproduction as internal to composition itself, rather than as a matter of the reproduction of musical performance. Consisting of two distinct essays, “Schoenberg and Progress” and “Stravinsky and Reaction,” this work poses the musical extremes in which Adorno perceived the struggle for the cultural future of Europe: between human emancipation and barbarism, between the compositional techniques and achievements of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. In this completely new translation—presented along with an extensive introduction by distinguished translator Robert Hullot-Kentor—Philosophy of New Music emerges as an indispensable key to the whole of Adorno's illustrious and influential oeuvre. Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was the leading figure of the Frankfurt school of critical theory. He authored more than twenty volumes, including Negative Dialectics (1982), Philosophy of Modern Music (1980), Kierkegaard (1989), Dialectic of Enlightenment (1975) with Max Horkheimer, and Aesthetic Theory (1997). Robert Hullot-Kentor has taught at Harvard and Stanford universities and written widely on Adorno. He has translated various works of Adorno, including Aesthetic Theory and Kierkegaard, and the author of Things Beyond Resemblance: Collected Essays on Theodor W. Adorno. 240 pages | 5 7⁄8 x 9 | 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS Translator’s Acknowledgments Translator’s Introduction: Things beyond Resemblance "I still hear" and the Question of Music Appreciation Imperious Taste/Inflicted Souvenir The Universal Musical Prodigy Sounding Allegiance and Musical Quality Unpublishable Manifesto Marginal Translation Lawfulness and Regression Tendency of the New Blares Silently Note on the Translation Philosophy of New Music Preface Introduction New Conformism False Musical Consciousness "Intellectualism" Radical Music Not Immune Antinomy of New Music Loss of Differentiation On Method Schoenberg and Progress Jolting of the "Work" Tendency of the Material Schoenberg's Criticism of Semblance and Play Dialectic of Loneliness Loneliness as Style Expressionism as Objectivity [Sachlichkeit] Total Organization of the Elements Total Development The Idea of Twelve-Tone Technique Musical Domination of Nature Reversal into Unfreedom Twelve-Tone Melos and Rhythm Differentiation and Coarsening Harmony Instrumental Timbre Twelve-Tone Counterpoint Function of Counterpoint Form The Composers Avant-Garde and Doctrine Break from the Material Music as Knowledge Stance toward Society Stravinsky and the Restoration Authenticity Intentionlessness and Sacrifice The Hand Organ as Primordial Phenomenon The Rite of Spring and African Sculpture Technical Elements in The Rite of Spring Rhythm Identification with the Collective Archaism, Modernism, Infantilism Permanent Regression and Musical Form The Psychotic Aspect Ritual Alienation as Objectivity Fetishism of Means Depersonalization Hebephrenia Catatonia Music about Music Denaturation and Simplification Dissociation of Time Pseudomorphism of Painting Theory of Ballet Music Typology of Listening The Deception of Objectivism The Final Trick Neoclassicism Attempts at Expansion Schoenberg and Stravinsky List of Compositions Arnold Schoenberg Alban Berg Anton von Webern Igor Stravinsky Author’s Note to the Fifth Edition (1969) “Misunderstandings”: Adorno’s Response to the Commentary on Philosophy of New Music (1950) Publication History Notes Index