Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This introduction to the aesthetics and sociology of music of the German philosopher and music theorist T. W. Adorno is the only book to deal comprehensively with this topic and it has quickly established itself as a classic text.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Acknowledgements (p. xi)
• Introduction (p. 1)
• 1 Adorno in context (p. 3)
• 2 Reading Adorno (p. 13)
• 3 Considerations on method (p. 16)
• 1 Constellations: towards a critical method (p. 21)
• 1 The writings on music: a thematic outline (p. 22)
• 2 History, nature, second nature: the debates with Lukacs and Benjamin (p. 29)
• 3 The problem of form: Bartok, Hindemith, Stravinsky and the Second Viennese School (p. 37)
• 4 Towards a critical method: levels of interpretation (p. 52)
• 2 The development of a theory of musical material (p. 65)
• 1 Theories of artistic material: precursors and contemporaries (p. 66)
• 2 The Adorno-Krenek debate (p. 81)
• 3 On the social situation of music (p. 97)
• 3 The problem of mediation (p. 108)
• 1 Hegel: mediation and the dialectic (p. 109)
• 2 Adorno's Marxian model: the social mediation of music (p. 121)
• 3 Freud: art and sublimation (p. 128)
• 4 Max Weber adapted; rationality and mimesis (p. 135)
• 4 A material theory of form (p. 149)
• 1 The immanent dialectic of musical material (p. 149)
• 2 Immanent analysis: Berg, Sonata op. 1 (p. 158)
• 3 Adorno's interpretation of Berg: critique and commentary (p. 168)
• 4 Proposals for a material theory of musical form (p. 174)
• 5 Social content and social function (p. 184)
• 1 The social dialectic of musical material (p. 185)
• 2 Musical production (p. 187)
• 3 Musical reproduction (I): performance (p. 192)
• 4 Musical reproduction (II): distribution (p. 198)
• 5 Musical consumption (p. 207)
• 6 The historical dialectic of musical material (p. 218)
• 1 Adorno's philosophy of music history (p. 219)
• 2 Bach and the style galant (p. 225)
• 3 Beethoven and Berlioz (p. 233)
• 4 Wagner and Brahms (p. 242)
• 5 Debussy and Mahler (p. 256)
• 7 The disintegration of musical material (p. 263)
• 1 Issues in the philosophy of New Music (p. 265)
• 2 The decline of the modern (p. 271)
• 3 Concluding remarks (p. 276)
• Appendix (p. 279)
• Notes (p. 285)
• Bibliography (p. 330)
• Index of names (p. 365)
• Subject index (p. 368)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

In almost 300 reviews, essays, and books, Theodor Adorno, one of the most astute and prolific writers on music in this century, covered a multitude of musical topics from jazz and film to the Baroque Era and the Second Vienese School. Studying piano with, among others, Eduard Steuermann and composition with Alban Berg, Adorno had direct and significant insights into music in general and contemporary music specifically. Paddison (Dartington College of Arts), in what is probably a refinement of his doctoral dissertation--"I am not a professional philosopher"--surveys Adorno's writings to draw together his sociological/historical/philosophic theses. After an introductory chapter that includes biographical background and a discussion of the difficulties of reading and assessing Adorno, Paddison pursues a topical examination of the evolution of the writer's ideas with special attention to the analyses of Berg's works (Alban Berg, Master of the Smallest Link, CH, Jul'92, and Philosophy of Modern Music, 1973). The pursuit is heavily documented, with 45 pages of endnotes and 65 pages of bibliography. Other addenda include an additional, insightful essay by Paddison: "Berg's Sonata op. 1 and its relation to Wagner's Tristan [Prelude]." This essential compendium of Adorno's thoughts is recommended to advanced undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty in philosophy and music. R. Stahura; Ripon College