Business Extending Peacefully

The world of that musical life, the composition business which extends peacefully from Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson--"the world's best composer"--by way of Gershwin, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky to Schubert's B Minor Symphony, labelled The Unfinished, is one of fetishes.  The star principle has become totalitarian.  The reactions of the listeners appear to have no relation to the playing of the music.  They have reference, rather, to the cumulative success which, for its part, cannot be thought of unalienated by the past spontaneities of listeners, but instead dates back to the command of publishers, sound film magnates and rulers of radio.  Famous people are not the only stars.  Works begin to take on the same role.  A pantheon of best-sellers builds up.  The programs shrink, and the shrinking process not only removes the moderately good, but the accepted classics themselves undergo a selection that has nothing to do with quality.  In America, Beethoven's Fourth Symphony is among the rarities.  This selection reproduces itself in a fatal circle; the most familiar is the most successful and is therefore played again and again and made still more familiar.  The choice of the standard works is itself in terms of their "effectiveness" for programmatic fascination, in terms of the categories of success as determined by light music or permitted by the star conductors.  The climaxes of Beethoven's SeventhSymphony are placed on the same level as the unspeakable horn melody from the slow movement of Tchaikovsky's Fifth.  Melody comes to mean eight-beat symmetrical treble melody.  This is catalogued as the composer's "idea" which one things he can put in his pocket and take home, just as it is ascribed to the composer as his basic property.

Theodore Adorno, Fetish Character in Music and Regression of Listening

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Does anyone else feel like Adorno is now just starting to take off the gloves?

the composition business which extends peacefully from Irving Berlin and Walter Donaldson--"the world's best composer"--by way of Gershwin, Sibelius and Tchaikovsky to Schubert's B Minor Symphony, labelled The Unfinished, is one of fetishes.

You gotta love the phrase "which extends peacefully."  So many delicious layers of angry loathing disgust for the culture industry.

Gloves-off Adorno is a little more direct in his language.  It isn't too far a leap to suggest a possible rephrasing could be

One fetish of composition business is that of "world's best composer."

The first Grammy awards were held in 1959--well after the publication of this essay.  If only Adorno were alive today!  And then of course there is his notion of the "star principle" having become totalitarian.

I wonder if by "totalitarian" he means not going away but instead ever increasing in its oppressive cultural centrality? Do you think Adorno had any idea there would ever be a Paris Hilton and a Jersey Shore and all the rest?  I'm not trying to cast jugement here, I'm just trying to imagine (with your help, of course) if Adorno really knew just how big the "star principle" totalitarian flower would bloom.

Then of course, there's Adorno's break down of that...thing...we all know is there, but pretend isn't, or don't know how to verbalise, or are afraid to verbalise.  Let's read it again:

This selection reproduces itself in a fatal circle; the most familiar is the most successful and is therefore played again and again and made still more familiar

Like, doesn't that happen everywhere, in every industry?  Does it happen in restaurants?  Does it happen in fashion?  Does it happen in the production of televised news programs?  How about print media?  How about at the meat counter at your supermarket?  When was the last time you've seen a Hanger Steak?  When was the last time you've eaten a Hanger Steak?  Enough with the New York steak already!

And to think of the gigantic amount of creative energy that goes into sounding "familiar"--like a planet earth sized big-gulp of semen trying to penetrate the "Familiar" egg, but instead of sperm it's people's careers and lots of real-estate all over the world.

What if all that energy and capital was directed in the opposite direction?  ALL CREATIVE CAPITAL WILL NO LONGER STRIVE FOR FAMILIAR, CREATIVE CAPITAL SHALL NOW STRIVE FOR THE OPPOSITE.  Grand prise goes to that which is unlike anything else, but still functions.

Or not.  See what I care.

Lastly, Adorno speaks eloquently (if indirectly) on behalf of musicians

Melody comes to mean eight-beat symmetrical treble melody.  This is catalogued as the composer's "idea" which one things he can put in his pocket and take home, just as it is ascribed to the composer as his basic property

The emphasis on symmetrical is mine.  (Could you tell?) 

Is it because there is no symmetry in life that "we" love the symmetrical in music?  Is it because there is no symmetry in life that "we" hate the symmetrical in music?

I know I hate ownership in music--especially when the owner is someone other than he or she who performed the labour creating said owned music.  If the best I can do is hate symmetry in melody because of its ease of ownership, then that's fine too.