Hearing Beethoven, Truth, and »New Music«

Author(s): Marcus Zagorski

Source: International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, Vol. 44, No. 1
(JUNE 2013), pp. 49-56
Published by: Croatian Musicological Society
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/41955490
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 M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I
IRASM 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |

Marcus Zagorski
College of Musical Arts
Bowling Green State University
Bowling Green, OH 43403
USA
email: mzagor@bgsu.edu
zagorski@stanfordalumni.org
Hearing Beethoven, Truth,
and »New Music« UDC: 78.01
Research Paper
Izvorni znanstveni rad
Received: September 4, 2012
Primljeno: 4. rujna 2012.
Accepted: March 5, 2013
Prihvačeno: 5. ožujka 2013.

Tucked away near the end of one Abstract

of the last I
- Résumé
René Leibowitz's 1961
volumes of Theodor W. Adorno's Gesammelte Schriften I
recording of Beethoven's
is a review of a recording of Beethoven's nine
nine symphonies gave
listeners
symphonies. The review is fascinating for the an opportunity to
insight
hear the works as,
it provides into how Adorno chose to hear Beethoven
according to Theodor W.
in the decades after the Second World War- a mode Adorno's review of the
collection, nothing less than
of listening that reflected central themes in his music»unfolded truth.« And,
philosophy. The review's last paragraph, in particu-
remarkably, Leibowitz's
Beethoven was said to
lar, condensed some of his most essential ideas into
provide an introduction to
two short sentences: the »new music« of the
second half of the twentieth
century that Adorno
»Listeners who want to hear the Beethoven sympho-
believed was the only
nies neither as museum pieces, nor as squeaky-clean responsible option for
'great performances/ but rather as unfolded truth, composers attuned to the
stand under a kind of moral obligation to get to know advance of world-history.
This paper examines a
these recordings. Moreover, they will be granted facet of Beethoven
something that they do not expect and perhaps do reception represented by
not even desire: an introduction to new music out of Adorno's review, and it
argues that a rather clichéd
the concealed spirit of the greatest [music] ever image of Beethoven lies
written in the age of tonality.«1 behind Adorno's concept of
new music.
Keywords: Adorno •
1 »Hörer, welche die Beethoven-Symphonien weder als Mu- new music • Beethoven
seumsstücke noch als aufgeputzte Spitzenleistungen hören wo- reception • listening

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IRASM 44 (2013)
** 1
1 1: I
49-56
andI I and »New
M „Za9orsk'' »New Music« Hearin9 Beethoven, Truth,
Music«

Striking words, these. And there are few other wr

all the forces that are here employed: the appeals to
the invocation of a Hegelian world-historical spirit,
»new music« (embedded, paradoxically, within a sent
this pithy mix of compulsory ethics, conservativ
centrism, laden with fundamentalist certainty, a tou
brilliance could only be Adorno.
Adorno had been an active reviewer since his earli
author. This particular review, titled »Beethoven im G
in the Spirit of Modernity), was written late in his l
mature thinking. The brevity of the review, scarcely
richness. Not only did it treat the topic at hand, prese
tive on noteworthy characteristics of the recording
interpretation, it also, as noted, distilled the primar
philosophy. These components were concentrated in
above, the two sentences of which suggest two questi
If the first sentence appeals to listeners who desire
nothing less than »unfolded truth,« it also raises the
symphony, or a particular interpretation of a Beetho
such truth. And truth is meant here in the emphatic sen
a fact about something, but as the underlying secret to o
of Adorno's theological bent. The short answer to this
Beethoven symphony cannot reveal such truth. Rath
ethics to aesthetics, he has invoked »truth« and »mora
as though his merely subjective preferences are akin
such a short answer does not adequately engage the issues
Adorno the benefit of the doubt. The question would
by examining just what it is in the symphonies, or the r
the reviewer, enables listeners to hear them as »unfol
examination later in this article, after considering a s
by the second sentence of the review's final paragraph
Turning to the second sentence of the quoted passage f
Adorno claimed that listeners will be »granted... an
from the spirit of these symphonies, one might ask: wh

lien, sondern als entfaltete Wahrheit, stehen unter einer Art mora
kennenzulernen. Überdies werden sie ihnen etwas gewähren, was
nicht einmal verlangen: eine Einführung in die neue Musik aus d
heraus, die im Zeitalter der Tonalität geschrieben wurde.« The
Süddeutsche Zeitung (22.12.1964) and is reprinted in Theodor W. ADO
Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1984, 535-538, h
unless noted otherwise.

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 M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I ¡rasM 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |

model for so-called »new music«? As Adorno was well aware at the time of writing
in 1964, many composers had been consciously distancing themselves from the
genres, forms, and gestures of tonality. How, then, could they find guidance from
Beethoven, the pillar of the tonal canon? There is no short answer to this question,
for any answer must give an account of Adorno's concept of »new music« and an
account of his understanding of Beethoven. Brief accounts of both follow in this
article, and I argue that Adorno's theory of »new music« is profoundly indebted to
his image of Beethoven. In order to make this argument, I outline Adorno's theory
of new music, and then consider his image of Beethoven- an image that, despite
the philosopher's erudition, bears a remarkable resemblance to a popular image of
the composer. Finally, the question about truth, suggested by the first sentence
quoted above, is addressed; for the truth Adorno claimed this recording was able to
reveal is the same truth embodied in so-called »new music.«
What, then, is new music? It is, to begin with, a topic to which Adorno devoted
a great deal of ink: in addition to the book Philosophie der neuen Musik and numerous
essays, lectures, and radio addresses with »new music« in their titles, one must also
consider his writings on twentieth-century composers and compositional techniques,
among which the late essay on Stravinsky and »Vers une musique informelle« merit
special attention. The breadth of this literature followed from the breadth of the
concept: »new music,« for Adorno, was not merely contemporary music. New
music differed from other music not according to the period in which it was
composed, but according to the intention with which it was composed and the
expressive character he claimed it embodied. Or, as he stated succinctly in an essay
titled »Music and New Music« from 1960, »the distinction between new music and
music in general [is] the distinction between good and bad music as such.«2
It is nothing less than the distinction between good music and bad music.
And not only the distinction between good and bad, but the distinction, also,
between good and evil: among the many threads in this weave, and surely the
most important, is the ethical thread. The appeal to ethics animated nearly every
page of Adorno's writings about new music, and this appeal inspired a fervency
and conviction that was perhaps better suited to sermons. For, indeed, it was the
salvation of the individual that was at stake, as Adorno noted tersely in another
essay on new music. »Above all,« he wrote, »the goal of new music must be the
complete liberation of the human subject.«3 That is a program that bears repeat-

2 Th. W. ADORNO, Music and New Music, Quasi una fantasia, trans. Rodney Livingstone, Lon-
don and New York: Verso, 1998, 249-268, here 268. See also Th. W. ADORNO, Musik und Neue Musik,
Quasi una fantasia ( Gesammelte Schriften 16), ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1978,
476-492.
3 Th. W. ADORNO, Classicism, Romanticism, New Music, Sound figures, trans. Rodney Living-
stone, Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999, 106-122, here 121. See also Th. W. ADORNO, Klassik,
Romantik, Neue Musik, Klangfiguren (Gesammelte Schriften 16), ed. Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp, 1978, 126-144.

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IRASM 44 (2013)
* * '' 1:I49-56
and I and »New
^.Zagors' »NewMusic«
tí: Music« Hearing Beethoven, Truth,

ing: the complete liberation of the human subject

War, Adorno saw the subject threatened by polit
extinguished by totalitarianism, then manipulat
claimed, was the subject's cry of resistance again
why Adorno was able to devote so much ink to h
him to realize a very large part of his philosophical
brought together social and economic theory (and
underpinned both) with detailed considerations
aesthetics, all of which were filtered through his pa
These many dimensions unfold from the quot
claimed that »the goal of new music must be the
subject.« He went on to claim that this was also t
century. But although nineteenth-century mus
humanism, »it was given notice to quit because
because its reflection of the world in a positive
became a lie which legitimated evil.«4 The closed
tonal music were inadequate to express the dam
him.5 New music is music that recognizes this a
and metaphorical dissonance, a critique of the so
tions. Ideology is meant here in the Marxist sen
often unacknowledged but nonetheless purposefu
no, music became ideological to the extent that
nious space so unlike the chaos and violence of tw
the world was fractured and damaged, music
nature of music, its affirmative aspect,« he wr
simply commences, that it is music at all: its lan
transition to its isolated sphere has... something
Such a description of musical false consciousn
aesthetic understanding rooted in German roma
with Adorno's tendency to treat specific practi
universally binding. This is also evident in his t
general supports the lie of a closed, good world
lie can be called true and is deserving of the na

4 Th. W. ADORNO, Music and New Music, 257.

5 As he wrote elsewhere, »the prime fact about new mus
tonal system.« Th. W. ADORNO, Music and New Music, 251.
6 Jon ELSTER, An Introduction to Karl Marx, Cambridge: C
7 Th. W. ADORNO excerpted from Beethoven: Philosophie d
Stephen HINTON, Adorno's Unfinished Beethoven, Beethove
University of Nebraska Press: 139-153, here 142-143.
8 S. HINTON, Adorno's Philosophy of Music, Encyclopedia
York: Oxford University Press, 1998, vol. 1, 25-29, here 28.

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 M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I iras M 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |

such a repudiation be realized musically, according to Adorno? Through the use

of compositional devices that expose the lie of the whole and undermine its archi-
tectonic foundations. Adorno would like us to believe that musical works »gain in
importance in proportion to the resoluteness with which they give shape to their
own negation.« This, he claimed, »is the greatness of Beethoven's last works.«9 A
genuinely new music should follow Beethoven's lead. To protest the falsely affir-
mative gestures of tonality- the closed forms and consonant resolutions- new
music should »generate connections from within itself.«10 The ideal of new music
is, therefore, an ideal of organicism. Formal conventions are dismissed as alien11;
instead, new music assumes proper form through the continual development of
ideas.12 Its only means of preventing itself from confirming the ideological nature
of all music, which is ideological in its simply being, is to continually become some-
thing new, something different. Developing variation is the only technique that
can preserve the voice of the individual against the dangers of totalizing systems.
Or so Adorno would have it.
It is no coincidence that this theory of new music reads more like a philo-
sophically sophisticated, ethically tinged apology for the compositional techniques of
Beethoven and Schoenberg- it is precisely that. Adorno himself stated this, claim-
ing that »apart from the products of the Viennese school, all the works which
passed for new music... turn out be permeated with the residue of tonality.«13
They are permeated, in other words, with false consciousness. And this is why
Beethoven figured as a model for Adorno's theory of new music: because his late
works were said to negate the false cohesion of formal conventions, Beethoven
was seen to assert the possibility of subjective freedom. As one reviewer of
Adorno's writings on Beethoven noted, because Adorno's criteria for the good in
music apply equally to Beethoven and Schoenberg, his book on Beethoven,
subtitled Philosophy of Music, feeds directly into his book on Schoenberg, entitled
Philosophy of New Music: »they are both predicated on a nineteenth-century,
essentially Beethoven paradigm of musical processuality or temporality, on the
one hand, and the postulate of subjective authenticity, on the other.«14
But the linkage of Beethoven and subjective freedom had been around, of
course, long before Adorno. Busoni, for example, believed that »with Beethoven,
the human element first came to the fore as the primary argument of musical art.«
And Scott Burnham has shown that »[this] perception is an eminently common
one.«15 Burnham argued further that »Beethoven [became] the hero of Western

9 Th. W. ADORNO, Music and New Music, 260.

10 Ibid., 258.
11 Max PADDISON, Adorno's Aesthetics of Music, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993, 16.
12 S. HINTON, Adorno's Philosophy, 28.
13 Th. W. ADORNO, Music and New Music, 252.
14 S. HINTON, Adorno's Beethoven, 149.
15 Scott BURNHAM, Beethoven Hero, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995, xiii.

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IRASM 44 (2013t 1 ' 1* 49-56 I M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth,
(2013t 1 ' 1* 49-56 I and »New Music«

music, 'The Man Who Freed Music'.«16 And this point takes us back to Adorno's 1964
review of the Beethoven symphonies, the final paragraph of which forms the start-
ing point for the present article. There Adorno reviewed a recording of the complete
symphonies, conducted by René Leibowitz and released in 1961. This recording's
connection to Busoni's assessment of Beethoven, and to a greater part of the recep-
tion history of the composer, is evident in the liner notes printed with the original set
of vinyl LPs. For there, printed in bold capital letters, is a heading that would reas-
sure even the most demanding consumer: »BEETHOVEN: THE MAN WHO SET
MUSIC FREE.«17 Is this, perhaps, the truth that Adorno found in this recording?18
One of the questions posed at the beginning of this article has been answered: the
question as to why Beethoven figured as a model for Adorno's theory of new music.
The answer has led us now to the other question: that is, how could a Beethoven
symphony, or a particular interpretation of a Beethoven symphony, reveal truth?
A symphony or its recording cannot really reveal truth, as noted already.
Adorno, ever the theologian, used truth claims to lend his personal preferences
the irrefutability of the absolute. But he did try to support his claims with argu-
ments, and this is where his writings become interesting, or at least revealing. His
review of the Leibowitz recordings suggested, though never explicitly stated,
where one might find the truth said to be present. He found the conductor's
strength in his ability to convey a nuance befitting chamber music: »the saying
about creating chamber music with an orchestra is, this one time, no cliché.«19 He
praised the clarity of interpretations that revealed the structure of the music, and
he argued that such adherence to the musical text, including the choice of tempo,
restored the Beethoven symphonies after one-hundred years of abuse suffered at
the hands of conductors interested only in virtuosic exhibitionism. He particu-
larly liked the interpretations of the early symphonies in this collection- above all
the Third and Fourth- and the Sixth Symphony, »the end of which,« he wrote,
»achieves an effect of true humanity.«20

16 S. BURNHAM, Beethoven Hero, xv-xvi.

17 Donald Culross PEATTIE, notes to Ludwig van Beethoven, The nine symphonies of Beethoven,
René Leibowitz conducting the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, with the Beecham Choral Society, 1961,
LP, RD4-06-01- RD4-06-07. 1 am grateful to the Archive of Recorded Sound at Stanford University for
access to the original LP
18 That the appeal to the humane element in Beethoven could be used as an effective advertising
slogan was underscored by an unsolicited email I received from amazon.com recently. The email
informed me of an »important classical music novel now available at Amazon« booksellers and
included a single quote from this work: »What Beethoven said in his late quartets might be the most
important message to humanity ever expressed in music.« Adorno surely would have agreed, though
I suspect he would have been a reluctant consumer of this »important novel.«
19 »[D]ie Rede vom kammermusikalischem Musizieren mit dem Orchester ist, dies eine Mal,
keine Phrase.« Adorno, Beethoven im Geist, 537.
20 »die am Ende einer Wirkung realer Humanität erreicht.« Th. W. ADORNO, Beethoven im
Geist, 537. My italics.

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 M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth, I ¡rasivi 44 (2013) 1: 49-56
and »New Music« |

Like Busoni, then, and others, Adorno pointed to the human element in this
music. This human element resided partly, one can infer, in what Adorno claimed
was of primary significance in the recording: its ability to present a corrective to
the prevalent evils of musical commodification.21 In this respect the recording
offered the kind of hope that was also offered by his concept of new music: it
preserved a space from which the voice of the subject could pierce through the
gloom of commercialization and standardization that covers our world and
controls our lives. Therein lay the truth content. But, ironically, therein also lay the
commercial value of the recording. For, as truth rears its irrefutable head, it
provokes the question as to whether it followed from the qualities of the record-
ing, or if it merely served to help sell a recording conducted by Adorno's friend
Leibowitz. Sure, there are many recordings of the Beethoven symphonies, Adorno
seemed to say, but this one is better, and it allows listeners to hear the works as
nothing less than »unfolded truth.«
Adorno knew Leibowitz and admired his work as a composer, conductor,
teacher, and author. Leibowitz, who had studied with Webern and known Schoen-
berg, is characterized in Adorno's review as »the true carrier of the tradition of the
Viennese School. . . .He translates the musical insights and experiences of the Schoen-
berg School into performances of universally known, authentic works of the past.«22
Even if such questionable claims were true, they would rankle none the less. For
they provide yet another example of Adorno's tendency to invoke the concept of
truth (and authenticity) to support his cause. And this might lead one to question
the extent to which Adorno's music philosophy was a sophisticated argument for
the supremacy of his own cultural background, or an effort to rehabilitate the
cultural goods that had been misused in the years of National Socialism.
Adorno felt called to defend certain products of his cultural heritage, in no
small part, precisely because they had been soiled by their association with Nazi
propaganda. And he chose to hear Beethoven in a way that restored the human
element a pre-war Bildungsbürger was taught resided therein. He theorized the
concept of »new music« in a similar way, and his theory has had lasting effects on
the history of composition, especially in Germany.23 But if his ideas seem less

21 This new series of Beethoven symphonies, Adorno stressed in the opening of the review, repre-
sented »ein Korrektiv des herrschenden kommerziellen Unwesens.« Th. W. ADORNO, Beethoven im
Geist, 535.
22 »René Leibowitz. . .der eigentliche Träger der Überlieferung der Wiener Schule in Paris. . ..Er über-
trägt die musikalischen Erkentnisse und Erfahrungen der Schönbergschule auf die Wiedergabe allgemein
bekannter, authentischer Werke der Vergangenheit.« Th. W. ADORNO, Beethoven im Geist, 535-536.
23 As recently as 2009, the composer and theorist Claus Steffen Mahnkopf claimed that »New
Music should be understood. . .as a consequence of something that began with Beethoven: the compo-
sitional self-determination of the musical subject out of freedom.« Claus Steffen MAHNKOPF, Musi-
cal Modernity from Classical Modernity up to the Second Modernity- Provisional Considerations,
Search Journal for New Music and Culture 4 (Spring 2009) www.searchnewmusic.org/index4.html
(accessed 15. 08. 2012).

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IRASM 44 (2013) * 1 1:49-56 I M. Zagorski: Hearing Beethoven, Truth,
* 1 I and »New Music«

widely shared in a world that has chosen to value dive

than a German canon, his call for subjective freedom
can aspire. That he took this ideal seriously himself is
pages of his writings: it informed all of his words- ev
a short review in the daily newspaper.

Sažetak

Slušanje Beethovena, istina i »Nova glazba«

Snimka Renéa Leibowitza Beethovenovih devet simfonija iz 1961. godine prema

Adornovom je prikazu te kolekcije ponudila slušateljima mogucnost da čuju ta djela ni vise
ni manje nego kao »razotkrivanje istine«. Još je i više obečavalo to što je Leibowitzov Beet-
hoven mogao pružiti uvod u »Novu glazbu« druge polovice 20. stolječa koju je Adorn
držao jedinom odgovornom mogučnošču za skladatelje uskladene s napretkom svjetske
povijesti. Koje je istine otkrila Leibowitzova snimka? I na koji je náčin Beethoven mogao bit
uzor onim poslijeratnim skladateljima koji su se svjesno pokušavali distancirati od 19. sto-
lječa? Ovaj rad ispituje aspekt recepcije Beethovena onako kako je on predstavljen u Ador-
novoj teoriji Nove glazbe te tvrdi da je stereotipna slika Beethovena sine qua non ove teo-
rije Nove glazbe. Adornova teorija Nove glazbe jedan je od ključnih elemenata njegove
glazbene filozofije: o njoj je pisao vjerojatno više nego o ijednoj drugoj pojedinacnoj temi, a
njegove su ideje bile vrlo utjecajne medu poslijeratnim skladateljima. Koliko god če se
možda činiti iznenadujučim to što Beethoven predstavlja kamen temeljac ove teorije, još je
više nužno priznati Beethovenu mjesto koje on ima u konstrukciji jedne istaknute teorij
modernizma.

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