Essays on Music: Theodor W. Adorno ; Selected, With Introduction, Commentary, and Notes by Richard Leppert ; New Translations by Susan H. Gillespie

Rating:
Summary: Opening an Important Scholastic Door
Review: This is a truly remarkable book. In the few months that I've owned it, it has become an indespensible aid in my own quest to better understand contemporary critical theory and its musical applications. The Editorial Reviews posted above come from experts: their superlatives carry much more critical gravitas than any relatively uninformed paragraph that I could throw together. What I can offer, however, is a different perspective. I am probably a representative of this book's target audience: a musicology student who has heard many things about Adorno (often of a conflicting, polemical nature) and would like to clearly understand his arguments and develop an opinion. This book has offered me a starting place. Richard Leppert's introduction and notes have proven particularly useful in contextualizing Adorno's essays. He addresses biographical, political, and cultural history concisely and clearly. An awareness of context, while clearly important in any humanistic undertaking, is of particular importance in understanding Adorno, as he emphatically engages his contexts in his writings. This book thus turns what would have been an arduous (and expensive) undertaking 5 years ago - namely getting oneself familiar enough with Adorno and his world to understand his musical writings intelligently - into a considerably more manageable project. Kudos go to UC Berkeley Press for keeping the price tag manageable as well.

Rating:
Summary: Opening an Important Scholastic Door
Review: This is a truly remarkable book. In the few months that I've owned it, it has become an indespensible aid in my own quest to better understand contemporary critical theory and its musical applications. The Editorial Reviews posted above come from experts: their superlatives carry much more critical gravitas than any relatively uninformed paragraph that I could throw together. What I can offer, however, is a different perspective. I am probably a representative of this book's target audience: a musicology student who has heard many things about Adorno (often of a conflicting, polemical nature) and would like to clearly understand his arguments and develop an opinion. This book has offered me a starting place. Richard Leppert's introduction and notes have proven particularly useful in contextualizing Adorno's essays. He addresses biographical, political, and cultural history concisely and clearly. An awareness of context, while clearly important in any humanistic undertaking, is of particular importance in understanding Adorno, as he emphatically engages his contexts in his writings. This book thus turns what would have been an arduous (and expensive) undertaking 5 years ago - namely getting oneself familiar enough with Adorno and his world to understand his musical writings intelligently - into a considerably more manageable project. Kudos go to UC Berkeley Press for keeping the price tag manageable as well.