Towards a Theory of Aesthetics 121from it. He wrote to Berg that he ‘could scarcely believe’ that ‘I have
any real chance if anyone there has read even a single line of mine.
... But I am more than dubious that I should enter into competition
with Stuckenschmidt, who has all the qualities of a confidence-trickster
(including the good ones).’^3
While in this instance Adorno was able to accept his defeat with
relative equanimity, a further disappointment, in October 1929, was less
easy to endure. Hans W. Heinsheimer, who was the representative of
Universal Edition in Vienna responsible for Anbruch, wrote him a blunt
letter on 1 October 1929: ‘Your editorship has hitherto enjoyed a cer-
tain degree of independence’ which was no longer acceptable. The fee
of 100 Marks per issue that Heinsheimer had agreed to pay was now to
be cancelled. Heinsheimer gave financial reasons for this last decision,
specifying above all the decline in subscriptions. This was regarded as
proof that the policy Adorno had been pursuing was not in keeping
with actual developments in contemporary music and with the expecta-
tions of the readers. ‘There can be no doubt, Mr Wiesengrund, that the
“stabilization” of music that you have tried to combat, understandably
enough, has nevertheless become reality to an extent that could not
have been envisaged even a year ago.’^4 Adorno may well have been
able to put up with such comments, since he was able to counter flagrant
ignorance with irony. But he was cut to the quick by Heinsheimer’s
observation that ‘Schoenberg and his closest circle’ had considerable
reservations about the direction taken by Anbruch since Adorno’s
appointment, and especially its philosophical assumptions about the
nature of music.
It was not difficult for Adorno to identify Schoenberg himself as the
source of this proclamation of displeasure. He complained bitterly
to Berg that, of all people, it was Schoenberg, whose music he had
tirelessly worked to promote as the only right path, who had stabbed
him in the back: ‘This is clearly a case of that stupid and solipsistic
“sovereignty” that imagines that its outstanding achievement absolves
it from every human obligation.’^5 He begged Berg expressly to make it
clear to Emil Herzka, the proprietor of Universal Edition, as well as
Heinsheimer, that it was not the whole of the Schoenberg circle that
had taken sides against Adorno. This letter conveys the very definite
impression that he believed that all his efforts to transform the journal
and to publish his own writings had been in vain. Only after an inner
struggle, and much persuasion on the part of Berg, was he prevailed
upon not to break off all contact with the Viennese publishers from one
day to the next.
But as early as the letter of 23 October 1929, he wrote to Berg: ‘A
“capitulation” on my part is absolutely out of the question... I insisted
on editorial control because I was being pushed into a kind of consult-
ing role in which I would be expected to give my ideas without any
guarantee that they would be followed up properly.’^6 At this point the