V in love with Igor (was re: Pynchon Radio Programme/: adorno on popular music)

[lorentzen-nicklaus]

Michael Joseph schrieb:

> >
> >   unlike the author of the article, i consider this thesis to be among
> > the more
> >   inspired things naumann has uttered. along with rolf dieter brinkmann
>  adorno
> >   is the most pynchonesque gestalt on the german corner. but why was
> > teddy (in
> >   contrary to brinkmann who, like trp, loved monk and heard him play live)
>  such
> >   an enemy of jazz? it's not so much, as naumann suggests, that adorno
> > would not
> >   have been able to dig deeper into the jazz thing: fact is he did not
> > want to
> >   do this. he had, sad to say, made up his mind on jazz before he came to
> >   america. seriously i doubt that adorno ever listened to artists like bird,
> >   miles, or trane. but of course he read a lot to brush up his
> > arguments, first


> Wonder if ever bothered to listen to Stravinsky.


  of course he did and wrote about this: while the first part of "philosophie 
  der neuen musik" [1949] is called 'schönberg and progress' its second part is 
  named 'strawinsky and reaction'. in strawinsky, like in jazz, adorno observes 
  the 'identification with the aggressor', with the repressive power of the 
  'totally socialized society': "subjektivität nimmt bei strawinsky den 
  charakter des opfers an, aber - und darin mokiert er sich über die tradition 
  humanistischer kunst - musik identifiziert sich nicht mit diesem, sondern mit 
  der vernichtenden instanz" (p. 133). now let's make the connection to the   
  chapter "v in love" that deals with the paris première of strawinsky's "le 
  sacre du printemps". mr. pynchon, he does not seem to be a supporter of that 
  kinda art conception: "two of the male dancers, whom itague had never left off 
  calling mongolized fairies, produced a long pole, pointed wickedly at one end. 
  the music, near triple-forte, could be heard now above the roaring of the   
  audience. gendarmes had moved in at the rear entrances, and were trying   
  ineffectually to restore order. satin, next to porcépic, one hand on the   
  composer's shoulder, leaned forward, shaking. it was a tricky bit bit of   
  choreography, satin's own. he'd got the idea from reading an account of an   
  indian massacre in america [!]. while two of the other mongolians held her,   
  struggling and head shaven, su feng was impaled at the crotch on the point of 
  the pole and slowly raised by the entire male part of the company, while the  
  females lamented below. (...) the pole was now errect, the music four bars   
  from the end. a terrible hush fell over the audience, gendarmes and combatants 
  all turned as if magnetized to watch the stage. la jarretière's movements   
  became more spastic, agonized: the expression on the normally dead face was   
  one which would disturb for years the dreams of those in the front rows.   
  porcépic's music was now almost deafening: all tonal location had been lost,  
  notes screamed out simultaneous and random like fragments of a bomb: winds,   
  strings, brass and persussion were indistinguishable as blood ran down the   
  pole, the impaled girl went limp, the last chord blasted out, filled the   
  theater, echoed, hung, subsided. someone cut all the stage lights, someone   
  else ran to close the curtain./ in never opened. mélanie was supposed to have 
  worn a protective metal device, a species of chastity belt, into which the   
  point of the pole fit. she had left it off. a physician in the audience had   
  been summoned at once by itague as soon as he saw the blood. shirt torn, one  
  eye blackened, the doctor knelt over the girland pronounced her dead" (pp.   
  413f). schönberg, who never really liked adorno, did not see such basic divide 
  between him and strawinsky, though ---

 KFL * 
                                            ps. another recommendable classic of 
                                            adorno scholarship is Susan 
                                            Buck-Morss' "the origin of negative 
                                            dialectics. t.w. adorno, w. benjamin 
                                            and the francfurt institute", 1977.