236 music, philosophy, and modernity
to a judgement of this nature, but its meanings are not therefore merely
arbitrary.
Adorno’s critique is, though, not wholly unjustified. Wagner is indeed
a symptom of questionable aspects of modern culture. His not yet fully
developed use of leitmotif in theDutchmanandLohengrin,orthe ear-
lier parts of theRing, does involve a regression in comparison with
the technique of developing variation. The motifs sometimes do simply
repeat what is said or seen, and so have a function ‘similar to an advert’
(Adorno 1997 : 13 , 29 ). An inflexible use of leitmotif does relate to the
development of kinds of cultural perception produced by and reflected
in the schematic aspects of film (and advertising), ‘where the leitmotif
just announces heroes and situations, so that the viewers can orient
themselves more quickly’ (ibid.: 44 ). Adorno’s criticisms become prob-
lematic, though, when they take the form of philosophical judgements.
What is at issue in Wagner is the interaction between music and text,
which cannot be construed wholly in terms of either. Especially in his
later work the musical technique cannot be regarded merely as a means
of enabling swift orientation on the part of the listeners.
Adorno elsewhere offers a more apt construal of this interaction.
This is apparent in the following passage, which is, perhaps surprisingly,
from the earlier Wagner text:
In Beethoven and into high Romanticism the harmonic expressive val-
ues are fixed: dissonance stands for the negative and for suffering, con-
sonance for the positive and fulfilment. That changes in Wagner in the
direction of the subjective differentiation of harmonic feeling-values. The
characteristic chord, for example, whose allegorical inscription brings
the words ‘Lenzes Gebot, die suße Not ̈ ’ [‘Spring’s decree, the sweet craving’],
and which represents the moment of erotic urge and thus the ultimate
motivation inMeistersinger, speaks of suffering at lack of fulfilment as
much as of the pleasure which lies in the tension, lies in what is unful-
filled itself: it is sweet and a craving at the same time...Composers and
listeners learned only from him that suffering can be sweet, that plea-
sure and its opposite do not stand rigidly opposed to each other but are
mediated by each other, and this experience alone made it possible for
dissonance to spread over the whole language of music.
(ibid.: 13 , 64 )How, though, does Wagner’s freeing of musical language from conven-
tion relate to Adorno’s criticisms of the leitmotif? Adorno’s point rests
on his separation of harmonic from melodic techniques in Wagner, but