Where did the expertise for "Doktor Faustus" come from?

[Kai Frederik Lorentzen]

On 21.09.2011 20:15, Matthew Cissell wrote:

> I remember reading Dr Faustus and thinking that Mann had this amazing wealth of knowledge, but then someone pointed out that what he really did well was using material (12 tone and Nietzchean thought and biography) in a way that made you think he knew every hing about modern music and philosophy. Of course Mann was no expert on Schönberg or ...

True enough (though they often had drinks and dinner together in Pacific 
Palisades), but Thomas Mann had the best expert on modern music and 
philosophy one can think of: Theodor W. Adorno, who also makes an 
appearance in the novel as the intellectual incarnation of the Devil 
with his specs and the affected way of talking. At the time Mann was 
writing "Doktor Faustus", Adorno had his most creative
phase. Wrote the "Philosophy of Modern Music" and "Minima Moralia" (for 
both books Thomas Mann, in
his gratitude, helped to find Publishing Houses) plus, with Horkheimer, 
the "Dialektic of Enlightenment". Actually Adorno did not only help re 
the music but also on certain aspects of the text. Erika Mann, the 
daughter who hated Adorno, wasn't fond of that and when Thoman Mann 
published "Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus" (about: The Making of 
Doktor Faustus) she did everything to kick out the most enthusiastic 
passages  about Adorno's great help. There are, as you can see when you 
read this book, still more than enough. To get the full picture do also 
see Mann's diaries and letters!
And here especially --- Theodor W. Adorno/Thomas Mann: Briefwechsel 1943 
- 1955. Ffm 2002.

On 12/30/45 Thomas Mann wrote to Adorno:

"Es ist merkwürdig: mein Verhältnis zur Musik hat einigen Ruf, ich habe 
mich immer auf das
literarische Musizieren verstanden, mich halb und halb als Musiker 
gefühlt, die musikalische
Gewebe-Technik auf den Roman übertragen, und noch kürzlich, zum 
Beispiel, hat Ernst Toch
in einem Glückwunsch mir 'musikalische Initiiertheit' ausdrücklich und 
nachdrücklich bescheinigt.
Aber um einen Musiker-Roman zu schreiben, der zuweilen sogar den Ehrgeiz 
andeutet, unter
anderem, gleichzeitig mit anderem, zum Roman der Musik zu werden --- 
dazu gehört mehr als
'Initiiertheit', nämlich /Studiertheit/, die mir ganz einfach abgeht."

Thomas Mann's  knowledge of Nietzsche, however, was profound to the 
highest degree. Tommy
wrote over the decades several long essays on Crazy Fritz and and 
they're all still solid gold. Actually
Nietzsche, together with Schopenhauer and Wagner, functioned as Mann's 
theoretical "Dreigestirn"
(Betrachtungen eines Unpolitischen, p. 97; about: 
Three-Star-Constellation), which he - though very
critical of Wagner in later years - basically made use of his whole 
artistic life.



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