Studia Musicologica
Volume/Issue:
Volume 65: Issue 1-2
Music – Recording – Aura: Marginal Notes on the Debate between Adorno and Benjamin and on Adorno's Fragmentary Theory of the Gramophone Record
Author:
Péter György Csobó Central European Music Research Group, Musicology Department, Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music, Liszt Ferenc tér 8., H-1061, Budapest, Hungary

Search for other papers by Péter György Csobó in
Current site
Google Scholar
PubMed Close
Pages:
117–128
Online Publication Date:
25 Nov 2024
Publication Date:
25 Nov 2024
Article Category:
Research Article
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/6.2024.00008
Keywords:
record; aura; mechanical reproduction; Theodor Wiesengrund Adorno; Walter Benjamin
Restricted access

Abstract

There is hardly another Frankfurt School treatise on art theory today which is as much discussed and quoted as Walter Benjamin's notable “artwork”-study. This text has become a mandatory reading; however, it has been largely overlooked by musicologists. Benjamin developed his theory in connection with the visual arts: it is only the image that carries the aura, traveling through time and space and is saturated with historical substance. Benjamin remained seemingly uncertain about the place and role of the sound (and the music) in the historical process of losing the aura. Among the three surviving versions of his study, the first one posited a direct cause-and-effect relationship between the reproduction of sound and the paradigm shift that affects art as a whole, while in the third version, this connection is vanishing. It is generally known how challenging Benjamin's study was to Adorno's ideas on art theory. Adorno tried to deny the positive value of the change that Benjamin described. He raised doubts about the constitutive role of “reception in the distraction” in his famous “Fetish-Character” study. The “distracted perception,” the “atomistic hearing” dissociates the unity of the work. Adorno wanted later to preserve the validity of the “auratic work” and its derivatives that he called “critical works” (for example, in the famous footnote 40 of the “Philosophy of New Music,” or in the 1950s, when he faced efforts aimed at the radical erasure of the musical context, and for example, he classified Křenek's works written in the 1920s as productive forms of loss of aura). According to these, it is difficult to place the technical work of art on Adorno's aesthetic value horizon. This makes his writings on gramophone recordings or the relationship between music and mediality so interesting. Focusing on the discussion of Benjamin and Adorno, this presentation tries to find an answer to the following questions: how can the paradigm shift in art history (and art ontology) described by Benjamin be interpreted in relation to music? And what does this imply about the relationship between the “artwork of music” and the sound recording?

  • Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund. “Die Kunst und die Künste,” in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, vol. 10/1 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1977), 432–453.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund. Essays on Music, ed. by Richard Leppert, transl. by Susan H. Gillespie (Berkeley–Los Angeles, CA–London: University of California Press, 2002).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund. Towards a Theory of Musical Reproduction, ed. by Henry Lonitz, trans. by Wieland Hoban (Cambridge–Malden, MA: Polity, 2006).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund. “Zum Verhältnis von Malerei und Musik heute,” in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, vol. 18 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008), 140–148.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Adorno, Theodor Wiesengrund. “Zum Jahrgang 1929 des ‘Anbruch’,” in Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Rolf Tiedemann, vol. 19 (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 2008), 605–609.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Barthes, Roland. The Responsibility of Forms: Critical Essays on Music Art and Representation, transl. by Richard Howard (Berkeley–Los Angeles, CA: University of California Press, 1991).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction,” in Illuminations, ed. by Hannah Arendt, transl. from the 1935 essay by Harry Zohn (New York, NY: Schocken Books, 1969), 1–25., https://web.mit.edu/allanmc/www/benjamin.pdf (accessed: February 28, 2024).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Ette, Wolfram. “Benjamins Reproduktionsaufsatz und die Musik,” in Klang und Musik bei Walter Benjamin, ed. by Tobias Robert Klein and Asmus Trautsch (München: Fink, 2013), 143–148.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Klein, Richard. “Noch einmal: bewusstmachende oder rettende Kritik. Eine musikphilosophische Lektüre des Disputs zwischen Benjamin und Adorno,” Musik & Ästhetik 15/60 (2011), 5–32.

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Levin, Thomas Y. “For the Record: Adorno on Music in the Age of Its Technological Reproducibility,” October 55 (1990), 23–47.

  • Passuth, Krisztina. Moholy-Nagy, transl. by Mátyás Esterházy (London–New York, NY: Thames and Hudson, 1987).

  • Weiss János. A modernség esztétikai programja: Előadások Walter Benjamin Műalkotás-tanulmányáról (Budapest: L’Harmattan, 2020).

    • Search Google Scholar
    • Export Citation

  • Wellmer, Albrecht. Zur Dialektik von Moderne und Postmoderne: Vernunftkritik nach Adorno (Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1993).

  • Collapse
  • Expand
Cover Studia Musicologica
Studia Musicologica
Print ISSN:
1788-6244
Online ISSN:
1789-2422

Senior editors

Editor(s)-in-Chief: Péter BOZÓ (Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, H)

Review Editor: Lynn HOOKER (Purdue University, West Lafayette, USA)

Assistant Editor(s):
Patrick DEVINE (Maynooth University, Maynooth, IRL)
Anna LASKAI (Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, H)

Editorial Board

  • Anja BUNZEL (Institute of Art History, Czech Academy of Sciences, CZ)
  • William A. EVERETT (Conservatory University of Missouri-Kansas City, USA)
  • Denis HERLIN (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris, F)
  • Vjera KATALINIĆ (HR)
  • Katalin KOMLÓS (professor emerita, Liszt Academy of Music, Budapest, H)
  • Valeria LUCENTINI (University of Bern, CH)
  • Tatjana MARKOVIĆ (Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Wien, A)
  • Pál RICHTER (Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, H)
  • László SOMFAI (Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, H)
  • László VIKÁRIUS (Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, H)

 

Editorial Secretary

  • István Csaba NÉMETH (Institute for Musicology, Research Centre for the Humanities, Budapest, H)

STUDIA MUSICOLOGICA
Address: H–1476 Budapest, PO Box 410, Hungary
Fax: +36 1 375 9282
E-mail: studia@btk.mta.hu

Indexing and Abstracting Services:

  • Arts & Humanities Citation Index
  • International Bibliographies IBZ and IBR
  • JSTOR
  • Music Indev
  • RILM
  • SCOPUS
  • ERIH PLUS

 

2024  
Scopus  
CiteScore  
CiteScore rank  
SNIP  
Scimago  
SJR index 0.111
SJR Q rank Q3

2023  
Web of Science  
Journal Impact Factor 0.1
Rank by Impact Factor Q3 (Music)
Journal Citation Indicator 0.17
Scopus  
CiteScore 0.1
CiteScore rank Q4 (Music)
SNIP 0.626
Scimago  
SJR index 0.114
SJR Q rank Q3

Studia Musicologica
Publication Model Hybrid
Submission Fee none
Article Processing Charge 900 EUR/article
Printed Color Illustrations 40 EUR (or 10 000 HUF) + VAT / piece
Regional discounts on country of the funding agency World Bank Lower-middle-income economies: 50%
World Bank Low-income economies: 100%
Further Discounts Editorial Board / Advisory Board members: 50%
Corresponding authors, affiliated to an EISZ member institution subscribing to the journal package of Akadémiai Kiadó: 100%
Subscription fee 2025 Online subsscription: 604 EUR / 664 USD
Print + online subscription: 684 EUR / 752 USD
Subscription Information Online subscribers are entitled access to all back issues published by Akadémiai Kiadó for each title for the duration of the subscription, as well as Online First content for the subscribed content.
Purchase per Title Individual articles are sold on the displayed price.

Studia Musicologica
Language English
French
German
Size B5
Year of
Foundation		 2007 (1961)
Volumes
per Year		 1
Issues
per Year		 4
Founder Magyar Tudományos Akadémia
Founder's
Address		 H-1051 Budapest, Hungary, Széchenyi István tér 9.
Publisher Akadémiai Kiadó
Publisher's
Address		 H-1117 Budapest, Hungary 1516 Budapest, PO Box 245.
Responsible
Publisher		 Chief Executive Officer, Akadémiai Kiadó
ISSN 1788-6244 (Print)
ISSN 1789-2422 (Online)

Monthly Content Usage

Abstract Views Full Text Views PDF Downloads
Dec 2024 44 7 11
Jan 2025 146 2 3
Feb 2025 109 2 2
Mar 2025 87 2 4
Apr 2025 32 1 1
May 2025 7 1 1
Jun 2025 0 0 0