O Adorno tardio e o jovem Schönberg

Abstract

The aim of the current study is to investigate the reasons leading Adorno to offer a course about young Schönberg in 1955, at the famous Internationale Ferienkurse für Neue Musik, which was a prominent center for integral serialism development at that time. The immanent analysis of some key texts addressing Adorno’s understanding about the meaning of Schönberg’s music highlights a fundamental compositional gesture, namely: Störungsgeste. Subsequently, the study addresses Adorno’s position towards tendencies observed in the production of composers belonging to the “Darmstadt School”, based on the concept of “aging”. Such a diagnosis partly justifies the Adornian perspective about the need of changing the direction of compositional practices, although it does not explain why young Schönberg symbolized them. This point became evident when the way Adorno has historically interpreted the Schönberg phenomenon was analyzed. This factor leads to a thesis that played important role in the 1955 lectures; according to it, Schönberg’s late “style” innovations have germinated in his initial procedure. In our opinion, interpreting young Schonberg from the “late” perspective means reading him from the Störungsgeste viewpoint. Finally, herein conducted musical analyses show both the configuration and marks left by these elements in the solid structure of young Schönberg’s music.