No Adornian Godfather?. A Search for a Comparable British Figure in Music Aesthetics

Abstract

There is no doubt that Theodor W. Adorno impacted the American and British Musicology and Music Theory movements – in particular, his Philosophy of New Music and Dialectic of Enlightenment are major works that are still discussed. However, his role in America and Britain was quite different from his position in Germany. His immense support for Schönberg, his tremendous aesthetic tirades against Stravinsky, the “point-zero-situation” after World War II and the misperception of his approach to serialism – he was not an advocate, but a critic – were major grounds upon which German avant-garde music was based. Avant-garde in Germany without Adorno – what would that be? In that context, his impact on German musicology is interesting to explore. His writings, although often sharpened by harsh, non-deductive and even highly subjective aesthetic evaluations (cf. his gloss on Sibelius), set the philosophical basis from which every (German) musicologist had to start his line of argument. Even if someone did not agree with Adorno, it was unthinkable within German musicological discourse not to discuss him. The long-standing discourse between Dahlhaus and Eggebrecht would have run differently without Adorno’s almost almighty habitus. This article compares selected twentieth-century British musicologists, their roles in academia and their methodological approaches with Adorno’s. Two possible candidates for a “British Adorno”, namely Hans Keller and Roger Scruton, are discussed in detail.