28 Part I: Origins
Böcklin’s ‘Island of the Dead over the sideboard’, and the music room
with the piano in the middle. It is questionable whether, as Kracauer
put it, the furniture ‘was supposed to mind its manners in front of the
piano, and whether the only people allowed to approach it were those
who knew how to respect the emotional life that could be ascribed to
the instrument.’^11 In the case of the Wiesengrund family, the piano was
anything but a mere ornament designed to show that the businessman
whose time was limited could nevertheless be interested in the world of
music. The piano was an integral part of the family life, and music-
making was part of their daily activities. From going to concerts Adorno
was familiar with ‘the last movement of Haydn’s Farewell symphony,
the F sharp minor piece in which one instrument after another ceases
to play and departs, until finally only two violins remain to extinguish
the light.’^12 Adorno himself, who could already play pieces by Beethoven
on the piano at the age of twelve – before that he had learnt the violin
or viola^13 – is a witness to this life in and with music. His experience of
music as a child includes ‘lying in bed at night and pricking up my ears
to listen to a Beethoven sonata for violin and piano when I was sup-
posed to be asleep.’^14 Looking back at the age of thirty on his child-
hood, he remembered very clearly that, in his parents’ house,
there was very little symphonic and chamber-music literature that
was not introduced into the family circle. This was thanks in part
to the large volumes in landscape format that the bookbinder had
bound uniformly in green. They seemed to have been made for
the express purpose of turning their pages, and I was allowed to
turn the pages long before I could read the notes, just following
my memory and my sense of hearing. They even included
Beethoven violin sonatas in curious adaptations. I have inter-
nalized many pieces, such as Mozart’s G minor symphony, so
deeply that it still seems to me today that no orchestra can ever
reproduce the excitement of that introductory quaver movement
as perfectly as the questionable touch of the child on the piano.
Music like this fitted better than any other into the domestic
environment. It was produced on the piano as if it were just a
piece of furniture, and the performers who played it without any
fear of false notes or awkward pauses were all part of the family.The common practice of playing duets was a good aid to discipline.
For, with duets, a young person ‘who lives for the dream that he is
himself an artist is not able to modify tempo and dynamics according
to his own whims, as he is in the habit of doing with Grieg’s Lyrical
Pieces, but is forced to follow the letter and the instructions of the
work.’^15
In his early years, Adorno came into contact with the aura of art,
and especially music, through the holidays the family frequently spent