Abstract

Available from UMI in association with The British Library. ;The subject of this study is the contradictory relation of music to society in T. W. Adorno's aesthetics of music. The focus of the enquiry is on the problem of mediation in relation to the concepts of musical material and form. The concentration on these concepts, together with the principle of contradiction which underlies them, provides a centre of gravity to which, it is argued, the 'fragmented whole' of Adorno's music theory can be seen to relate at all points. The aim of this study is thus to offer a conceptual framework within which to situate Adorno's musical writings