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Introduction

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2014

Silvio J. dos Santos
Affiliation:
Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
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Summary

In 1955, around the twentieth anniversary of Berg's death, Theodor Adorno felt compelled to restore what he regarded as Berg's rightful place in the history of musical aesthetics, as well as his legacy as a composer. One of Adorno's chief complaints was related to the changing perception of Berg's music: “During his lifetime he was a leading member of the avant-garde and would have never felt himself to be anything else. He now finds himself lumped together with others under the label of ‘modern classics,’ a label from which he would have recoiled.”

Referring to audiences of the 1920s as well as to well-informed critics of the 1950s, Adorno argued that they had misapprehended one of the principal aspects of Berg's work: its musical logic, from rhythmic and phrase structures to the large-scale formal organization. While this sort of misapprehension was probably true then as now, Adorno's main goal in his essay was to repudiate what he saw as a widespread perception of Berg as a Wagnerian composer. In his critique, Adorno points out that audiences “need only hear a few bars of Berg to start talking automatically of Tristan-like Romanticism, as if chromaticism and the leading note were the most important aspects of Berg's mature music, and as if determining what his searching, infinitely subtle sensibility succeeded in making of such elements were irrelevant.”

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2014

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  • Introduction
  • Silvio J. dos Santos, Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
  • Book: Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu'
  • Online publication: 05 August 2014
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  • Introduction
  • Silvio J. dos Santos, Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
  • Book: Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu'
  • Online publication: 05 August 2014
Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

  • Introduction
  • Silvio J. dos Santos, Assistant professor of musicology at the University of Florida
  • Book: Narratives of Identity in Alban Berg's 'Lulu'
  • Online publication: 05 August 2014
Available formats
×