Adorno held that broadcast symphonies neutralize music except for trained specialists

Evidence

All that is left of the symphony is a chamber symphony … The less listeners know about the undistorted original (especially those listeners whom radio pompously invites to take part in musical culture), and the more dependent they are on the sound from the radio, the more powerlessly they fall under its neutralizing effect, without being aware of it … The only people able to use radio sensibly are specialists, for whom the symphony, purified from all the solemnities and fuss of the concert hall, is enlarged, like looking at text through a magnifying glass. Armed with the score and a metronome, they would be able to follow the performance and expose its errors irresistibly. But this is not, of course, the purpose of the thing. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1016 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

The problem of how to make good music appeal to as many people as possible appeared to Adorno, under existing social conditions and in the way that broadcasting was currently organized, to be meaningless. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1014 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adorno argued radio broadcasting neutralizes symphonies while claiming to democratize them. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1016; Making good music widely popular seemed meaningless to Adorno under existing broadcast conditions. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1014

Broader Connections

• Adorno argued radio broadcasting neutralizes symphonies while claiming to democratize them. #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1016
• Making good music widely popular seemed meaningless to Adorno under existing broadcast conditions. #corroborates (0.92) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1014