MATERIAL FOR THE REPRODUCTION THEORY¹

LA.

Reproduction as a form            21 June 1946

Neither prescribed unambiguously through the work nor open to decision by the performer. (Pult + Taktstock vol. 2 issue 4 p. 51ff.)²

The work and the interpretation need each other. On this: interpretation as a historical problem. Dorian 23,³ poss. Über das Dirigieren 290 [Arrow extending downwards from Dorian:] always add NB: interpretation given only through writing

Reproduction as a form Notes 20.⁴

Problem: text and freedom. Concerning the problem of reproduction 51 to 52.⁵ (Opening question)

Translation as a form Benjamin VII.⁶

Title perhaps: TWA

    Reproduction Theory

        A Music-Philosophical Investigation

The musical text + musical writing

What is a musical text Notes 2. Ibid. musical notation and writing [Marginal note:] NB Riemann, Studien zur Geschichte der Notenschrift [Studies on the History of Musical Notation] 1878

Non-intentionality of the text Notes 4 (perhaps move to a later part)

Zone of indeterminacy Dorian 27. Insufficiency of writing Dorian 28

Writing and printing Dorian 61

Historical relativity of writing Dorian 181

Original manuscript & critique Dorian 224–225. NB for original manuscript: its pictorial character

Wagner's hypothesis of the primacy of sense over notation Über das Dirigieren 275. [Marginal note:] leads to sense

First large sketch Notes 20–22

Playing from memory Notes 23. Schumann I 147–148 cf. Ad sense-accents Wagner Oper und Drama, 2nd section, 3rd part, pp. 148–160. Ad Riemann I, 2, 94⁷

NB It must transpire why music demands interpretation, while poetry does not (because the latter interprets itself and unfolds within itself, but music, being non-intentional, has its life in a being outside of itself). The constraint of practicability lies in the mimetic aspect. Music's writing wants to be imitated

NB derive the change in the texts from their mimetic nature

Reification + subjectivity (main hypothesis: not opposites but poles approaching one another)

Lack of classification, division of labour and Dorian 29

Main source Dorian 57

Functional division etc. Dorian 62f.

Reification of composition Dorian 70

[On the reverse of the page:] The end of improvisational practice, the work's attainment of independence, and its separation from interpretation at once instigate its self-sufficiency

Reproduction as a function of reification

Reproduction is a problem on account of the estrangement of production and product, the futile attempt at reconciliation

Notes 7. Asceticism and reification Dorian 44

NB any good interpretation presupposes the distortion of the work in relation to its familiar image in the memory, as it were the repetition of what all writing down once subjected all music to. (Cf. chapter 1, bottom of p. 5)⁸

Construction + expression

[Marginal note:] close to [?] mimesis

‘Espressivo’ Notes 9 Rubato as expression Dorian 190

Dialectic Notes top of 10.

Espressivo as ritardando Dorian 207⁹

Infused with soulful expression Über das Dirigieren 269 and Note

Tone as the element of transformation Über das Dirigieren 282 and Notes 12

Expressive sense as thematic intention Über das Dirigieren 283

Adagio character Über das Dirigieren 285

Expression, form, Beethoven + new tempi Neue Tempi 5–6¹⁰

Discussion of Stravinsky's hypothesis¹¹ (following the term espressivo)

Interpretation + mimesis

[Marginal note:] probably together with playing

‘Playing’ Notes 2.

Escaping of mimetic characters [Notes] 5

Subjectivism and identification (NB in a certain sense reification aids mimesis) Dorian 49

Affektenlehre Dorian 139–144 (NB in rationalization, mimesis comes to serve the context of effect)

Interpretation as imitation Dorian 144

Classicism as repressed mimesis Über das Dirigieren 316f. Riemann's denial Riemann I, 1, 9.¹²

The idea of true interpretation

Beginning of the ‘Notes’

NB playing from memory

Imitation of the non-existent original (the idea of which should be in the centre here)

The idea of the change undergone by the works Hypothesis: the change obeys rules in the sense of

unfolding the immanent character of the work

Change through being heard Notes 5.

Not only escaping, also forming of new characters Notes 5 (NB the new aspect of the Dialectic of Enlightenment. Regarding this also Wagner on the wildness of the Scherzo of the 9th

Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's 240 (Notes 16)

[Note in the left margin:] Begin the chapter with this Dorian 28

Insufficiency of famous recordings from the past Notes 5–6 (NB regarding this Liszt's arrangements as an index)

The absolutist style of presentation Dorian 69

Becoming faster in the rococo Dorian 117.

Historical character of interpretation Über das Dirigieren 290 (perhaps at the start of this paragraph)

Historical character of the most recent phase of interpretation Notes 14

Hypothesis of objective change in the works Nachtmusik 2–3.¹³ (Support!)

Change follows rules Neue Tempi 1–2.¹⁴

Text broken Neue Tempi 3. Expanded upon 4–5.¹⁵

First unified presentation ‘Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage der Musik’ [On the Social Situation of Music], II, 356ff.¹⁶

Change in the original Benjamin X¹⁷

[Note in the left margin:] poss. separate paragraph on the historical character of interpretation before ‘change in the works’. Motifs Notes 25

Regarding this also argue against the greater comprehensibility of older music in relation to contemporary music. Cf. Stravinsky autobiography¹⁸ [Note in the left margin:] NB example: the second subject of the B minor Symphony [by Schubert]

NB zone of indeterminacy is not inadequacy of notation = historical. Therefore the change Dorian 181

The subject–object problem of interpretation

Objectivity through depth of subjective perception Notes 7

Critique of the rigid division into subject and object ad Dorian 31. (NB but both aspects must be captured)

Differentiation of the ‘subjective’ side Notes bottom of 7

Undialectical view of subject and object Dorian 157–159 (find)

Imagination and fidelity Dorian 220.

subjective element of objective interpretation against Dorian 284–286

The impossibility of the subject's subsumption by the idiom Notes 24–25

The problem of virtuosity + reproduction's attainment of independence

Over-dominance Notes 6–7

NB Kritik des Musikanten¹⁹

Relapse of music into gambling. Regression. Omnipotence.

Interpretation as retrieval + critique

Retrieval follow on from Über das Dirigieren 299ff., Notes 13. [Note in the left margin:] connect this to what follows.

Dialectic of retouching poss. ‘Retrieval and Critique’

[Note in the left margin:] cf. ‘insight’

Schumann III, p. 66ff.²⁰

Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's and Notes 15–16.

Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's

1. 231        Clarity. Vividness.
2. 232        Objection of indistinctness
3. 234        Clarity as drasticness (dual character of clarity: for itself and for [the listeners])
4. 235f       structural necessity of retouching
5. 237        profit and loss

[Note in the left margin:] NB Tristan score foreword²¹ also applies to the old instruments

1. 239        the way Wagner's theory grows further.
2. 241        law of retouching and representational theory (reason for insufficiency)
3. 245        critique of the 8th [Symphony by Beethoven] (and my note about the start of the 9th's development section)²²
4. 246        the retarding aspect of carefulness.
5. 255ff     (Notes 16–17) executed dialectic of retouching

[Note in the left margin:] NB with Beethoven the deafness obviously not responsible

To conclude this complex: connection to the idea of the integral work Notes 19f.

Interpretation as insight

Analysis Notes 2.

Schönberg's ideal of insight Dorian 333

Recognizing the melody Über das Dirigieren 271.

Clarity and sense Notes 15, Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's 231, 232, 234, 238

Wagner's formula about insight Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's 252,²³ Notes 16

Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's 233.

Instrumentation as construction.

ad sense interpretation, unity of elements, integral work + its problematic nature

Substitutability of elements Notes 1–2.

Dynamics and phrasing (central) Dorian 163.

Theme and dynamics Dorian 168

Law of mutual relations Über das Dirigieren 287

Main passage on the connection between elements Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's 251 (Notes 16)

Problem of dynamic proportions and instrumental colour

(Connection between elements). Wagner Zum Vortrag der IX. Symphonie Beethoven's 253

Constructive consequence of new tempi Neue Tempi 5–6²⁴

ad becoming uninterpretable integration + the disintegration of the works

Relativism

Notes 23–24

Idea of becoming uninterpretable + falling silent

Ideal of silent music-making Notes 2

Reading music Notes 4.

Increasing unambiguity of today's texts Dorian 29

Relief through notation and regression of the performer Dorian 42 (from figured bass up to jazz)

Objective interpretation precisely of subjective music Dorian 247

Elimination of the performer as mediator etc. Dorian 342 to 344

Starting theory Nachtmusik I.²⁵

End of interpretability = transparency, pure insight Nachtmusik 3²⁶

Disintegration as disintegration of internality Nachtmusik 4²⁷

Invocation of the uninterpretable: Furtwängler essay²⁸

Examine illusion of objectivist presentation (and objectivist music)

Tempo, metronome markings etc. NB this is where the treatment of

the critical zones of interpretation begins.

Pulse Dorian 115 (with critique)

Dorian's rule Dorian 180

Becoming faster through repetition Dorian 186

Metronome Dorian 198, 300. cf. Notes 10.

Wagner's theory of modification Dorian between 227 and 239, Über das Dirigieren 281–283

Tempo as the central problem Dorian 280. (justify: collision of the general and the particular, the problem of nominalism) [Marginal note:] shift

Tempo as function of ‘melos’ Über das Dirigieren 274. (Notes 11f)

Hypothesis of becoming faster Neue Tempi 2²⁹

‘Life’ as history, not vitalistic Metronomisierung [Metronome Markings] 130f.³⁰ Against applying metronome markings to older works Metronomisierung 130

Rigidity and accuracy Metronomisierung 132 / tempo-relation Metronomisierung 133

Crescendo, dynamics

Dorian 149, 151. (NB problem of inserted dynamics in Beethoven)

Strength and dissonance Dorian 168 (cf. Wagner study IV)³¹

Slowness of organum and the individual event (cf. Neue Tempi).³² Riemann I, 2, 137.³³

Musical sense

Notes 3

Dorian's hypothesis of the interpretation of the sense from the writing. Dorian 28

Phrasing as the critical problem of Dorian's sense Dorian 159. (NB ad non-intentional language)

Sulzer's warning about the strong beats Dorian 162

[Note in the left margin regarding these notes:] regarding ‘unity of elements’ etc.

Sense and phrasing Dorian 164

Character through musical content: looking back Dorian 227 Retrospective interpretation Über das Dirigieren 268f., cf. Über das Dirigieren 285

Melody = running thread = context Über das Dirigieren 271 and 286

Sense and technique Über das Dirigieren 273 (Notes 11). Ad non-intentional language.

Modification in the service of comprehensibility Über das Dirigieren 327.

[Note in the left margin:] cf. subjectivism connection to the change in the works

Conductor (hypothesis: co-ordinator of functions alienated through division of labour)

Authority Über das Dirigieren 264

Critique of the theory of the composer's intentions

Notes 2–3. Dorian 31.

here include a critique of all musical psychologism i.e. the mimetic impulses not those of the subject

and the ‘spiritual’ is the societal authority.

Critique of the doctrine of the text as a set of performance instructions

    Positivism

Notes 2–3

Stravinsky's positivism Dorian 329

Critique of historicism

exploitation of later resources Dorian 81

against false objectivity Dorian 163

‘musicological tempo’ Dorian 180

against the opposition theatrical–historical Dorian 293

Historical correctness etc. Dorian 311, and Notes 10

No pre-stabilized harmony Dorian 312. Schönberg's Bach Dorian 313. discuss 318

Wagner: relative validity of incorrect interpretation Über das Dirigieren 282.

Most important passage in Wagner Über das Dirigieren 310

Argumentation Notes 14f

Argumentation: the attraction of the pre-subjective Notes 18f.

[Note in the left margin:] naturally also against wilfulness – derive from inner history.

ad sense ‘letter’ + ‘spirit’

    interaction between sense + writing

For ‘letter’ Notes 2

Critique of the Romantic and positivistic styles of presentation

Toscanini Notes 3–4

Essay on conductors Anbruch.³⁴ / Stravinsky Dorian 30

against fulfilment in the present Notes 11, ad Über das Dirigieren 268

Critique of Romanticism in connection with the change in the works Über das Dirigieren 285–86, 294, 298

Wagner and the mania of transition Über das Dirigieren 292–93, Notes 12. [Note in the left margin:] Romanticism

The aspect of ‘reason’ in Wagner Über das Dirigieren 299.

Discussion of the objections against Wagner. Positing and nominalism Über das Dirigieren 308ff.

Objectivism and resentment Über das Dirigieren 319f.

‘mathematical’ and ‘ideational listening’ Über das Dirigieren 334.

[Note in the left margin:] NB theory of playing from memory.

Critique of the concept of style per se

Follow on from Dorian 31.

Style as something brought into the composition from without, only within the work, not as its frame. Regarding this Wagner's ‘educatedness’ Wagner's theory Über das Dirigieren 312–316.

Writing + instrument

Problem Notes 6.

Voice Notes 6. Violin and Voice Dorian 66

‘Playing’

Playing and risk Notes 6 (cf. circus. Interlocking of the mimetic and nature-controlling elements)

Virtuoso and circus Dorian 299

Playing turned into illusion. On the problem of reproduction 53³⁵

Fetishism: means instead of end

Mass culture and interpretation – problem Dorian 55.

Standardization of dance Dorian 107

NB fetishism is nothing foreign to reproduction, but posited implicitly in the act of fixing

[Note in the left margin:] NB fetish study³⁶

Music as language

Dorian 44–46

In the performer's case Notes 24–25

NB paradox: the lingual aspect of music, the mimetic, is at once the refuge of the objectively traditional.

Problem of the ornament

follow on from Dorian 89

key character of ornaments and figured bass ad Dorian 92

Wagner's theory

Comment on Wagner's style of language Notes 13

Dialectical image

First sketches Notes 17 and 18

refer it back to the mimetic.

Afterlife of the works; light music as interpretation

Starting theory Nachtmusik 1–2.³⁷

Absolute negativity Nachtmusik 4–5³⁸

Mechanical music

Debussy's anti-mechanism Dorian 300 (regarding this my note from the blue book)³⁹

Satie Dada jazz Dorian 305 (mechanization not only from without)

Mechanization necessary and inauthentic Notes 20

Mechanization as the works' disintegration. Radio Voice.⁴⁰ But regarding this: mechanization as the immanent consequence of the shrinking of interpretative freedom.

Critique of the culinary ideal (decline of the idiomatic)

Notes 4–5

Cf. Radio Symphony,⁴¹ Damrosch study,⁴² fetish essay.

Rubato, ‘stealing’ time, interpretative freedom [note in the left margin:] the rubato and the ornament are the rudiments of improvisation in the text

Notes 6. Interpretation always ‘rubato’ ibid.

Prescription of freedom Dorian 54–55

End of figured bass as the end of freedom Dorian 157

Mozart's rubato Dorian 189 (criticize). Rubato as expression Dorian 190

functional rubato Dorian 239

Freedom Zum Problem der Reproduktion [Concerning the Problem of Reproduction] 51⁴³

[Note in the left margin:] poss. separate the two and examine freedom on its own near the beginning

Forms – freedom, nominalism – rigour Zum Problem der Reproduktion 52f⁴⁴

very good passage about decline of freedom in Beethoven Zur gesellschaftlichen Lage der Musik II, bottom of 359–360⁴⁵

In the foreground: interpretation in ancient times Riemann I, p. VIII

close to style. Convention, tradition etc.

Dorian 72, 77.

Zum Problem der Reproduktion 52f⁴⁶

Busoni ad Bach + Schönberg Zum Problem der Reproduktion 54⁴⁷

Notes

1    In this section, Adorno gathered together – under each of the keywords which Gretel Adorno had extracted from the ‘Notes’ for him – all those elements he intended to use for the actual draft. The date refers to the beginning of his work on the ‘Material’. See also on p. 227 the date of the keywords of the ‘Second Schema’. The references to Dorian and Wagner's writings mostly relate to those passages cited at the start of the ‘Notes’; where they do not, they are reproduced in the notes.

2    See Adorno, ‘Zum Problem der Reproduktion’, GS 19, pp. 440–4.

3    ‘Music lives through interpretation. Between a musical work and the world stands the interpreter who brings the score to life by his performance. The relationship between the performing and the creative artist, however, has changed profoundly in the history of music and continues to do so.’

4    The page numbers refer to the page numbers of Adorno's ‘exercise book’, which are printed here in the outer margins.

5    ‘Rather, the peculiar difficulties of reproduction only begin with the question of the freedom of the performer, which, if it is not to enable open wilfulness, can only exist within those boundaries. And the answer to this question too, some people say, cannot be found solely with reference to the performer, but essentially and constitutively in the structure of the work. How to tell from the work what freedom it grants the performer, who interprets it as a work – exploring this would seem to be the central task of a theory of reproduction, which admittedly, as a theory, could not fully penetrate that which, merged inseparably with it, encloses the construct in all its wealth, and encloses the one who retraces it as a whole human being’ (GS 19, p. 440).

6    See note 5, p. 264.

7    The passage from Riemann's Handbuch der Musikgeschichte reads: ‘Furthermore, comparison reveals that those syllables which are, declaimed naturally, the primary carriers of sense-accents retain the same melodic contours in all documents, so that one must conclude that an ideal rhythm is also preserved, even with a quicker delivery of arising syllabic accumulations, or conversely a more drawn-out delivery of parts with fewer syllables. The meaning of this ideal rhythm was explained by none other than Richard Wagner in an absolutely irrefutable version of his text “Oper und Drama” in the second section of the third part (Collected Works, vol. 4, p. 148).’

8    Adorno is referring to his ‘Draft’; see p. 166 above, before the Benjamin quotation.

9    ‘We can find nowhere in Beethoven a specifically prescribed rubato. […] Yet there are evidently passages where the aggregate of Beethoven's markings amounts to what the rubato instruction represents in later periods: a variation of time with gradual modification. For example, in the opening movement of Opus 111, the original instruction, allegro con brio ed appassionato, dissolves completely upon the very first appearance of the second theme. Here, meno allegro appears in the second half of the measure, followed by two measures marked ritardando. […] Similar situations are to be found in many other of Beethoven's last works – at the end of Opus 90, and in Opera 101, 109, and 110. It is only in such places of agitated emotion, of intense expression, that we are obliged to perform with an appropriate amount of tempo rubato. Such slight and controlled rubato would coincide with the style of Beethoven's own rendition, as described by those who were privileged to hear him.’

10    Adorno's essay ‘Neue Tempi’ first appeared in the first issue of vol. 7 (1930) of Pult & Taktstock; see GS 17, pp. 66–73; for the passage referred to here, see pp. 71f.

11    This could not be ascertained; probably the passage from Dorian, p. 30 (see p. 9 above) is meant.

12    See note 8, p. 264.

13    See GS 17, pp. 54–6.

14    Ibid., pp. 66f.

15    Ibid., pp. 68–70.

16    The second part of the essay – dealing with ‘reproduction’ and ‘consumption’ – appeared in the third issue of the Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung in 1932; see Essays on Music, pp. 411–33.

17    See p. 191 above and the corresponding note.

18    See pp. 193f.

19    See the reference in note 100, p. 251.

20    The Schumann essay referenced in note 33, p. 266.

21    See note 42, p. 243.

22    See note 47, p. 243.

23    See pp. 206ff.

24    See GS 17, pp. 71–3.

25    Ibid., pp. 52f.

26    Ibid., pp. 56f.

27    Ibid., pp. 57f.

28    See the reference in note 6, p. 236.

29    See GS 17, pp. 67f.

30    The essay appeared in 1926, in issue 7/8 (pp. 130–4) of Pult & Taktstock; see GS 17, pp. 307–10.

31    See note 28, p. 240.

32    See GS 17, pp. 66–73.

33    ‘The spectre of these continued incorrect parallel movements, which strike the modern musician as directly anti-artistic, lost only a modicum of its horror through the specification that organum should be delivered with a certain pensiveness (modesta morositate), so that not so much the grating sequences of fifths and octaves, but rather the euphony of the individual chords could come to the fore. What remains a mystery to today's musical sensibility, despite all the references to mixture stops on the organ and the phenomenon of overtones, is that something that has been considered incorrect and insulting to the ear for the last five hundred years should ever have been generally perceived as beautiful, and this for a considerable stretch of time’ (Riemann, Handbuch der Musikgeschichte, I, 2, p. 137). Adorno's margin note on this: ‘Riemann hypostatizes the developed tonal system as “natural” throughout.’

34    See note 6, p. 236.

35    See GS 19, pp. 440–4, in particular pp. 441f.

36    See the reference in note 25, p. 240.

37    See GS 17, pp. 52–4.

38    Ibid., pp. 56–9.

39    See the notes on p. 158. What Adorno refers to as the ‘blue book’ is the same as the ‘school exercise book without cover’.

40    This is the second part of Current of Music, the book Adorno planned to write in connection with his work on the Princeton Radio Research Project, which remained a fragment. It is to be published by the Suhrkamp Verlag as the third volume in their ongoing edition of Adorno's posthumous works, in the edition's first section, devoted to unfinished works.

41    See Adorno, ‘The Radio Symphony: An Experiment in Theory’, in Radio Research 1941, ed. Paul F. Lazarsfeld and Frank N. Stanton, New York, 1941, pp. 110–39. Adorno's essay ‘Über die musikalische Verwendung des Radios’ [On the Musical Use of the Radio] from Der getreue Korrepetitor (GS 15) originated from this study, which is itself an abridged version of ‘Radio Voice’.

42    Like ‘The Radio Symphony’, ‘The NBC Music Appreciation Hour’ – from the radio series of the same name directed by the conductor Walter Johannes Damrosch (1862–1950) – was a result of his work on the Princeton Radio Research Project. The German version was included in Der getreue Korrepetitor under the title ‘Die gewürdigte Musik’ [The Appreciated Music] (GS 15, pp. 163–87).

43    See GS 19, p. 440.

44    Ibid., pp. 440–2.

45    See Essays on Music, pp. 414f.: ‘The demand for a neutrally adequate reproduction of the work has emancipated itself from the will of the author – which is also a difficult perspective to define – and it is precisely in such emancipation that the historical character of reproduction is responsibly revealed. If an early Beethoven piano sonata were to be played today as “freely” with such arbitrarily improvisational changes of the basic tempi of individual movements as it was, according to contemporary reports, by Beethoven himself at the piano, the apparently authentic manner of interpretation would strike the listener as contradictory to the meaning of the work in the face of the constructive unity of such movements.’

46    See note 44, above.

47    See GS 19, pp. 442f.