Adorno listens to records, e.g. Klemperer's »Don Giovanni« [Adorno hört schallplatten - z. b. Klemperers Don Giovanni]

Abstract

Adorno's work as a music critic was always supported by a well-founded recording aesthetic latent in many of his writings, but not formulated beyond a fragmentary state. Taking Adorno's review of Otto Klemperer's 1967 recording of Mozart's Don Giovanni as an example, the author reconstructs Adorno's ideas. For him, the central issue is the text or «matter» itself, consisting of the triad, as balanced as possible, of mensural, neumic/mimetic and idiomatic elements - i.e. notation, interpretation and tradition. Although he traces the genesis of the text to the invention of musical notation, he does not recognise that this new medium of sound recording must likewise alter the musical text. Rather, Adorno views the record as the saviour of the autonomous work of art in the age of its enrichment with external and superficial elements. The article reflects upon Adorno's approach from the perspective of the present, which is experiencing a further medial upheaval through CDs and mp3s.