'Material' in Adorno's sociology of music

• Main Authors: Jeremić-Molnar Dragana, Molnar Aleksandar
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Serbian Sociological Association, Belgrade 2008-01-01
• Series: Sociološki Pregled
• Subjects: music; material; capitalism; atonality; revolution
• Online Access: http://scindeks-clanci.ceon.rs/data/pdf/0085-6320/2008/0085-63200803365J.pdf

In the article the authors are dealing with the musical 'material' as the key concept of Theodor Adorno's sociology of music. Being a synthesis of two, ideologically opposite - Schonberg's and Marx's - legacies, Adorno's 'material' combines also quite opposite meanings. On the one side, it echoes Schonberg's theory of relationship between tone (as natural phenomena) and unconscious 'instinct' (that transforms composer into some kind of the tool of nature, and whole mankind as well). On the other side, Adorno was following Karl Marx general theory of capitalism (all cultural phenomena are determined by the material production), with one crucial innovation. Adorno's 'material' was reflecting the lack of virtual communist revolution, instead of its preparation (in the bosom of totalitarian capitalism). As the result of Adorno's 'negative dialectics' in the field of music, it was carrying the message of the suppressed apocalypse. .