Adorno, amongst other things, was a musicologist, music critic and composer.  He studied composition with Alban Berg, and was intimate with, and influenced by Arnold Schoenberg, the ‘father’ of the twelve tone music or ’serialism’.  I would have liked to upload a few snippets from each man, but unfortunately wordpress doesn’t make this easy to do- this doesn’t really matter, Its not too difficult to find their music on the web- wikipedia is a pretty good place to start.

Adorno’s affiliation with the Second Viennese School is interesting for several reasons. Firstly, this kind of music, (pre-serialism) is atonal, and dissonant,  often making for heavy, if not traumatic listening; its often said that 2oth century orchestral and ‘classical’ music reflects/ed the grimness of life in the 20th century: social fragmentation, industrialisation, and war, representing a kind of aesthetics of despair.  Indeed, Adorno is famous for saying that is was barbaric to write poetry after the holocaust.  Music, and more generally, art is not, or should not be,”  ’entertainment’; in the words of one commentator, “it should hurt and educate”.  

‘Painful education’ is perhaps most evident in Bergs’ Wozzek, based on Georg Büchner’s Woyzeck.  This is not easy listening or causal entertainment; the libretto is deeply depressing, and the music jarringly atonal.  I’d recommend reading Büchner’s play instead,  often hailed as a ’socialist masterpiece’, and which anticipates with uncanny accuracy twentieth century drama’s themes and form’s, even though it was written sometime in the 1830’s.  Werner Herzog’s film adaption is also worth seeing, and Tom Waits’ album Blood Money, inspired by both Wozzek and Woyzeck is also very good, and probably gives the best ‘feel’ for the opera, without having to actually sit through it.

On another note, and reflecting on the  last post, it interesting to note that both Berg and Schoenberg’s music is deeply ‘rational’, even mathematical, reflecting an immense knowledge of musical theory and requires great technical proficiency to execute.  Adorno’s praise for both men is based on the apparent ‘freshness’ and ‘novelty’ of their work, but in a way, this kind of music is little different to that of the high baroque.  In reacting against culture, tradition and social constructions, it requires a deep and appreciation of those very things.  Berg and and Schoenberg were products of the middle class, which gave them their appreciation of art and literature.  It’s also interesting to note that the avant-garde nature of both men’s works was condemned as decayed, bourgeois rubbish by Soviet realists and as decadent, filth by the National Socialists, again, finding its chief audience in the educated middle and upper classes.