Customer Reviews

Adorno's Aesthetics of Music

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Max Paddison's comprehensive survey of Adorno's aesthetics of music does the amazing: it takes Adorno's notoriously complex thoughts on music and 'translates' them into something more easily digestible without adulterating them significantly. Paddison's writing style is scholarly, but never arcane and reading is relatively effortless.

As a musicology grad student, I read Adorno both for pleasure and because his work is so important in my field. I've checked out a number of secondary sources on Adorno and this is, by far, my favorite. I've read quite a lot of Adorno myself and from my understanding, Paddison seems entirely consistent with what I've understood. My grasp of Adorno is by no means complete or authoritative, but it's sufficient.

Although I would recommend reading Adorno directly, I realize that he can be dense and difficult to understand, especially in large quantities. His writing on music is so extensive that one cannot be expected to read everything and therefore, I feel someone with a comprehensive and authoritative understanding is well worth reading, even if you read plenty of Adorno yourself.

Around this time in the review, I'm supposed to say something to the effect of, "this is no substitute for the original," but in this case, maybe that's not true. You COULD actually use Paddison as your main source on Adorno with the assurance that you're getting good, solid information. Since the bulk of Adorno's writing deals with 20th century music, I could imagine plenty of students and scholars who wouldn't need to read a whole lot of Adorno, but want an overview anyway. There are plenty of "Adorno in 24 Hours - Guaranteed!" books out there, but they condense these complex thoughts into such small bullet points as to be almost useless. Adorno's ever-popular "On Jazz" becomes "Adorno didn't like jazz" in these books. Paddison's book is completely different. It retains most of the complexity without so much wordiness.

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in Adorno. If you're new to his writing, this book will give you a great foundation. If you read Adorno already, this book will enhance your understanding by highlighting connections unapparent without reading all of his work. The price is fairly steep for a paperback, but it's well worth the investment.

as a composer Adorno was a breath of fresh air with an historical depth, the academics in music still haven't dealt with the implications of his thought, the political and social functions of music are now beginning to be duscussed by people such as Susan McClary and Edward Said. Although Adorno had a rather dismal view of the world his "Aesthetic Theory" is to me like a real live docuament to write music today, and within the mileau of postmodernity to be able to create art at all is a miracle, naturally his marxist overtones are very important for again in music this is an area truly neglected by serious thinkers in music