GG: & Adorno

[Mary Jo Watts <mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu>]

I thought it would be interesting to quote some passages from a book
of Theodor Adorno's that GG owned, and evidently annotated, called _Prisms_
copyright 1967.  


	From "Bach Defended Against his Devotees":

"True interpretation is an x-ray of the work; its task is to
illuminate in the sensuous phenomenon the totality of all
characteristics and interrelations which have been recognized through
intensive study of the score."

	From "Arnold Schoenberg (1874-1951)":

"The truth is that Schoenberg was a naive artist, above all in the
often hapless intellectualizations with which he sought to justify his
work."

"Schoenberg's intolerance of all excess ornament stems from his
generosity, from his reluctance to have the listener deprived of true
riches by ostentation."

"Hegel taught that whenever something new becomes visible, immediate,
striking, authentic, a long process of formation has preceded it and
it has now merely thrown off its shell.  Only that which has been
nourished with the life-blood of the tradition cab possibly have the
power to confront it authentically; the rest becomes the helpless prey
of forces which it has failed to overcome sufficiently within itself."

"The silent, imaginative reading of music could render actual playing
as superfluous as, for instance, speaking is made by the reading of
written material; such a practice could at the same time save music
from the abuse inflicted upon the compositional content by virtually
every performance today.  The inclination to silence, which shapes the
aura of every tone in Webern's lyrics, is related to the tendency
stemming from Schoenberg."


Comments anyone?

-Mary Jo,
mwatts@rci.rutgers.edu