Serial music extended rational organization while dropping Adorno’s subjective complement

Evidence

Not just the pitch of a note but also its length, volume, tone, rhythm, all the elements of compositionelements for which the term parameter', borrowed from physics, became establishedwere now subjected to the serial principle. The aspect that had distinguished the revolutionary’ Schoenberg from the reactionary' Stravinsky, according to Adorno's Philosophy of Modern Musicthe idea of rational total organization of the total musical material’ was systematically radicalized. The other side of Adorno’s apparently paradoxical definition was ignored: that the only rational objectivity that was still possible for the modern work of art was only possible, in any significant sense, as a product of subjectivity. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 2190

Categorization

• DEFINE: Explains the origin of the term ‘parameter’ in music and how serialism radicalized Schoenberg’s rational organization.
• XREF: connects to: Adorno redefined musical material as untamed sounds beyond grasp — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1272; Adorno saw Young Music and serialism as complementary objectivisms crushing the subject — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 2192; Adorno read Schoenberg’s atonality as the rational endpoint of Wagner’s musical nominalism — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School: Its History,…, 1267 (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Adorno read Schoenberg’s atonality as the rational endpoint of Wagner’s musical nominalism #expands (0.75) — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1267
• Adorno read twelve-tone music through humanity’s domination of nature #corroborates (0.72)