Adorno

Adorno’s Years in California 317

and notebook in hand, and over a good home-made fruit liqueur, he
“swiftly” recorded keywords, improvements and more precise formula-
tions for earlier musical descriptions and characteristic details that he
had thought up for the oratorio. Adorno displayed an intimate know-
ledge of the intentions of the work as a whole and with this section in
particular. His suggestions and proposals consistently went to the heart
of the matter.’^207 Mann gave a much more explicit account of Adorno’s
inventiveness in his diaries. What the ‘Magician’ writes there gives
a more accurate picture since the diaries were not subjected to the
censorship of Katia and Erika Mann, neither of whom was keen to see
the achievements of the Privy Councillor praised too loudly in public.
There he noted the brilliance with which Adorno translated his ideas
into novelistic practice. For example, ‘the way the choruses developed
from whispering, a mixture of speaking and part-singing, to the richest
vocal polyphony, and the movement of the orchestra from a primitive,
magic sound to music of the most advanced kind. Or the interchange
of sound between the vocal and instrumental parts, the shifting of the
boundary between man and thing’, the idea of ‘“transferring the part
of the Whore of Babylon to an exquisitely graceful coloratura soprano
and incorporating her virtuoso runs into the orchestral sound with a
flute-like effect”, while, on the other hand, conferring on certain instru-
ments the colour of a grotesque vox humana.’^208
Thomas Mann also sought Adorno’s advice for his description of the
violin concerto that, after the oratorio, Leverkühn went on to compose
for his friend, the violinist Rudolf Schwertfeger. Adorno responded
with detailed proposals in a statement entitled ‘On the Violin Con-
certo’.^209 Mann transformed these ideas into his own literary language,
but nevertheless in part just adopted them word for word. It comes
as no surprise to see how this fictional concert awakened memories of
the real concert that Alban Berg had given and of which Adorno had
an unrivalled knowledge. Of the three compositions that Leverkühn is
credited with following the violin concerto, Adorno invented two. A
comparison of Adorno’s written proposals and the finished version in
the novel shows strikingly how close Mann kept to his draft:^210

Adorno

This tendency to ‘prose’ is

intensified to an extreme in the

string quartet, Adrian’s most

esoteric work. Where, other-

wise, chamber music forms the

playground for thematic work,

here it is almost provocatively

avoided. There are altogether

no thematic connections,

developments, variations, and

Doctor Faustus

This tendency to musical ‘prose’

comes to its height in the

string quartet, Leverkühn’s most

esoteric work, perhaps, which

followed on the heels of the

ensemble piece. Where, other-

wise, chamber music forms the

playground for thematic work,

here it is almost provocatively

avoided. There are altogether no