Adorno read Schoenberg’s musical revolution as allied with Freud and Kraus

Evidence

I am certain at last that a book on Schoenberg, if I write it, will be extremely importantin terms of its contents as well [i.e. in addition to the good publicity the Institute would gain from it]. As you know, I tend to see Schoenberg’s achievements in the same light as those of Freud and Karl Kraus, and, in the same sense and with the same qualifications, to see his cause as our own. To explicate this would be the main task of the book. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 980 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

In Beethoven, and certainly in Brahms, the unity of the exploration of motifs and themes was achieved in a kind of balance between subjective dynamics and traditionaltonal'language. A subjective organization forces conventional language to speak once again, without intervening to alter it as language. The alteration of the language has been achieved along Romantic-Wagnerian lines at the cost of objectivity and definitiveness in the music itself. This alteration has dissolved the unity of motif and theme in Lieder, and substituted for it the leitmotiv and programme music. Schoenberg himself was the first to discover the principles of universal unity and economy in the new, subjective, emancipated Wagnerian material. His works are evidence of the fact that, the more consistently the nominalism in musical language inaugurated by Wagner is pursued, the more perfectly this language allows itself to be rationally controlled. — <cite>Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1267</cite> (#expands`, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Adorno fused Lukács, Kracauer, and Benjamin to justify Schoenberg’s musical revolution. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 365; Adorno read Schoenberg’s atonality as the rational endpoint of Wagner’s musical nominalism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1267; Adorno placed Schoenberg’s artistic project on par with Freud and Karl Kraus — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 980

Related

• Adorno placed Schoenberg’s artistic project on par with Freud and Karl Kraus (similarity 0.94)
• Adorno read Schoenberg’s atonality as the rational endpoint of Wagner’s musical nominalism (similarity 0.92)
• Adorno fused Lukács, Kracauer, and Benjamin to justify Schoenberg’s musical revolution. (similarity 0.91)
• Adorno overgeneralized Schoenberg’s music as the sole legitimate musical material. (similarity 0.89)
• Adorno’s Vienna years fixed Schoenberg’s music as central to his aesthetics (similarity 0.87)
• Stefan Zweig commissioned Adorno to write a book on Schoenberg (similarity 0.85)
• Adorno’s Philosophy of Modern Music shaped the Frankfurt School’s shared project. (similarity 0.85)
• Adorno read Schoenberg’s twelve-tone technique as demythologizing rationalization. (similarity 0.85)
• Adorno read Schoenberg’s atonality as refusing social compromise. (similarity 0.84)
• Berg taught Adorno composition as part of a quasi-religious Schoenberg school doctrine (similarity 0.82)
• Schoenberg’s school functioned as an authoritative doctrinal community (similarity 0.82)
• Schoenberg rejected Adorno because he lacked technical fluency and prolific creativity (similarity 0.82)
• Schoenberg rejected Adorno as composer and critic despite Adorno’s veneration (similarity 0.81)
• Serial music extended rational organization while dropping Adorno’s subjective complement (similarity 0.81)
• Lukács’s philosophy of history inspired Adorno’s musical criticism in the late 1920s. (similarity 0.81)

Broader Connections

• Adorno placed Schoenberg’s artistic project on par with Freud and Karl Kraus #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 980
• Adorno read Schoenberg’s atonality as the rational endpoint of Wagner’s musical nominalism #expands (0.85) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1267