Re: music (Adorno autonomously)

[Dennis R Redmond <dredmond@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 6 Jun 1999, S Mure wrote:

> Beethoven's music, like any other form of art, relies for its effect on
> the acceptance of a set of conventions which are ultimately socially
> derived. The element of 'expression' that he introduced depends on the
> manipulation of these conventions. His was the music of the Revolution
> as you say - of the early bourgeois subject, which is long dead. The
> modern concept of 'expression' also came along at this time and is now
> utterly shot, as far as I can see.

But *is* the early bourgeois subject (the small-scale proprietor or
professional who owns their means of production) really dead? Capitalism
seems pretty lively to me, in fact, compared to Beethoven's day, when
capitalism was basically limited to Britain, France, the US and a few
major entrepots, one would have to say that capitalism has never been more
omnipresent, totalizing and ubiquitous.

Beethoven's music might, in fact, be truer (however such a thing could be
measured) today than ever before, simply because it resists or is
non-identical to the multinational musical marketplace. This isn't the
same thing as the concert industry and all that, I'm talking about the
musical text itself: how it transformed the melodic and harmonic elements
which Mozart perfected and drove them further, forging them into the
titantic, world-historical themes of the symphonies. Mozart and Beethoven
would thus relate to one another rather like Kant relates to Hegel (a bit
of a stretch, of course, but you get the idea: just because Beethoven is
canonized doesn't mean it's dead, or that we really understand it, it
just means that Polygram wants to sell us lots of classical CDs).

-- Dennis