Adorno! I find Wittgenstein a doddle in comparison.
I was reading Stockhausen's memoirs a few weeks ago, and he played some Webern to Adorno, who was totally perplexed by it. Stockhausen said to Adorno, "But Professor! You are trying to find a chicken in an abstract painting!"
I think we are all choking about the essay regarding HP's Britishness or lack of. Oh, and with that test, I was Brahms. How appropriate for a Wittgenstein fanatic!
I have wondered if I overestimate Adorno's incomprehensibility, or if I'm just thick, but if you agree that he's tough...interesting ideas, but his work is *so* hard to read, in the original and in translation. And I'm not unfamiliar with Marxist thought, but that doesn't seem to help.
I so love his abitrary musical preferences. Sibelius is hopeless (musical nationalism is apparently only acceptable when it's practised by Germans), Brahms is OK because he's following Beethoven, Schoenberg's not irredeemable because he writes a lot about his work, but Russians doing the same thing are hopeless.
If I were a true Adorno fanatic, I'd have got Beethoven in the quiz, but the Mahler is pretty close to me. (Oh, and I love that Stockhausen quotation. I'm now going to spend the next month equating German enlightenment thought and chickens.)
Arbitrary musical preferences? Something he obviously has in common with Wittgenstein, who fanboy'd Brahms and Bruckner, but was rather scathing about Mahler. Poor Mahler... I'm told Adorno had similar views on music as Wittgenstein, though as I find the former almost unreadable, I have trouble verifying that.
And I thought I was stupid because Adorno seemed like porridge. It's interesting that it's no better for you in the original, either - I wouldn't have a clue; my German extends to Kommissar Rex, and that's a bit of a stretch.
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I was reading Stockhausen's memoirs a few weeks ago, and he played some Webern to Adorno, who was totally perplexed by it. Stockhausen said to Adorno, "But Professor! You are trying to find a chicken in an abstract painting!"
I think we are all choking about the essay regarding HP's Britishness or lack of. Oh, and with that test, I was Brahms. How appropriate for a Wittgenstein fanatic!
Reply
I so love his abitrary musical preferences. Sibelius is hopeless (musical nationalism is apparently only acceptable when it's practised by Germans), Brahms is OK because he's following Beethoven, Schoenberg's not irredeemable because he writes a lot about his work, but Russians doing the same thing are hopeless.
If I were a true Adorno fanatic, I'd have got Beethoven in the quiz, but the Mahler is pretty close to me. (Oh, and I love that Stockhausen quotation. I'm now going to spend the next month equating German enlightenment thought and chickens.)
Reply
And I thought I was stupid because Adorno seemed like porridge. It's interesting that it's no better for you in the original, either - I wouldn't have a clue; my German extends to Kommissar Rex, and that's a bit of a stretch.
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