Translation in Greek: Ursula Vryzaki
That ideology-critical consciousness can assist the Utopian in Art is what this lecture wishes to elucidate, using Adorno’s fragments on a Theory of Musical Reproduction. In doing so, the lecture limits itself to problems of interpretation in Classical and Romantic music. In view of the universal availability of music and its reification, Adorno reminds us of the immaterial nature of music. Music is, as the Fragment on Music and Language tells us, “the call of the intention-free”, that which cannot be captured by intention, be it of a comprehending or imaginative nature. Nowhere in the text does the music exist in a positive sense, the symbols together form a “puzzle figure” (Rätselfigur), this invites us to “compose” the coherent inner thread of meaning, or inner story (Sinnzusammenhang) from the musical symbols. This inner story is in a state of permanent change. The work’s identical lives in the non-identical. “The idea of musical reproduction”, this is Adorno’s central thesis, “is the copy of an unavailable original”, since “the work per se does not exist”.
© Musicology