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Adorno's "Schubert": From the Critique of the Garden Gnome to the Defense of Atonalism

2005; University of California Press; Volume: 29; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1525/ncm.2005.29.1.25

1533-8606

Estebán Buch,

Musicians’ Health and Performance

This article situates Adorno's "Schubert" in the context of the 1928 centennial, showing the originality of his position on the issue of Schubertian kitsch (as represented by Heinrich BertŽ's operetta Das Dreimaderlhaus). This is related to Adorno's attitude toward organicism, characterized by a critique that was relevant on both the political and the theoretical level. His antiorganicist vision of Schubert's music is compared to the nationalist stance of a Richard Benz, typical of right-wing readings of German cultural greatness, and also to the analytical a prioris of two pupils of Schenker, Felix Salzer and Otto Vrieslander (as shown in their perception of the exposition of the Bb-Major Sonata). Finally, Adorno's attitude toward Schubert is related to his commitment on behalf of a "Schoenbergian politics," which led him to view both Schoenberg's and Schubert's music as an alternative to a musical canon shaped by a shared belief in organicism.