TWO SCHEMATA

Theory of musical reproduction

First schema

I.	Reproduction, work, history.
II.	The truth-content of the works and their disintegration.
III.	The dialectic between the history of the works and that of reproduction. Reproduction as a form.
IV.	The historico-philosophical structure of the change in the works, the subject–object problem and reproduction. The problem of the freedom of reproduction.
V.	The problem of tradition, reproduction's immanent philosophy of history and its structural connection to that of the works. Non-fulfilment.
VI.	Beethoven analysis.
VII.	The current difficulties of reproduction. Mechanization.
VIII.	The convergence towards insight and the idea of falling silent.

29 December 1927.

Ts 49564

Second schema

Reproduction as a form

The musical text and musical writing, writing and instrument

The idea of change in the works

Change is objective

The idea of true interpretation and interpretation as insight

Relativism

Critique of the theory of the composer's intentions

Critique of the doctrine of text as a performance instruction, positivism

Critique of the Romantic and positivistic styles of presentation

Critique of historicism

Critique of the concept of style per se on this: Concerning language and style

The subject–object problem of interpretation

‘Letter’ and ‘spirit’

Reification and subjectivity

Reproduction as a function of reification

Convention, tradition, etc.

Music as language

Construction and expression

Interpretation and mimesis

Musical sense

Interpretation, unity of elements, integral work, its difficulties

Tempo, metronome markings, crescendo etc.

Problem of the ornament

Rubato, ‘stealing’ time, interpretative freedom

Interpretation as retrieval and critique

Dialectic of retouching (Wagner's theory)

Interpretation and disintegration of the works; idea of becoming uninterpretable and of falling silent

The problem of virtuosity and reproduction's attainment of independence; ‘playing’?

Fetishism: means instead of end

Critique of the culinary ideal

Mechanical music

Afterlife of the works: light music as interpretation [–] the works in the age of their disintegration

Dialectical image

NB musical language: letter to Dahl¹

Notes in the green book²

LA

21 June 1946

Ts 49560

Notes

1    See note 84, p. 247.

2    On account of the abbreviation – Aufz., rather than Aufzeichnung(en), meaning ‘note(s)’ – it is unclear whether Adorno is referring to one or several notes from the ‘green book’, the first in the chronology of his notebooks. The one note that seems to be meant here, which was indeed written after 1 February 1942, reads: ‘The paradox of music: that it unifies the utmost non-sensual determinacy of every moment with the complete absence of concrete ideas. Clear from the contrast to the poetry of language, which most definitely deals with ideas, but is indeterminate’ (p. 53).