Radio neutralizes symphonic music for listeners dependent on its broadcast.

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, 266

Categorization

• DEFINE: Adorno’s concept of radio’s ‘neutralizing effect’ on symphonic music — the technological stripping of aura from a reproduced work.
• XREF: connects to: Radio’s technical properties determine music’s social meaning for listeners. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 991; Information and broadcast amplification neutralize the very events they extend. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 293; Adorno argued radio broadcasting neutralizes symphonies while claiming to democratize them. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1016 (+1 more)
• yield-rescued: below the book’s yield-target cutoff, included anyway for connecting to: Radio’s technical properties determine music’s social meaning for listeners. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 991; Information and broadcast amplification neutralize the very events they extend. — Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation, 293; Adorno argued radio broadcasting neutralizes symphonies while claiming to democratize them. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1016 (+1 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno argued radio broadcasting neutralizes symphonies while claiming to democratize them. #corroborates (0.95) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1016
• Adorno held that broadcast symphonies neutralize music except for trained specialists #expands (0.93)