Twelve-tone technique is domination of nature within music

Evidence

Twelve-tone technique is a system of domination over nature within music. It corresponds to a longing present from the beginnings of the bourgeois period: to `grasp’ whatever sounds appear and set them in order, dissolving the magical essence of music in human reason … Conscious disposition over the material provided by nature has two aspects: it is the emancipation of humanity from natural necessity within music, and the subjection of nature to human purposes … However, the oppressive moment of subjugating nature reverses itself and turns against the subjective autonomy and freedom in whose name domination over nature has been achieved. — Rolf Wiggershaus, The Frankfurt School, 1269

Categorization

Category: Definitional Content

Related

• Adorno read twelve-tone music through humanity’s domination of nature (similarity 0.89)
• Adorno saw twelve-tone technique as domination over nature that rebounds against its creators (similarity 0.85)
• Music represents Adorno’s utopia of reconciled mind and nature (similarity 0.83)
• Adorno reversed himself, presenting twelve-tone technique as necessary progress after denouncing it as domination. (similarity 0.78)