Philosophy of New Music by Theodor W.

Adorno; Robert Hullot-Kentor; Roll over Adorno: Critical Theory, Popular Culture, Audiovisual Media by Robert Miklitsch Review by: Justin Schell Cultural Critique, No. 70 (Fall, 2008), pp. 201-207 Published by: University of Minnesota Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25475493 . Accessed: 09/01/2013 01:39
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PHILOSOPHY OFNEW MUSIC

BY ROBERT BYTHEODOR W. ADORNO; TRANSLATED HULLOT-KENTOR
University of Minnesota Press, 2007

ADORNO ROLL OVER

MEDIA CRITICAL POPULAR AUDIOVISUAL CULTURE, THEORY, BY ROBERT MIKLITSCH
State University of New York Press, 2006 Justin Schell

With

Adorno's

no work of the exception of "On Popular Music," perhaps critical aesthetics of music has received more attention, both com and derisive, than his Philosophie der neuen Musik, laudatory War II Adorno's end after the of World three years during pleted just exile As detailed in Los Angeles. was music for Adorno elsewhere, in Philosophie der neuen Musik and a source of knowledge and truth, as well as the artform lamentable victims, for social transformation. here is understood Music, espe as "contemporary art the brightness of the

one of modernity's most that holds the greatest potential cially music"), world new music was (which to illuminate

"only by convicting

of constellations (16). Seeing "particular as to the the social best elucidate tasks" (33) way compositional specific a detailed, new in if of and Adorno music, engages potential position sometimes short-sighted, discussion of the works of Arnold Schoen

of its own darkness"

the two figures that best exemplified the berg and Igor Stravinsky, of new music at that historical and potential social position juncture. traces In "Schoenberg and Progress," Adorno the nega densely of the atonal and twelve-tone music tive and affirmative characteristics of Schoenberg, Webern. While Progress" as well Adorno's as his verdict easily, students Alban Berg and Anton in "Schoenberg composes
of Minnesota

von and his

of advancement

is not reached

in the end, Schoenberg

2008

Cultural Critique

70?Fall

2008?Copyright

Regents

of the University

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202

REVIEWS | BOOK

twelve-tone doing ness" culture, itself.

music

"as if 12-tone

so, as "representative (94), places his music

technique did not exist" of the most advanced aesthetic opposition of modernity rationality dialectical

(85) and conscious

in

in diametrical

to the dominant against of

utilizing In doing so, Schoenberg brings Adorno's in relation to modernity his music to a halt. Adorno

the instrumental

tracing

is not nearly as dialectical in the more overtly polemical His argument turns on what he sees "Stravinsky and the Restoration." as Stravinsky's such excising of history. In compositions purposeful as The Rite of Spring, with its paganistic of death, history is celebrations erased in favor of a musical and social primitivism. also Stravinsky erases history the of of music, appropriation previous through styles most in his "neoclassical" characterized notably period, by the re embrace of tonality, as well as the wholesale of previous quotation works. Through both of these compositional [procedures], Stravinsky's thus masks music the sedimented that has accompanied suffering in modernity. the history of music For Adorno, the subject itself is liquidated fascism, is tantamount in Stravinsky's work, as the music as it does "not with the victim but with identifying contemporary in Nazi bodies for Adorno's to proto the anni readers? camps? rhetorical

(110). Hindsight provides hilating authority" who now know of the millions of liquidated an understanding, though not a justification,
exaggerations.1

For over three decades, English readers seeking to grapple with the ideas of Philosophic der neuen Musik had to rely on Anne G. Mitch is this edition Blomster's translation.2 Unfortunately, ell and Wesley to misrenderings ranging from idiomatic missteps of crucial phrases and concepts.3 It is only with the recent publication translation of Philosophic der neuen Musik of Robert Hullot-Kentor's more accurate and faithful translation has been that a substantially often inaccurate, achieved.4 corrects Indeed, Hullot-Kentor's the inaccuracies even radical, character new translation of the old translation of Philosophic not only expertly the but also allows der neuen Musik to

antagonistic,
re-emerge.

The changes begin with the title, rendered Philosophy ofNew Music, rather than Philosophy ofModern Music. For Adorno, music had "come to be music at all" it had to be, both in composi to the point where, tion and its import, "utterly new" (xxiii). The semantic shift between

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REVIEWS| 203 BOOK

"modern"

and "new" evinces

antagonistic with the world rectly likens Philosophy ofNew Music, with "its stark 'for' and 'against,'" and to a political manifesto (xix). This is in sharp contrast toMitchell Blomster's ments. translation, which blunts the work's the antagonistic Instead of evacuating and Blomster it. For instance, Mitchell Hullot-Kentor barbs, sharpens as as in the title of the introduc often translate "radical" "modern," tion's fourth section, translation, the strikingly "Radikale Musik it is rendered sharpest critical state sting of Adorno's pointed

a conception of the new as more openly cor inwhich it finds itself.5 Hullot-Kentor

nicht gefeit." In Hullot-Kentor's as "Radical Music Not Immune," rather than Music "Attitude

of "Schoenberg and Progress," the section "Stance Toward Society," with the Hullot-Kentor entitles a more much mil almost antagonistic, key word, Stellung, connoting the final section of the text, not only does Hullot-Kentor give a in Adorno's dense of the 1973 prose degree famously clarity lacking but also reinvigorates the sense of agency that Adorno translation ascribes writes:
How ity are disturbed even where no life is today empirical from if its trembling need reaches, and its rigid in a sphere that of the harrowing what they

Unprotected." Towards Society,"

less accurate?"Modern less antagonistic?and instead of Mitchell and Blomster's Similarly,

itant sense of position. Turning to the body

tomusic

in the original

text. At the end of the preface, Adorno

fundamentally reflected suppose and of

people norm, expect

sanctuary provides that indeed only redeems

the pressures by

its promise

refusing

it. (5)6

This new rendering, personal

How

translation has

ismuch

clearer and more

direct

than the 1973 of

which pronouns.
disordered

the potential

to lose a reader

in its myriad

are reflected ity a field in which sure

even

denying

of horrifying to them what

is life today at its very roots if its and rigid shuddering in a field no longer affected by empirical necessity, human to find a sanctuary from the pres beings hope but which fulfills its promise to them norms, only by they expect of it. (xiii)

In addition translation

to the significant gains of verstort as "disturbed"

in readability, Hullot-Kentor's rather than "disordered" more

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REVIEWS | BOOK

accurately character, The

reflects Adorno's its irrationality force of Adorno's

of modernity's conception schizophrenic as the most advanced disguised rationality.

reversals, such as the one pithy dialectical that ends the above statement, is sharpened by Hullot-Kentor through out the text. For instance, in the 1973 translation, music is conceived of as a "case study in expression" that is "no longer expressive" (49); in the passage, Ausdruckproto Hullot-Kentor translates the key word as rather than "case study in expres coll, "depositional expression" sion," giving music amuch more active cultural character, rather than the more sterile and sedate never "case study" (42).7 Such gains come at the expense of oversimplifying in clarity, Adorno's

furthermore, dense, With

dialectical

thought. masterful the place translation, readers can now more

Hullot-Kentor's

accurately debate cultural situation.

accuracy should not be the main

of Philosophy ofNew Music within today's its the after sixty years original publication, Nearly and Stravinsky of Schoenberg of Adorno's characterization focus of one's

with the Philosophy engagement there ofNew Music. Within both sections of the Philosophy ofNew Music, an more a are moments like and artifact that read less like manifesto from a bygone an exaggerated era. Adorno concludes "Schoenberg and Progress" with as "win music Schoenberg's

ning

the language used to discuss as the manifestation of cultural music par regression Stravinsky's as "almost corny deemed by Hullot-Kentor excellence is appropriately amateurishness" (173 n. 30). psycho-analytic freedom What character?the in this book is its negative diagnostic to In letter. rather the than explicate attempting spirit resonance with the present moment, however, Hullot-Kentor worthwhile is more

flourish characterizing for mankind" (96), while

Adorno's

Adorno's the position of an Adorno reproducing apologist, adopts more egregious As an example, Hullot-Kentor argues exaggerations. and given is truly the snake oil of adolescence, that "commercial music broad music itself?its the absurdity of what the bottle dispenses?the were it not meant to salve the most legit application would be comic is music a Such false has" needs imate and urgent (xv). person opposed little discussion of what there is to "actual musical yet experience," and little consideration such experience, constitute actually might

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BOOK REVIEWS| 205

given which At

to the complex dialectics of production music ismanifestly subject.

and

consumption

to

is Robert Miklitsch, the opposite end of the spectrum and his recent book Roll Over Adorno: Critical Theory, Popular Culture, Audiovi is "absurdly out of touch with the times" like a frozen Madame Tussaud wax figure (44). Underlying this ver is a false assumption, "stands for dict, however, namely, that Adorno sual Media.8 For him, Adorno and all things classical, and espe including as opposed to his "wild, dialectical other," Chuck Berry, cially music," of the unruly child of American (xviii). representative popular music as the supreme constructs Miklitsch his strawman Adorno apologist European high for bourgeois Western criti high culture, which, given the intensely in Philosophy of New Music and elsewhere, cal analysis of art music is a hard conclusion to draw. this book Why tle effort is made Adorno is called Roll Over Adorno to connect the book's The isn't quite clear, since lit and third parts to strength of the book, however, second culture

or the Frankfurt

School.

lies in these sections. post-Screen lyzes how other west

to reposition sound in First, Miklitsch attempts film theory, especially the element of the suture, as he ana to Set It Off, with its strains of Dr. Dre and the soundtrack coast gangsta rap, foregrounds the dynamics of race, gen he wants

to argue for a less overtly politicized his idea of "audiophilia"), in his (specifically of the and in music Quentin reading ambiguous diegetic non-diegetic Tarantino's both the formal Jackie Brown. Finally, Miklitsch explores der, and sexuality. Next, of pleasure conception and cultural Melrose on television of postmodernism shows such as Place and The Sopranos, both in its libidinal economy formula facets and cita Sopranos

tions by Fredric Jameson as well as the formal self-reflexive tional devices that structure his detailed analyses of specific
shots.

At

the end of the book,

however,

Miklitsch

to drive deep end, feeling the necessity in an attempt to once and for all implode the distinctions between a and In low. of discussion the he likens high Buffy Vampire Slayer, a to zombie, Adorno every night on the passive, "feeding voraciously blood-warm

to go off the a stake in the heart of Adorno

seems

like Buffy "on the corpus of mass culture," laying victims such exaggerated notions of Adorno's high altar of Kultur" (195).While

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REVIEWS | BOOK

attitude

popular culture are unfortunately legion, Miklitsch to be one of the most rhetorically just happens graphic.9 A more reasonable middle ground in recent work can be found in towards of essays edited by Berthold Hoeckner, entitled Appari on Adorno and Twentieth-Century Music, which as well as music theorist by Richard Leppert, of Adorno in his Music and Urban Geogra both of the virtues and vices of interrogation identi that Adorno

the collection tions: New includes Adam

Perspectives recent work

Krims's

discussion

phy.10 These and other works take account as well as Adorno's of Philosophic der neuen Musik, more modernity fies in Philosophy

generally. Many of the problems of New Music have most certainly not rolled over in the exag six decades; many have gotten worse instead of better. While New Music often apocalyptic character of the Philosophy of gerated, seem overblown to contemporary readers, so many of Adorno's of contemporary culture still ring true today. musical

may

diagnoses

Notes
1. For more Side on the link between of Modern Adorno, (New Music," Philosophy York: Seabury Philosophic 12, Gesammelte Philosophy of Minnesota pointedly see Richard and fascism, Taruskin, Stravinsky New Republic 5 (September 1988): 28-34. ofModern Press, Music, 1973). (Frankfurt am Main: Suhr trans. Anne G. Mitchell and

"The Dark 2. Wesley 3. kamp, 4.

Theodor Blomster Theodor 1976). See

W. Adorno, also vol.

der neuen Musik Schriften. Music, 2007). "a museum

Theodor

Adorno, University

of New Press, remarks,

trans.

Robert

Hullot-Kentor

(Minneapolis: 5. As

Hullot-Kentor

of modern

art would

considerably
museum of 6. Wie seine reicht, vor dem einlost, Starre

fail the claim of its appellation

'new von dort art'" Grund noch Bereich, (xxiii). auf verstort wird, ist Leben wo

if it insisted on being redubbed a

heute, wenn sein Not gewahre Erzittern mehr und hinein

reflectiert von dem

keine

in einem Druck indem

7. Musik 8. Robert

Asyl an sie nur sein Versprechen und das doch der grauenvollen Norm, was es sie von ihm erwarten (11). verweigert, ist nicht "ausdrucksvoll" als Ausdrucksprotokoll (53). langer, Critical Theory, Popular Culture, Audio Roll Over Adorno: Miklitsch, N.Y.: State University given of New Miklitsch's York Press, previous 2006). book, From Hegel

die Menschen

meinen,

empirische es

ihnen

visual Media 9. This

(Albany,

is all the more Towards a General

surprising Economy

to Madonna: University genealogy

Fetishism" (Albany, N.Y.: State of "Commodity traces the conceptual he rigorously of New York Press, 1998), in which School. and the Frankfurt of negation from Hegel through Adorno

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BOOK REVIEWS| 207

10. Berthold

Apparitions: Hoeckner

New

Perspectives

on Adorno 2006); and Krims, (New

and Twentieth-Century Richard Leppert,

Music, Tushed

ed.

(New York: Routledge, Listening, Adam

"Music

to the (Adorno, Edge of Existence' 60 (Spring 2005): 92-133; Critique Adorno," inMusic and Urban

the Question "Marxist

of Hope)," Music Analysis 2007),

Cultural After

Geography

York:

Routledge,

89-126.

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