Music Criticism and Compositional Practice 111The external appearance of the journal was changed for the first two
sets of issues of 1929 and 1930. It now contained headings such as
‘Critique of Composition’ or ‘Music and Technique’, under which a
whole series of articles by Adorno himself appeared. Adorno now in-
troduced an entire battery of arguments about compositional technique
or the philosophy of music on behalf of ideas he wished to defend. The
very first contribution, ‘Night Music’, dedicated to Alban Berg, was
succeeded by ‘On Twelve-Tone Technique’ and, finally, ‘Reaction and
Progress’. What unites these three texts is his attempt to make a per-
suasive case for the radical constructivism of musical material and, in
addition, to show that Schoenberg’s twelve-tone method was the crucial
innovation in the ‘rationalization process of music’.
As is well known, Schoenberg had already composed pieces using the
twelve-tone method before this. In addition, there were attempts to
provide a kind of manual with which to explain the foundations of
twelve-tone music.^1 Two years previously, Adorno himself had analysed
a number of Schoenberg’s works, including the Five Orchestral Pieces,
op. 16, the Serenade, op. 24, the Wind Quintet of 1928, but as yet
unpublished, the Suite, op. 29, and the Third String Quartet, op. 30. The
emphasis in these early analyses of 1927 lay on the formal shaping of
the works. Their tone was strikingly apodictic, as can be seen from the
assertion that ‘Criticism is inappropriate in the case of Schoenberg’s
recent works; they set the standard of truth.’^2
The essays that Adorno published from 1928, initially in the
Musikblätter des Anbruch, and then in Anbruch, concentrated on
Schoenberg’s methods of composition. He defined twelve-tone tech-
nique as a preformed way of varying musical materials that had abso-
lute validity for him.^3 The article on ‘Night Music’ from the first number
of Anbruch addressed an entirely different topic. It began with the
question of how we are to imagine the substantive content of traditional
works today, given that they are the manifestations of a past history.
We can assume the existence of neither an intelligent listener, nor a
universally valid, timeless yardstick to guide our musical interpretation.
Parallel with the disappearance of a musically literate public, con-
temporary society has also witnessed the dissolution of the previous
unity of music. While serious music is still consumed by the dominant
social class, albeit merely as an enjoyable ornament, light music, by
providing glossy entertainment and sentimentality, has allowed itself
to be misused to deceive the oppressed classes about their true social
situation.
Given this background, what meaning can the musical tradition still
retain? According to Adorno, this meaning ‘cannot reside in an
ahistorical, eternal, unchanging, natural stock of “works”.’ Rather, their
truth content must be elicited by examining them in the light of
advanced compositional techniques which give us an insight into the
nature of ‘historically preformed material’. ‘What is eternal about a