The Schoenberg Phenomenon: Twelve-tone Music and its Absolute Alienation

Abstract

The Schoenberg Phenomenon: Twelve-tone Music and its Absolute Alienation

Abstract

Through Adorno’s analysis, Schoenberg was an important figure representing aspects of musical modernism but at the same time, Adorno dramatically opposed it in many aspects of his music. Although he has a highly negative view of the “Schoenberg phenomenon”, he discovers there is an important change in Schoenberg’s works in the manner in which the composer relates to his material. This paper will attempt to deal with various aspects of Adorno’s criticism of the “Schoenberg phenomenon” based on his article “Schoenberg and Progress”.2 It will address two issues: on the one hand, the twelve-tone technique and, its organisation and on the other, the attitude towards society of this new language of music. These issues concern the problem of “absolute alienation”

Keywords

• Adorno, Schoenberg, Twelve-Tone Music, Atonality, Alienation.

References

1. BERGSON, Henri. Creative Evolution. çev. Arthur Mitchell. Lanham: University Press of America. 1946.
2. BERGSON, Henri. The Two Sources of Morality and Religion. Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press. 2006. s. 209-66.
3. CORNGOLD, Stanley. “The Question of the Self in Nietzsche during the Axial Period (1882
4. )”. boundary 2, Vol. 9/10, Vol. 9, no. 3 - Vol. 10, no. 1, Why Nietzsche Now? A Boundary 2 Symposium (Spring - Autumn, 1981). s. 55-98.
5. DESCARTES, Rene. Meditations on the First Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1986.
6. KANT, Immanuel. The Critique of Pure Reason. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998.
7. LUFT, David. Robert Musil and the Crisis of European Culture 1880-1942. Los Angeles; London: University of California Press, Berkeley. 1984.
8. McBRIDE, Patrizia. The Void of Ethics: Robert Musil and the Experience of Modernity. Illinois: Northwestern University Press. 2006.

9. MUSIL, Robert. Diaries. New York: Basic Books. 1998.
10. MUSIL, Robert. Genç Törless. çev. Kamuran Şipal. İstanbul: İletişim. 2000.
11. MUSIL, Robert. Precision and Soul. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1990.
12. MUSIL, Robert. The Man without Qualities. çev. Sophie Wilkins and Burton Pike. London: Picador. 1995.
13. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. Ecce Homo. çev. R. J. Hollingdale. Penguin. Harmonsworth. Middlesex. 1979.
14. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. On the Genealogy of Morality. çev. Carol Diethe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2002.
15. NIETZSCHE, Friedrich. “Twilight of the Idols” The Portable Nietzsche içinde, çev. Walter Kaufmann. London: Chatto&Windus. 1971.
16. Robert Musil, Genç Törless, çev. Kamuran Şipal, İletişim, İstanbul, 2000.
17. PAYNE, Philips. “Introduction: The Symbiosis of Robert Musil’s Life and Works,”
18. A Companion to the Works of Robert Musil içinde. der. Bartram, Graham, Galin Tihanov ve Philip Payne. New York: Camden House. 2007.
19. SEBASTIAN, Thomas. The intersection of Science and Literature in Musil’s The Man without Qualities. New York: Camden House. 2005.
20. WOLF, Susan. Freedom within Reason. New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1990.