adorno 323Adorno does at times fall prey to the divisions between talking about
objects and talking about moral issues which Putnam is criticising, even
though his aims relate closely to Putnam’s. Habermas criticises Adorno
for his adherence to the epistemological paradigm of the subject con-
fronted with the object. The ‘paradigm of communication’, based on
the ‘telos of agreement’ in truth-oriented inquiry, is, he contends, a bet-
ter ‘post-metaphysical’ alternative to the ‘subject philosophy’ to which
Adorno adheres by his view of reason as the subject’s instrumental con-
trol of the object. Adorno fails to consider reason’s intersubjective, com-
municative aspect and so is prone to the consequences of a fact/value
dichotomy even as he actually seeks to oppose it. However – and this is
what connects to Adorno’s account of musical interpretation – agree-
ment, which is also involved in aesthetic judgement and artistic practice,
still does not, as Habermas acknowledges, account for truth, because
even a universal consensus can be false. Now this is evidently a debate
which could take us much too far from our central concerns. I just
want to take one reaction to it and show how that reaction relates to
aspects of Adorno’s views on music and truth in interpretation. These
views suggest ways beyond the narrow approach to truth that dominates
much contemporary philosophical discussion.
It is important here that the scope of the notion of interpretation
should include most kinds of music. Interpretation can be of a score, but
it can equally be of a piece which is being improvised on. We can, for ins-
tance, comparatively assess Coleman Hawkins’ and John Coltrane’s
interpretations of ‘Body and Soul’, even though what they actually play
is not remotely identical. Adorno’s reflections on memory and identity
in music, as well as on the significance of improvisation, suggest how
both playing a score and improvising are forms of interpretation. Even
in a traditional musical culture the playing of music is regarded in nor-
mative terms, when it is agreed, for example, that a kind of music or
a piece is played well or badly. Failure to communicate ‘soul’ in play-
ing a piece is a failure of interpretation, because expression can be a
decisive way in which understanding of the practice being engaged in
is conveyed. It seems appropriate to say, therefore, that the music is not
being played in a true manner.^10 The extremes here are the kind of
highly detailed score produced by Mahler, which seeks to fix as many
parameters of performance as possible, which Adorno associates with10 This might seem to go against the everyday use of ‘true’, but saying that what someone
plays is not true can be a very effective way of criticising music.