October 16 - 20, 2006. Eloquent Beyond All Words: Beethoven's Music and Its Interpretation by Th. W. Adorno
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Teaching Personnel
Eloquent Beyond All Words : Beethoven's Music and Its Interpretation by Th. W. Adorno
For more than three decades, the philosopher, music theorist and composer, Theodor W. Adorno (1903-1969), recorded his experiences with the music of Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827), occasionally producing a publishable article but ultimately failing to bring together the intended book on Beethoven that was also to be a book on the philosophy of music. For Adorno, Beethoven was a composer-thinker and the intellectual peer of his contemporary, the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1832). The posthumous compilation of all of Adorno's texts and fragments relating to Beethoven permits a fascinating study of the complex relationship between musical analysis and philosophical critique.
The seminar, which is intended for students of philosophy and musicology alike, will explore the basic features of Adorno's thinking about music, before turning to the small group of works by Beethoven that stand at the center of Adorno's analysis and critique: the piano sonatas (especially op. 106 "Hammerklavier"), the late string quartets and the symphonies No. 3, 5 and 9 as well as the Missa solemnis. In a further step Adorno's readings will be confronted with current musicological research on Beethoven, as represented by Carl Dahlhaus's study, Ludwig van Beethoven. Approaches to His Music, translated by Mary Whittall (Oxford: Oxfortd University Press, 1994) (German original: L. van Beethoven und seine Zeit. Laaber 1987), and the two-volume collaborative work, Beethoven. Interpretations of His Works, edited by Albrecht Riethmüller, Carl Dahlhaus and Alexander Ringer, 2 vols. (Laaber 1994). In focusing on particular works of Beethoven the seminar will be able to assess in detail the tenability of Adorno's interpretation of Beethoven and that of his overall aversion against the so-called positivism of traditional musicology.
Texts
- Theodor W. Adorno, Beethoven. Philosophie der Musik. Fragmente und Texte, edited by Rolf Thielemann (Frankfurt/M.: Suhrkamp, 1993; paperback 2004)
- Theodor Adorno, Beethoven. The Philosophy of Music, edited by Rolf Tiedemann, translated by Edmund Jephcott (Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 2002)
Contact
Chiara Bianchini - LMU Seminars Coordinator
Chiara Bianchini - LMU Seminars Coordinator
Tel. + 39 041 2719511
Fax. + 39 041 2719510
