Schoenberg rejected Adorno because he lacked technical fluency and prolific creativity

Evidence

Although it was Berg he was attracted to, it was Schoenberg, with all his authority, who was the decisive composer for Adorno, the one who seemed to be practising precisely what Adorno had demanded in one of his first pieces of music criticism: `It is only possible to outgrow the ego by starting from the ego … There is no objective canopy surrounding us; we have to build our home ourselves.’ It must have been all the more sobering an experience for the enthusiastic twenty-two-year-old, therefore, not to receive any recognition from Schoenberg. Adorno was far from being a prolific artist driven towards creativity, and he was still clumsy in technical analysis, which the Schoenberg school valued highly. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 297

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Adorno’s broader biography as a philosopher-of-music rather than a practicing composer — the rejection shaped his lifelong outsider stance toward the Second Viennese School. — connects to: Schoenberg rejected Adorno as composer and critic despite Adorno’s veneration — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 297; Adorno overgeneralized Schoenberg’s music as the sole legitimate musical material. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1259; Schoenberg’s circle rejected Adorno’s music and aesthetic criticism

Broader Connections

• Adorno overgeneralized Schoenberg’s music as the sole legitimate musical material. #qualifies (0.80) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1259