The Beethovenian tones of the
Wiesengrund—meadow-ground— ;expressed an early promise of happiness for the bourgeois age that would eventually be shattered, leaving the ill-fated dodecaphonic composer Adrian Leverkühn no choice but to complete his life with a melancholic requiem composed to the former greatness of German art.
Adorno wrote broadly on metaphysics, epistemology, political philosophy, ethics, the history of philosophy, and the philosophy of history. He is most widely known for his attempt to reveal the intricate historical and dialectical relationships between philosophy, society and the arts, or between philosophy, sociology, and aesthetic theory.
Philosophy and Music
In the 1920s, Adorno worked as a music critic reflecting upon contemporary developments in both the high and popular forms of the arts. Following his graduation in 1924 with a critical dissertation on Husserl's phenomenology he moved to Vienna to study composition with Alban Berg, a member alongside Arnold Schoenberg and Anton Webern of the Second Viennese School. Torn initially between philosophy and music he finally chose both, in this way furthering a tradition that had its beginnings with Plato. Following Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche (and knowledgeable of his contemporary Ernst Bloch), Adorno gave pride of place to music in his philosophical thinking and to philosophy in his musical thinking.
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