Adorno

Contents

List of Figures viii
List of Plates ix
Preface xii
Acknowledgements xiv
Illustration Acknowledgements xvi

Part I

Origins: Family, Childhood and Youth:

School and University in Frankfurt am Main

Family Inheritance: A Picture of Contrasts 3

1 Adorno’s Corsican Grandfather: Jean François, alias

Giovanni Francesco 5

• Fencing master Calvelli-Adorno in the Frankfurt suburb of
  Bockenheim 8
  2 Wiesengrund: The Jewish Heritage of his Father’s
  Romantic Name 13


• A generous father and two musical mothers 15
  3 Between Oberrad and Amorbach 25


• School experiences of a precocious youth 32


• Arousing philosophical interests in the musical soul:
  Kracauer’s influence on Adorno 37
  4 Éducation sentimentale 52


• First love and a number of affairs 55

Part II

A Change of Scene: Between Frankfurt, Vienna and Berlin:

A Profusion of Intellectual Interests

Commuting between Philosophy and Music 67

5 Against the Stream: The City of Frankfurt and its University 69

• First meeting with Max Horkheimer in the seminar on
  gestalt psychology 74