Open AccessAdorno's Marxism versus Schoenberg's Judaism: Ideological foundations of Adorno's sociological approach to Schoenberg's dodecaphonic music
Author(s) -
Dragana Jeremić-Molnar,
Aleksandar Molnar
Publication year - 2009
Publication title -
sociologija
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.174
H-Index - 8
eISSN - 2406-0712
pISSN - 0038-0318
DOI - 10.2298/soc0901045j
Subject(s) - reactionary , ideology , judaism , marxist philosophy , philosophy , capitalism , sociology , order (exchange) , epistemology , aesthetics , religious studies , theology , law , politics , finance , political science , economics
In this article the authors devote their attention to the ideological dimension of Theodor Adorno's attitude towards atonality, and especially towards dodecaphonic music. They are arguing that Adorno never really wanted to understand close interrelatedness between Arnold Schoenberg's dodecaphonic project and his endeavors to go 'back to the roots' of Judaism. Instead, Adorno developed a Marxist pattern of explanation which was hostile towards anything belonging to the repressive and meaningless 'ancient regime', as well as towards its 'appropriate' ideologies and religions (like Judaism). In order to fulfill the primary task of reflecting the evils of the rule of contemporary totalitarian capitalism, modern atonal (and especially dodecaphonic) music had to be, according to Adorno, 'progressively' purified of all ties with 'reactionary' Judaism