Arrangement extracts popular fragments and destroys a work’s symphonic unity

Evidence

Vulgarization and enchantment, hostile sisters, dwell together in the arrangements which have colonized large areas of music. The practice of arrangement extends to the most diverse dimensions. Sometimes it seizes on the time. It blatantly snatches the reified bits and pieces out of their context and sets them up as a potpourri. It destroys the multilevel unity of the whole work and brings forward only isolated popular passages. The minuet from Mozart’s E Flat Major Symphony, played without the other movement, loses its symphonic cohesion and is turned by the performance into an artisan-type genre piece that has more to do with the ‘Stephanie Gavotte’ than with the sort of classicism it is supposed to advertise. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 85

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• SHARE: The Mozart minuet yanked from its symphony becoming an artisan genre piece is a precise example a musicologist friend would enjoy.
• SEED: The ‘hostile sisters’ of vulgarization and enchantment is a lens for analyzing modern remixes, TikTok audio snippets, and orchestral-pop mashups.