Late-romantic symphonies anticipated film scores by reducing musical form to melody potpourri

Evidence

The favoured compositions of mass culture are specifically selected in accordance with this trend. The best sellers here are the late romantics like Tchaikovsky and Dvorak for whom the symphonic form is simply a face. They already weakened symphonic form by turning it into a pot-pourri of melodies arbitrarily connected with one another. The symphonic schema no longer performs any real function here and all that is left of the dynamic form of the symphony, antiphonic motivic elaboration and thematic development, are the interludes of noisy excitement which unpleasantly interrupt the potpourri until it is resumed as if nothing had happened, as if everything could begin all over again. — Theodor W. Adorno, The Culture Industry, 117

Categorization

Category: Factual Claims

• XREF: Directly extends Adorno’s jazz critique (from earlier chapters) and gives the reader a concrete historical case to test on soundtrack/score analysis.