Steve’s Stuff

This is another review I wrote for Amazon.com

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Perhaps the only things more polemical than Adorno’s critique of Schoenberg and Stravinsky are the reactions that followed. Unfortunately, many people still assume that they understand Adorno’s views and arguments concerning these two composers. The reductionist tendency to simplify Adorno’s view to “Schoenberg good, Stravinsky bad” shows just who has and who hasn’t actually read this book. It is never so simple. Adorno is frequently critical of Schoenberg in very perceptive ways. Of course there’s no mistaking who Adorno favors, but to consider this book as a good-vs-evil study is far too limiting. Not only is this a great study of the then current state of musical thought, it is also an interesting overview of twelve tone music, how it works, what it seeks to do, and why it’s important.

The format of the book is especially nice. Adorno’s favored paratactical prose style can be incredibly difficult when multi-page paragraphs begin to accumulate. For the most part in Philosophy of New Music, each new paragraph is marked by a heading. This keeps the ideas organized and focused. Adorno’s paragraphs seem to function as a spinning out of an idea in a very fluid manner and the length of his sections are just the right length to allow the reader to comfortably follow him without getting bogged down. His theses is developed piece by piece, but clearly dividing up the ideas helps the reader see the logical progression. Having read other Adorno writings, I found this to be unusually clear and concise. I wonder how much more useful Aesthetic Theory would be if he had used this structure.

The remarkable clarity is probably due, to a large extent, to Robert Hullot-Kentor’s translation. I’ve read many other translators with varying degrees of success (Ashton’s attempt at Negative Dialectics being one of the worst), but Hullot-Kentor is by far the best. Adorno’s writing is riddled with allusions and references that are frequently vague or obscure. Hullot-Kentor does a great service to readers by including additional references and background information. His detailed understanding of Adorno’s complicated thought is evident in every sentence. Reading Adorno has, to me at least, never been so straightforward.

In addition to the translation, Hullot-Kentor provides an excellent foreword providing both a context and an overview of what is inside. His description of the translation process is, as always, interesting. Hullot-Kentor has found a way to provide very readable English translations while maintaining Adorno’s linguistic artistry.