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In December 1945 Thomas Mann wrote a famous letter to Adorno in which he formulated the principle of montage adopted in his novel Doctor Faustus. The writer expressly invited the philosopher to consider, with me, how such a work and I mean Leverkhns work could more or less be practically realized. Their close collaboration on questions concerning the character of the fictional composers putatively late works (Adorno produced specific sketches which are included as an appendix to the present volume) effectively laid the basis for a further exchange of letters.

The ensuing correspondence between the two men documents a rare encounter of creative tension between literary tradition and aesthetic modernism which would be sustained right up until the novelists death in 1955. In the letters, Thomas Mann openly acknowledged his fascinated reading of Adornos Minima Moralia and commented in detail on the Essay on Wagner, which he was as eager to read as the one in the Book of Revelation consumes a book which tastes as sweet as honey. Adorno in turn offered detailed observations upon and frequently enthusiastic commendations of Manns later writings, such as The Holy Sinner, The Betrayed One and The Confessions of Felix Krull. Their correspondence also touches upon issues of great personal significance, notably the sensitive discussion of the problems of returning from exile to postwar Germany.

The letters are extensively annotated and offer the reader detailed notes concerning the writings, events and personalities referred or alluded to in the correspondence. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (1)

Rescuing What is Beyond Hope
Gerhard Schweppenhäuser, Professor of Design, Communication and Media Theory at Wurzburg has written many books expanding on the sociocultural , analytical mission of the Frankfurt School, including two that focus on Adorno, yet to be translated, "Ethics After Auschwitz: Adorno's Negative Moral Philosophy" and "Sociology of Late Capitalism: On the Theory of Community in Theodor W. Adorno". Gerhard Schweppenhäuser's overview of Adorno of 1996 is cgharacterized by both a different mood and a different critical engagement from the more Anglicized studies of Adorno (Jarvis, J. M. Bernstein and Roger Foster - to name three of the best in circulation). Here, the German critic presents the core concepts of Adorno's philosophy and shows the consistency of its development withing three spheres, that of sociology, critical theory and aesthetics. Schweppenhäuser is unique for how he traces Adorno's intellectual journey through a chronological assimilation of ideas that reconstruct a theory of redemption that resonates throughout the entire oeuvre of Adorno's genius. The history of ideas - its life and power - is developed as Adorno integrated it and as Adorno read it, thereby giving the reader of this introduction a very systematic approach which elucidates and defines with the sole intention of identifying a vista upon which to lay our critical gaze. This proves to be a very fruitful exercise with the outstanding influx of insights offered specifically when dealing with Adorno's social criticism and his multi-layered aesthetics. Of note are the treatment of the liquidation of the individual and on the failure of culture, when as on pace with these is the exposition of truth in art which is annexed to the concept of the idea of individuality and the emancipation of society.
This work will stand the test of time, if only for its rendition of topics which have been dealt with separately, here rethreaded into a more comprehensive annotation of Adorno's consummate philosophy. Although Schweppenhäuser is a student of the Frankfurt school he in no way ascribes to any Habermasian or for that matter later version such as those of Lowenthal, Axel Honneth or Albrecht Wellmer. Here we find an unexpurgated and unadulterated read of ideas that afford us a lasting exposition that is unique and extraordinary without seeming pedantic or regurgitated. An excellent work that will prove prodigious and exciting for the uninitiated and seasoned alike.
... Read more

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Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) goes beyond conventional thematic analysis to gain a more complete understanding of Mahler's music through the composer's character, his social and philosophical background, and his moment in musical history. A classic in German from 1960, MAHLER is presented here in a translation that captures the stylistic brilliance of the original. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

A dated classic
Anyone familiar with the growing oevre of Mahler biographies must have come across Adorno's now-classic work. Long considered the authoritative analysis of Mahler's psyche, next to Bruno Walter's first-hand account, this work has not aged well. Clogged with psychoanalytic jargon - yet strangely devoid of the details of Mahler's brief analysis with Freud himself - and weak on the facts, this book should be eclipsed by the far more informative, objective accounts of Mahler's life that have appeared in recent years. Carr's superb volume comes to mind.

provocative and stimulating analysis of Mahler's music
The subject of this classic of musical analysis is the complicated phenomenon ofMahler's music and our response to it.The treatment is philosophical/psychological/analytic and the abstractness and complexity ofthe prose is typical of what one would find in a doctoral thesis, exceptthat it is beautifully written (and Jephcott's translation is itself a workof art).

To introduce the subject let me start with an experience of myown, which is no doubt typical.My introduction to Mahler's music wasthrough the Ninth and Tenth symphonies, which is like starting a mountainclimb already at the top of the mountain.I was 22 and naturally quitebowled over.Imagine my chagrin then at hearing the Fourth for the firsttime -- what is this Haydnesque genre piece that ends with a naive song? How could it have been written by the same composer? As always, though,Mahler's music works on one's subconscious and a few days later I feltcompelled to listen again, and what a revelation this was!The firstmovement, in particular, is absolutely extraordinary.It starts with acurious repeated figure, four flutes in unison playing fifths plus a gracenote, accompanied by bells; this leads directly into the deceptivelyclassical-sounding main theme and reappears throughout the first movement(and also in the last) as a kind of magic talisman with multiple meanings. The main theme is followed by a striking sunny interlude in A, with basesrocking pizzicato in fifths, a scurrying violin figure, and violas trillinglike insects singing in a meadow.I had the impression of an adult andchild walking through a field on a summer day.There's a brief change tothe minor, then some high sustained notes in the flutes.These arerepeated more emphatically by high clarinets, heralding an ominous change,as if the bucolic scene were being overrun by scudding clouds.Things arenot what they seemed, and we don't know where we are!Somehow, we'vegotten lost in a forest inhabited by goblins, spooky though not actuallymenacing. There's a swirling sensation accompanied by dark intimations inthe bass, chromatic muted trumpets, and repeated sustained high chords inthe flutes; the effect is weirdly haunting.After a while a commotion in Cdevelops, drums crescendo, and then suddenly pure terror -- a high trumpetplaying fortissimo.By some process of pure magic, the music suddenlyrecovers its former equanimity and adult and child (who turn out to be oneand the same) find themselves back in the sunny meadow.What sublimeirony, and how true to human nature -- when we see something uncanny thatdisturbs us, we try to put it behind us, forget it.Mahler alone iscapable of evoking such feelings. Only a magician could have written theFourth, and Mahler's achievement here is just as great as in the verydifferent late works, not to mention the middle symphonies.

I couldcite other personal examples, as could any Mahlerian.We might disagreeabout particulars, but each of us carries away something essential fromMahler's music and is enriched by it.And we are quite confident that theexperience is qualitatively the same from listener to listener.

Adornoapproaches the subject of our response to Mahler's music and what it meansthrough his own experiences of it.But what a listener! It's as if a verylearned friend with a doctorate in Mahler stopped by to discuss the subjectover tea and ended up staying all week.A gifted writer and philosopher,as well as a professionally trained composer who studied with Berg, Adornodiscusses all the symphonies except the Tenth and is always interestingeven when you disagree with him.Musicological jargon is mostly avoided,although philosophical-rhetorical terms abound (he loves the word"aporia").

Two caveats.First, the treatment is vulnerable tothe charge of "over-intellectualization".One recalls Mahler'sreply to William Ritter, an early admirer:"... I find myself much lesscomplicated than your image of me, which could almost throw me into a stateof panic."It seems that we, and particularly Adorno, are thecomplicated ones.We project our feelings onto the music, which seems toinvite them to an extent that would surprise even the composer.Themystery of why this is so, and the multifariousness of Mahler, the capacityof his music to be offensive, highly questionable, fascinating, and sublimeall at the same time, form the subject of the book.

Second, and moreseriously, he disparages Mahler's "ominous positivity" andthereby underestimates the Eighth Symphony at least (readers may agree thatthe finale of the Seventh is problematic; he does not discuss theextraordinary Tenth, which achieves a wholly serene, positive conclusion). But the positive in Mahler is an essential part of his dynamicdisequilibrium; without it, there would be no aporia and the music woulddegenerate into mere cynicism.Most of the symphonies follow a pattern --conflict, followed by attempted reconciliation and reconstruction.Thisprocess is entirely sincere, and if it fails even in Mahler's hands, it'sbecause he's attempting to do the impossible.Even in the Sixth, the most"tragic" and "despairing" of the symphonies, a goodperformance will reveal powerful updrafts.To deny the positive in Mahleris to chop him in two.That Adorno's book is nonetheless required readingis testimony to the value of his other observations.

Who then is thisbook for?It is best for Mahlerians of long standing, those who are wellpast the first flush of discovery and have regained their musicalequilibrium so to speak, and who want to put Mahler in perspective, or evenjust "share" opinions with an uncommonly intelligent andsensitive critic.

the musical crevices and fault-linesare probed with Adorno
If you know anything about Theodor Adorno, you might well be familiar with the entire edifice of western cultural and philosophic thought; Kant,Hegel,Kierkegaard,and Marx,the history of art,literature,painting and music. Less film,a realm Adorno never got to know. Here in Mahler,we have a concise profile of this one time neglected composer, long misunderstood,even today. I recall a rehearsal with Bernstein and the Vienna Philharmonic who couldn't quite understand Bernstein's raving from the heart,for clarity yet passion. Adorno knew Mahler's art much better than Mahler ever did for we learn this from Adorno, that Mahler simply abandoned himself to his own intuition to resolve his creative problems. Each chapter in this masterwork in miniature is self-sustaining. In the chapter "Tone" Adorno reveals the basic music materials of Mahler his orchestral pallete.The high positioned violins,in uncomfortable registers where they loose their souls to a menanced, shrill, thin timbre. The string section for Mahler is creatively undisciplined to begin with, each playing differing roles, each contributing its own independence, as in the opening of Mahler's "Ninth" Symphony, the melody tossed between the violins, tremoli in the violas, and the contrbass above or equal in register to all with harmonics. Mahler's progressiveness was in pure content,he was not one to pursue "tangible innovations" but secured his tenuous position with the diatonic mode,familiar scales and harmonic surfaces. A chiaroscuro of means (schatten) the shadows he creates with reliefs of foreground and background.Tonality is not so much renewed as an unheard voice enters the stage, Mahler's voice cracks,is overstrethched, the various woodwind passages like in the "Scherzo" of his "Seventh" Symphony. The forced tone is itself an expressive innovation of his own making a premonition of the darker legubrious brooding up the road in the orchestral works of Arnold Schoenberg. In fact we find ev! ery bit of these darker pages in Mahler before the horrors which await the citizens of Eastern Europe,even up to Bosnia.Adorno's focus is always how Mahler creates meaning within familiar confines,the roads that lead to simple harmonies. He disrupts the stabilityof rhythm,of gesture that once was, the familiar in Mahler's orchestral context becomes something quite different, no longer can the romantic symphony depend on redemption. Bruckner could depend on this, for he already found his spirituality, whereas Mahler spent his life in pursuit of it . Adorno in the chapter "Novel" reveals the non-progressive side of Mahler.He needed to depend on some stability so his musical characters come and go untarnished at times, the lowlife natural trombone,to the intimate/elegant solo violin, and thecracking horn moments in Mahler. This is where we find"Stufenreichtum" the richness of texture,the musical thread running from the full orchestral (tutti) everyone's voice heard, tothe single voice the solos. This is Mahler's context from the distance "in sehr weiter entfernung" to the immediate. It is this expressive immediacy, he learned from Beethoven that gives way to developed chaos as his life wears away. The overblown vacuous "Eighth Symphony" resolved nothing for his real creativity, and the "Ninth" the ideas begin toward the irrational,Mahler is serious even in the "Rondo-Burleske" from the "Ninth",the almost improvised gesture reminded me of Charles Ives,who was writing just about the same time. Adorno's chapter "Variant-Form" we learn Mahler's technique progressed away from what an academic would consider "good" Mahler needn't be as glib as Richard Strauss,nor as consummate as Wagner. He learned music in another wayand pointed toward a profound goal. A goal in which his music simply breaks its own voice"Durchbruch" as Adorno mentions where there was no comfort in traditional moments. Adorno opens thi! s expressive vault of Mahler and we can see Mahler again. As recently as Pierre Boulez in his ongoing recordings with The Chicago Symphony we find a Mahler quite as a turning point to the 20th century. Well Boulez brings Mahler into our century whether we want him there or not. Boulez brings a sublime ugliness at times to Mahler's simplicity, the functional predictable movements of harmony creates a kind of timbral dirt. Mahler wanted this. No we are not done with his marvelous "Symphonies" we can contemplate them for some time. ... Read more

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"The extraordinary and unique qualities of this correspondence stem from the confrontation, in stages, between two of the most intense and energetic minds of the century."--Fredric R. Jameson, Duke UniversityThe correspondence between Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno, which appears here for the first time in its entirety in English translation, must rank among the most significant to have come down to us from that notable age of barbarism, the twentieth century. Benjamin and Adorno formed a uniquely powerful pair. Benjamin, riddle-like in his personality and given to tactical evasion, and Adorno, full of his own importance, alternately support and compete with each other throughout the correspondence, until its imminent tragic end becomes apparent to both writers. Each had met his match, and happily, in the other. This book is the story of an elective affinity. Adorno was the only person who managed to sustain an intimate intellectual relationship with Benjamin for nearly twenty years. No one else, not even Gershom Scholem, coaxed so much out of Benjamin.The more than one hundred letters in this book will allow readers to trace the developing character of Benjamin's and Adorno's attitudes toward each other and toward their many friends. When this book appeared in German, it caused a sensation because it includes passages previously excised from other German editions of the letters--passages in which the two friends celebrate their own intimacy with frank remarks about other people. Ideas presented elliptically in the theoretical writings are set forth here with much greater clarity. Not least, the letters provide material crucial for understanding the genesis of Benjamin's Arcades Project. ... Read more

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--Susan Sontag

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This is the first British paperback edition of this modern classic written by one of the towering intellectual of the twentieth century.
Theodor Adorno (1903-69) was a leading member of the Frankfurt School. His books include The Jargon of Authenticity, Dialectic of Enlightenment (with Max Horkheimer), and Aesthetic Theory ... Read more

Customer Reviews (6)

So when's that new translation due? Should we really wait?
Just a note re. several reviewers' very sensible suggestion to wait for a better trans. before reading Negative Dialectics. Seems to me that ND is just too important to TWA's oeuvre; Ashton's trans. is bad, but is it bad enough to delay one from reading ND? Those of us who thought we'd never really need German owe R. Hullot-Kentor _a lot_ for all the insight, skill, and just plain drudgery he put into his Eng. trans. of _Aesthetic Theory_.Others may be better informed and know something about a forthcoming, new _ND_ trans., as in a complete reworking like what RH-K did for AT.(All I've noticed is a reissue of the same Ashton trans.: the biggest improvement is the new cover--no more sickly green monochrome.)An alternative strategy for ND--along lines others have suggested, too: read LOTS of Adorno in good translations--choosing texts based your own interests as well as some consideration to the must-reads (for music, I'd emphatically recommend the vol. of essays edited by Richard Leppert; alternating "Adorno heavy" and "Adorno lite" [yes, these are relative terms] can make the experience less head-clutching). Also, Fred Jameson, who shares the common opinion of Ashton's _ND_--and, moreover, _actually reads German_--helpfully provides a short list of some of Ashton's "most urgent howlers" (Jameson, _Late Marxism: Adorno . . ._ [Verso, 1990], ix-x--for that matter, if you're interested in Jameson's reading of TWA, his Adorno book presupposes, I think it's fair to say, a pretty fair familiarity w/ _ND_). So I wouldn't suggest waiting on that once & future _really good_ ND trans.Or hedge your bets: break out those oldGerman textbooks, and maybe you'll be reading ND in the original while we of the slothful majority are still keeping the translation vigil.

Addendum: I suspect TWA wouldn't care much for having his work rated by no. of gold stars: translations matter, too, and have to figure into overall evaluations, seems to me.So the constellations Adorno did like combine with the trans. issue and ... 4 stars.We don't get to say anything w/o giving a star rating, no????

Frankfurt School Genius
Philosopher, Sociologist, Musicologist...and the list goes on with the accomplishments of this amazingly creative person. Adorno studied philosophy first (forming a long friendship with Walter Benjamin). He also studied composition with Berg in Vienna. One of this centuries most critical theorists, Adorno brings us thought provoking, difficult conceptualizations of the instrumentalisation of rationality and means for the utilization of art to oppose our modern, repressive society. Negative Dialects -his anti system- is one of his most important works. As stated by earlier reviewers, this oeuvre is best read when you've laid the necessary previous theoretical foundations. Then it's a joy...

Masterpiece Theater
I once had a professor who exclaimed to me that Negative Dialects was "impossible," "the most obscure, impenetrable philosophy every written."From that moment, I knew that I must read this book.
The first reading was a disaster.I'd read nothing else of Adorno, knew only very superficially Kant and Hegel, and consequently made it to about the end of the fifth page before throwing it down in disgust.
But I persevered, read Teddie's lectures, the Hegel Studies, the Culture Industry essays, and most importantly, read Kant's Critiques and Hegel's Logic--strangely, the fog started to disappear and little gems began popping up everywhere.
Other reviewers are correct that this text is obscure, but it is never willfully so.It has an analogous place in Adorno's Oeuvre to Difference and Repetition in Deleuze's.It is a skeleton key to his whole philosophy, but you can't understand it until you already understand that philosophy.So it goes.I say this only to frighten readers off who are about to make the same mistake I initially did.Truly, it is impossible to understand this book without a more than passing knowledge of Kant and Hegel, at least, and without some familiarity with Adorno's ideas.I'm serious about this: I don't mean "impossible to understand" in the sense that you'll think you understand it but really you don't.I mean it in the sense that it will read like Attic Greek, and will be, as my professor said, "impenetrable."
But if you feel prepared, then this book will be a goldmine.Adorno's critiques of Heidegger, Kant, and Hegel are included here in massive detail, and then bound up together in his grand vision of society and thought.And they are all so brilliant, you feel as though you've died and gone to philosophical seventh heaven.Whatever your bents as a thinker and whatever your opinions on the aforementioned giants, exposing yourself to Adorno's razor sharp dialectical blade will only enhance your capacities and broaden your opinions.This text, along with Bergson's Matter and Memory, may be the two most criminally ignored works in philosophy today.It is inexcusable to not come to terms with Adorno, even if only to rip him to shreds.
But that by the way.If you want to know what this book is "about" then I certainly can't tell you.The gist of it is that concepts do not fit objects without leaving a remainder, a fact which logical thought, our thought, must see as a contradiction.This sets dialectics in motion."Negative" means basically that focus is directed to the remainder, to the "non-identity," instead of, as with Hegel, to reconciling that remainder with the concept.A similar line of thought, in case you're interested in another criminally neglected masterpiece, is pursued in Franz Rosenzweig's Star of Redemption.
Good Luck, and may the force-field be with you!

Read it at your own peril
Negative Dialectic is very thought-provoking and difficult text in itself, but it is worth of the effort.If you are interested in Adorno, it is a must-have.Yet the English translation is unbearably inadequate, you may make better sense of it, if you consult with the original German text.The companion piece to Negative Dialectics is Adorno's Prism.Get Prism first, and wait for a better translation of ND.

Wait for new translation
Famously bad translation of the central piece of Adorno's philosophy.I recommend getting Aesthetic Theory now and waiting for the next translator's attempt. ... Read more

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Beginning in 1949, Theodor W. Adorno and other members of the reconstituted Frankfurt Institute for Social Research undertook a massive empirical study of German opinions about the legacies of the Nazis, applying and modifying techniques they had learned during their U.S. exile. They published their results in 1955 as a research monograph edited by Friedrich Pollock. The study's qualitative results are published here for the first time in English as Guilt and Defense, a psychoanalytically informed analysis of the rhetorical and conceptual mechanisms with which postwar Germans most often denied responsibility for the Nazi past. In their editorial introduction, Jeffrey K. Olick and Andrew J. Perrin show howAdorno’s famous 1959 essay“The Meaning of Working through the Past,” is comprehensible only as a conclusion to his long-standing research and as a reaction to the debate it stirred; this volume also includes a critique by psychologist Peter R. Hoffstater as well as Adorno’s rejoinder. This previously little-known debate provides important new perspectives on postwar German political culture, on the dynamics of collective memory, and on Adorno’s intellectual legacies, which have contributed more to empirical social research than has been acknowledged. A companion volume, Group Experiment and Other Writings, will present the first book-length English translation of the Frankfurt Group's conceptual, methodological, and theoretical innovations in public opinion research.

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This book is an unrivalled indictment of the banality of mass culture - Adorno's finest essays are collected here, offering the reader unparalleled insights into Adorno's thoughts on culture. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Challenging
This collection of essays is very interesting. They all cover a critique of mass culture with quite original and interesting points made.

Sometimes it is bit difficult to read, this might be due to the translation; for this reason it gets only 4 stars. However, if you think you are ok with a moderately complicated text, the book is really great. I am glad I have read it.

The Critique of Mass-Culture Par Excellence
In our banal age when sanctimonious platitude is often mistaken for wisdom or even ethical character, Adorno's mercilessly uncompromising analyses of the controlling nature of mass culture may initially strike some of us as exaggerated or hysterical initially.After all most of us now bear the consequence of lengthy habituation to our socio-economic situation: a chronic semi-conscious, autopilot behavioral and perceptive mode that can comprehend only the pre-digested, repetitive ideas or ways of thinking.However, once we start reading Adorno more attentively and thoughtfully we realize how prescient and perspicacious Adorno was as a critic of our modern society and culture.Many of his thoughts articulated in this volume anticipate the thoughts and writings of our leading contemporary thinkers, such as Jean Baudrillard, Frederic Jameson, and even Noam Chomsky (although he probably disagrees with Adorno's attitude toward culture, which may be construed as elitist).

I highly recommend this book to anybody who wants to escape the mass-culture induced stupor to become a more conscious human and citizen.

Remarkably insightful, yet a little too big on modern art ...
The title of this review says much of it. Several essays in this book are dated in their literal forms, but your mind will take the ideas Adorno gives and apply them to your own experience. I don't know about ya'll, but I've found many of my new sensibilities about one thing while reading or otherwise interacting about something I would have considered entirely separated from the other.

My advice: read the intro twice: once through quickly and a second slowly and thoroughly; though I give that advice about many books, the intro to this book is vital to having a context to put the essays into. ... Read more

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"Dreams are as black as death."
—Theodor W. Adorno

Adorno was fascinated by his dreams and wrote them down throughout his life. He envisaged publishing a collection of them although in the event no more than a few appeared in his lifetime.

Dream Notes offers a selection of Adornos writings on dreams that span the last twenty-five years of his life. Readers of Adorno who are accustomed to high-powered reflections on philosophy, music and culture may well find them disconcerting: they provide an amazingly frank and uninhibited account of his inner desires, guilt feelings and anxieties. Brothel scenes, torture and executions figure prominently. They are presented straightforwardly, at face value. No attempt is made to interpret them, to relate them to the events of his life, to psychoanalyse them, or to establish any connections with the principal themes of his philosophy.

Are they fiction, autobiography or an attempt to capture a pre-rational, quasi-mythic state of consciousness? No clear answer can be given. Taken together they provide a highly consistent picture of a dimension of experience that is normally ignored, one that rounds out and deepens our knowledge of Adorno while retaining something of the enigmatic quality that energized his own thought. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

One-of-a-kind collection
German philosopher and cultural critic Theodor W. Adorno wrote down his dreams throughout his life. Dream Notes is an unvarnished, as-is selection of Adorno's writings concerning his dreams, spanning the final twenty-five years of his life. No attempts are made to "interpret" Adorno's dreams, or force a connection between them and the events of his life, or to psychoanalyze them. They are simply offered for the reader to evaluate as he or she sees fit. An editorial foreword, an afterword by Jan Philipp Reemtsma, and an index round out this one-of-a-kind collection. Especially recommended for students and scholars seeking an extra dimension of insight and understanding into Adorno's works and ideas.
... Read more

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In 1947 Theodor Adorno, one of the seminal European philosophers of the postwar years, announced his return after exile in the United States to a devastated Europe by writing Philosophy of New Music. Intensely polemical from its first publication, every aspect of this work was met with extreme reactions, from stark dismissal to outrage. Even Schoenberg reviled it. Despite the controversy, Philosophy of New Music became highly regarded and widely read among musicians, scholars, and social philosophers. Marking a major turning point in his musicological philosophy, Adorno located a critique of musical reproduction as internal to composition itself, rather than as a matter of the reproduction of musical performance. Consisting of two distinct essays, “Schoenberg and Progress” and “Stravinsky and Reaction,” this work poses the musical extremes in which Adorno perceived the struggle for the cultural future of Europe: between human emancipation and barbarism, between the compositional techniques and achievements of Schoenberg and Stravinsky. In this completely new translation—presented along with an extensive introduction by distinguished translator Robert Hullot-Kentor—Philosophy of New Music emerges as an indispensable key to the whole of Adorno's illustrious and influential oeuvre. Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969) was the leading figure of the Frankfurt school of critical theory. He authored more than twenty volumes, including Negative Dialectics (1982), Philosophy of Modern Music (1980), Kierkegaard (Minnesota, 1989), Dialectic of Enlightenment (1975) with Max Horkheimer, and Aesthetic Theory (Minnesota, 1997).Robert Hullot-Kentor has taught at Harvard and Stanford universities and written widely on Adorno. He has translated various works of Adorno, including Aesthetic Theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

philosophy of new music
Philosophy of new music will be of interest to composers, musicologists, music theorists with an interest in contemporary music.

Adorno's writing is characteristically dense and difficult--somewhat essential to the subject matter.

Those with an interest might also consider:
Atali--NOISE, and Karol Berger A Theory of Art.

mz

Awesome, thanks!
The book was exactly as the seller described it. And it took only a couple of days to get to me from the time that I purchased it. Thank you!

Adorno at his absolute finest
Perhaps the only things more polemical than Adorno's critique of Schoenberg and Stravinsky are the reactions that followed. Unfortunately, many people still assume that they understand Adorno's views and arguments concerning these two composers. The reductionist tendency to simplify Adorno's view to "Schoenberg good, Stravinsky bad" shows just who has and who hasn't actually read this book. It is never so simple. Adorno is frequently critical of Schoenberg in very perceptive ways. Of course there's no mistaking who Adorno favors, but to consider this book as a good-vs-evil study is far too limiting. Not only is this a great study of the then current state of musical thought, it is also an interesting overview of twelve tone music, how it works, what it seeks to do, and why it's important.

The format of the book is especially nice. Adorno's favored paratactical prose style can be incredibly difficult when multi-page paragraphs begin to accumulate. For the most part in Philosophy of New Music, each new paragraph is marked by a heading. This keeps the ideas organized and focused. Adorno's paragraphs seem to function as a spinning out of an idea in a very fluid manner and the length of his sections are just the right length to allow the reader to comfortably follow him without getting bogged down. His theses is developed piece by piece, but clearly dividing up the ideas helps the reader see the logical progression. Having read other Adorno writings, I found this to be unusually clear and concise. I wonder how much more useful Aesthetic Theory would be if he had used this structure.

The remarkable clarity is probably due, to a large extent, to Robert Hullot-Kentor's translation. I've read many other translators with varying degrees of success (Ashton's attempt at Negative Dialectics being one of the worst), but Hullot-Kentor is by far the best. Adorno's writing is riddled with allusions and references that are frequently vague or obscure. Hullot-Kentor does a great service to readers by including additional references and background information. His detailed understanding of Adorno's complicated thought is evident in every sentence. Reading Adorno has, to me at least, never been so straightforward.

In addition to the translation, Hullot-Kentor provides an excellent foreword providing both a context and an overview of what is inside. His description of the translation process is, as always, interesting. Hullot-Kentor has found a way to provide very readable English translations while maintaining Adorno's linguistic artistry.

It's Adorno, less than 5 stars would be Sacrilege
Bought this yesterday with my father's day gift certificate. Went here to see what others had thought of it and was surprised to see no review posted yet! What gives? Are you guys sleeping on the job?

The translators preface by Robert Hullot-Kentor who also did Aesthetic Theory is vintage translator expressing the torments of trying to merge two different worlds. I enjoyed it and know just what he means. Quine is right about that. But it is harsh! RH-K is a believer in Adorno and what Adorno says in the text. Does one have to empathize with a text to translate it well just as a musician must be in the mood of the music to express that mood? I wonder. Maybe so.

Adorno gave these guys grief. I am sure it applies to our music as well. I read this not simply thinking of the "new music" but the continuing type and wonder if we can associate the trite with the sensuous and the good with the abstract? But then what makes the good so good? Reading on.... ... Read more

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The titular description, 'prisms,' suits Adorno - a major thinker of facets and angles and revolutions - and the collection itself is an ideal introduction to his work." ... Read more

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He was famously hostile to biography as a literary form. And yet this life of Adorno by one of his last students is far more than literary in its accomplishments, giving us our first clear look at how the man and his moment met to create “critical theory.” An intimate picture of the quintessential twentieth-century transatlantic intellectual, the book is also a window on the cultural ferment of Adorno’s day—and its ongoing importance in our own.

The biography begins at the shining moment of the German bourgeoisie, in a world dominated by liberals willing to extend citizenship to refugees fleeing pogroms in Eastern Europe. Detlev Claussen follows Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno (1903–1969) from his privileged life as a beloved prodigy to his intellectual coming of age in Weimar Germany and Vienna; from his exile during the Nazi years, first to England, then to the United States, to his emergence as the Adorno we know now in the perhaps not-so-unlikely setting of Los Angeles. There in 1943 with his collaborator Max Horkheimer, Adorno developed critical theory, whose key insight—that to be entertained is to give one’s consent—helped define the intellectual landscape of the twentieth century.

In capturing the man in his complex relationships with some of the century’s finest minds—including, among others, Arnold Schoenberg, Walter Benjamin, Thomas Mann, Siegfried Kracauer, Georg Lukács, Hannah Arendt, and Bertolt Brecht—Claussen reveals how much we have yet to learn from Theodor Adorno, and how much his life can tell us about ourselves and our time.

Customer Reviews (1)

Identifying the non-identical man
This book was a slight disappointment for me but only because I was expecting a regular biography or even a conventional critical study, but, as the author's introduction points out, Adorno himself harbored deep suspicions about the biographical genre, and so Mr. Claussen, one of Adorno's last students, has written a different kind of book about his revered teacher.

I will admit that the advantages of the author's approach to the life of Theodor Adorno (1903-1969), as trumpeted by the publisher's dustjacket and the accompanying critical blurbs, were partially lost on me.I was hoping for a more conventional approach, one that would supply enough interesting and even intimate biographical details and provide the reader with something of the relevant intellectual background to make the ideas discussed more understandable.But such was not always the case.

I will be more to the point--this book is NOT for someone seeking a first look at the life and thought of Theodor Adorno.Some contexts are provided, and sometimes with amazing detail, but more often than not they seemed remote and in some cases of little apparent value in trying to understand Adorno the man (the extended discussions, for example, of the situation and prospects of the German Jewish bourgeoisie by the early 20th century did not merit the space devoted to it).Adorno's main ideas peek out of nowhere in the narrative as Claussen presents them in a consciously unsystematic manner, and, unless one already has some knowledge of their meaning, their significance can be lost on the first-time reader.

And true to what the author states in the introductory chapter, appropriately entitled "Instead of an Overture" (p. 4ff.), the book reads as if the author wanted to present Adorno not directly as a biographical subject, but rather as a man who until his death in 1969 continued to interact with some of the most significant intellectual and cultural figures of the last century--Walter Benjamin, Ernst Bloch, Friedrich Pollack, Siegfried Kracauer, Georg Lukacs, Fritz Lang, Thomas Mann, Hanns Eisler, Bertolt Brecht, Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, Gershom Scholem, Alban Berg, and Arnold Schoenberg.

These long sections really constitute the meat of the book and they are in their own right fascinating, but the general reader will find himself at some points straining to keep all the pieces together and arrive at a greater sense of continuity. It would have made the book longer, but a little more discursive material added to these sections would have made them, I think, more rewarding to read. In fact any of the above figures taken individually had more space devoted to his relationship with Adorno than did his wife, Gretel Karplus, who only merits passing mention along the way.The book begins in a regular narrative fashion with Adorno's youth in Frankfurt but it passes quickly into a jumbled, back-and-forth manner of presentation in which events from the 1950s or 1960s are freely mixed with events from thirty years before, and vice-versa.

But Theodor Adorno remains a man whose ideas are of continuing interest and influence.One wonders, for example, what he would have thought about the techno-barbarism of our own hyper-manipulative 'culture industry' busy as it is multiplying media at every turn and blessing them with a self-critical autonomy that only serves to blind people to their thoroughly coercive nature.And the book does clear up a few things along the way: Claussen deals with the misunderstanding that has accompanied Adorno's notorious remark, "To write poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric" simply by providing the line that follows it, "And this corrodes even the knowledge of why it has become impossible to write poetry today...", namely, people will keep on writing poetry in the wake of Auschwitz, but will they do it with any consciousness of what that might mean, or will they just continue scribbling in accordance with the prevailing modes of bourgeois self-regard while blinkered to the reifying ideologies of our material culture?[Here's a hint--Adorno categorically rejected the idea of art for art's sake...]

There are no doubt other more conventional treatments of Adorno out there, but this book--inspired by the love, respect, and sympathy of one man for his teacher who would no doubt have approved of its aim--CONSCIOUSLY does its own thing.

[Note:After reading this book I picked up Stefan Mueller-Doohm's "Adorno: A Life" and found it to be exactly the kind of biography I was seeking.If you are making the effort to familiarize yourself with Adorno and his work, get the Mueller-Doohm book because it does an admirable job of covering not just his personal life and his interactions with other great artists and thinkers but it also includes expositions of his books and ideas together with just about the right of amount of contextualization.] ... Read more

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This classic account of the nature of film music aesthetics was first published in 1947. Its value comes from a unique combination of talents and experience enjoyed by the book's authors. Eisler's time at Hollywood gave him a particular insight on the technical questions which arise for composers when music is used in the production of films; while Adorno was able to contribute on wide aesthetic and sociological matters as well as specifically musical questions. Above all, the authors envisaged the book as a contribution to the study of modern, industrialised culture; and, in this respect, it has a particular importance to the whole area of cultural studies. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Belongs on every film music scholar's shelf
After so many years sitting on library shelves in obscurity, it's nice to see that Continuum finally saw fit to release this title again. It's rather telling how Eisler's stature has weathered seeing as the first edition said only "Eisler" on the spine, while this version says "Adorno and Eisler."

There's nothing very different about this reprint, other than its availability at a reasonable price. Graham McCann provides a nice historical introduction, although he feels the need to give some throw-away biographical info on both Adorno and Eisler before getting onto the history of the book itself.

Sadly, this book has not had the desired effect on film music that the authors intended as its message is as applicable today as ever. While I've read at least parts of many of the available film music books around, this one is special because it presents no compromises with regard to the role of music in film, and in Adorno's elegant theoretical language.

Anyone interested in film music should own this. For those Adorno fans who may or may not be interested in film music, there is plenty here as well. For one thing, this is a great example of Adorno meeting the culture industry head-on in an extended format. This is essential reading.

Adorno/Eisler
This is a great book.While it was written over 60 years ago, it is still very applicable to today.It's worth the investment. ... Read more

Product Description

Critical Models combines into a single volume two of Adorno's most important postwar works --Interventions: Nine Critical Models (1963) andCatchwords: Critical Models II (1969). Written after his return to Germany in 1949, the articles, essays, and radio talks included in this volume speak to the pressing political, cultural, and philosophical concerns of the postwar era. The pieces inCritical Models reflect the intellectually provocative as well as the practical Adorno as he addresses such issues as the dangers of ideological conformity, the fragility of democracy, educational reform, the influence of television and radio, and the aftermath of fascism.

This new edition includes an introduction by Lydia Goehr, a renowned scholar in philosophy, aesthetic theory, and musicology. Goehr illuminates Adorno's ideas as well as the intellectual, historical, and critical contexts that shaped his postwar thinking.

Customer Reviews (2)

A good jumping-off point for neophyte Adorno readers
If you want to understand something about the nature of Adorno's overall project, read the guy below, sadly cut off as he is in mid-sentence.If your only contact with Adorno is the bitter "Minima Moralia" orthe (to me) rebarbative "Negative Dialectics", this is anessential complement.If you aren't interested in radical culturalcriticism...er, why are you reading this?

Critical Models is a collectionof essays, articles and radio talks, mostly from quite late in Adorno'scareer.I am neither a philosopher nor an academic, and would be the firstperson to admit that I'm not quite up to Adorno's more Hegelian moments. I'm just casting about for help in an increasingly bland, homogenised,uncritical cultural environment, and the best thing about Critical Modelsis that it's Adorno being unusually _helpful_.

This is Adorno throwinghimself into the task of trying to build a post-war democracy in Germany,not Adorno the cantankerous emigre complaining that doors shut moreviolently than they used to.He urges the value of promoting the status ofteachers, of rooting out and criticising Nazi attitudes (who'd have thoughtthat they'd still be flourishing fifty years on).Adorno is seldom a veryapproachable writer, but here he's making the effort to communicate to amass audience, and to a relatively uneducated schmuck like me it's criticaldynamite.The spine of my copy of Negative Dialectics may remain foreveruncreased, but this one will be carried around.

Rolling in his grave as he's reviewed ...........
It is important to point out that Teddie Adorno is spinning in his grave, for the very venue on which I am reviewing Critical Models is itself an example of the fetishized, reified and administered world that Adorno named, and critiqued. However, Adorno's philosophical tradition alsoincludes the catchphrase what is, is right, and would probably view theInternet as more or less a necessary consequence of vast economic forceswhich it would be simple minded to simply ignore, or negate. And, his"dialectical" logic not only permits us to log on and praise himwhere praise is due: it requires us to do so.

This collection is ofessays written after Adorno returned to the Federal Republic of Germany inthe early 1950s. Because culturally Adorno was "very German" andindeed he resented the *Volkische* definition of Germanness imposed byHitler, Adorno delayed his escape, as the son of a Jewish father andCatholic mother, from Hitlerdom to a dangerous point. He resided briefly inEngland and somewhat longer in America. Strangely, he did not like Englandand (given the choice) preferred America, and specifically California, thelatter because of its climate.

This collection makes it clear thatalthough Adorno was critical of many tendencies in America he was by nomeans knee-jerk in his criticism. Adorno enjoyed the very real democracy ofAmerican life and the very real empiricism of science as practisedhere...insofar as democracy and empiricism did not become, as a verydifferent sort of emigre might call it, a shtick, or a number: or, asAdorno would call it, fetishized or reified.

But it is clear from theseessays that Adorno would be very critical of changes in America that haveoccured since my generation, that of the immediate post-war Baby Boom, hastaken over the shop. Adorno's work on Fascist tendencies in California, forexample, located Fascism in our hearts and at our dinner tables. Thesetendencies are denied in ceremonies (such as the commemoration, last week,of the bombing in Oklahoma City) which are structured by press and lawyersin a way that fully denies anything like a spontaneous response.

Onenaturally wonders why it is that people at these commemorations, whichmemorialize real pain that should never be repeated, have to act in suchstructured fashions, and it was the structuring of Timothy McVeigh's lifeby similar tendencies that caused him, in all probability, to bomb theMurragh building.

It was irresponsible to decry social research thatlocated Fascist and authoritarian tendencies so close to home and to expectno incidents such as the bombing of the Oklahoma City building. Adorno'swork is a reminder to examine our own environment for barbarism, andAmericans who have worked on issues of domestic abuse are in his tradition,even if they would actually find the guy irritating, arrogant andconceited...all of which he was.

Some of the book does require, becauseof Adorno's arrogance, a knowledge of German philosophy, which is not alaugh a minute by any means. The essay "On Subject and Object",for example, may be completely opaque, even to, and especially to, the"educated" reader if her education is in the typical Americanuniversity. That's because what we mean by the subject may be divergentfrom what Ted meant, a difference expressed by our own"catchphrase", "that's subjective."

"That'ssubjective" means in ordinary usage that "that" can bedismissed, and despite the (laudable) place that mere listening plays inour life, "that's subjective" forecloses listening. Adorno writesfrom a tradition in which subjectivity is not a sink and instead is asource of value.

The surprising end of "on subject and object"is one in which the mere subject acquires value precisely by being removedfrom a place of origin: we realize, in the general murk of Adorno's style,that the very reason why we exhibit a false humility about our ownsubjectivity is that we are delivered a false story about our origins as"the first man", which exalts the subjectivity of a mythicalAdam, and makes our own second-hand.Adorno makes the common sense pointthat given our initial resources (which are inferior, because lessspecialized, than those of other large mammals) "the first man"was probably the group, in which the "subjectivity" of eachmember had to be (paradoxically enough) treasured because it was a groupresource.

The experience of reading the more difficult essays is one ofstruggle, and reward, in which one realizes that one's mere failure tocomprehend is only in part a product of ignorance: it is one of dawn. Thisis in contrast to reading the typical American scholarly essay in which thevery lack of participation and struggle...and the airy dismissal ofimportant questions as marginalia, drives questions to the zone of thesubconscious.

That is, Adorno is outside of the tradition which recastand rephrased problems into such a shape that they could be solved...thattheir solution was implied by their clear phrasing. Mathematics is anexample of this. At its best (and Adorno conceded this in many ways) thistradition is a source of both power and democracy.

At its worst,however, and especially as applied to Adorno's own field of socialresearch, this tradition makes people into objects precisely because it hasto ignore the philosopher's tendency to delay, by questioning everything.The most obscene consequence of this is the political poll and its unstatedinfluence on our elections.

Like Adorno's longer works but moreaccessibly, Critical Models rewards reading, and rereading: the verydensity of his style provides, in terms that would make the guy shudder,good value for the dollar...precisely because, as ... Read more

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During the occupation of West Germany after the Second World War, the American authorities commissioned polls to assess the values and opinions of ordinary Germans. They concluded that the fascist attitudes of the Nazi era had weakened to a large degree. Theodor W. Adorno and his Frankfurt School colleagues, who returned in 1949 from the United States, were skeptical. They held that standardized polling was an inadequate and superficial method for exploring such questions. In their view, public opinion is not simply an aggregate of individually held opinions, but is fundamentally a public concept, formed through interaction in conversations and with prevailing attitudes and ideas “in the air.” In Group Experiment, edited by Friedrich Pollock, they published their findings on their group discussion experiments that delved deeper into the process of opinion formation. Andrew J. Perrin and Jeffrey K. Olick make a case that these experiments are an important missing link in the ontology and methodology of current social-science survey research.

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Theodor Adorno (1903-1969) was a cultural philosopher, sociologist, literary critic, and historian of music who, along with Max Horkheimer, Herbert Marcuse, and Erich Fromm, founded the Frankfurt School. Against Epistemology is one of his most important works. It inspired Habermas and Marcuse and continues to influence other eminent thinkers in philosophy and the social sciences today.

Against Epistemology is in essence a long essay against Western metaphysics or, as Adorno put it, "the lordship of the subject." Traditional philosophy, he noted, leads in practice to fascism. In this book, he combines analytic philosophy, social theory, and cultural criticism to try to show how epistemology betrays experience, using Husserl's work as a concrete model. ... Read more