90 Part II: A Change of Scene
plans, in a preliminary way, to produce a joint theory about the correct
performance of a musical score, about musical reproduction. Adorno
had drawn up some initial ideas about this during his stay in Vienna,
and he published them in the music journal Pult und Taktstock. In this
early sketch we can discern the outlines of Adorno’s approach to musical
interpretation. He continued to reflect on this subject throughout his
life, but stuck to his original ideas, although naturally he developed and
refined them conceptually. The notes he made were recorded in his
so-called Black Book. His intention was to bring them together in an
independent publication, and he maintained this intention for years
without ever being able to make it a reality. He left an extensive set of
fragmentary writings which did not appear for years after his death.^26
In texts that he wrote when he was only twenty-one, he developed the
maxim that the framework of every interpretation should be deter-
mined by the objective content, the structure of the work or score con-
cerned. Once the coercion implicit in the external world of forms has
disintegrated, the freedom to interpret can concentrate strictly on the
limits of the actual text. Interpretation proves its worth in its strict
objectivity, its exclusive focus on a work’s structure. Such an approach
creates a tense relationship with any talk of the composer’s subjective
intentions.^27
Kolisch was the leader of the so-called Vienna String Quartet, one of
the few ensembles that made a point of including the works of the
Schoenberg circle in its repertoire.^28 At the end of the 1930s, Kolisch
emigrated to the United States, where his friendship with Adorno con-
tinued to thrive. Kolisch repeatedly used his influence to encourage the
performance of Adorno’s own works, and in 1926 he rehearsed, and then
introduced to the public, Adorno’s recently completed Quartet Pieces.
Were there any composers in whom Adorno had failed to show an
interest in the course of his life? There were few whom he ignored,^29
but, as the initiator of the new music, Arnold Schoenberg occupied a
privileged place. All the more striking, then, is the mutual antipathy
that characterized the relationship between two headstrong men who
were fighting for the same cause. As early as April 1925, Adorno wrote
to Kracauer from Vienna about Schoenberg’s ‘restless’, ‘obsessed’ and
‘uncanny’ temperament.^30 Indeed, Schoenberg was said to suffer from
paranoia, and not without justification, since he had recently been spat
at in a coffee house. Schoenberg was said to be unable to bear being
contradicted and to have imposed his own ideas on the compositions of
all his followers. Schoenberg had spoken to him, Adorno, ‘like Napoleon
to his adjutant’. Later on, Adorno’s judgement was more discriminat-
ing, but the discrepancy between the high value he placed on the music
and his distance from the composer remained.^31
What did the young Adorno find so fascinating about Vienna? In his
recollections, he emphasized the opportunities for sensuous pleasure,
the enjoyment of good food and fine wine. Such things were as yet