Adorno Theodor W. - Correspondence 1943-1955

Thomas Manns correspondence with Theodor W. Adorno was preceded and effectively prompted by his reading the philosophers work. In July 1943, while he was working on chapter 7 of his novel Doctor Faustus, Mann was also studying Adornos manuscript on Schnberg and Progress. I encountered an artistic and sociological critique of our current situation of the most subtle, progressive and profound kind, and one which displayed a striking affinity to the central conception of my own work, to the very composition in which I was then immersed and involved. The matter was soon decided. This is my man (Die Entstehung des Doktor Faustus, GWXI, p. 172). The relationship between tradition and avant-garde culture, the constellation of modernity and the past, defines the force- field of Manns novel as well as that of Adornos investigations of the dialectic of technological progress in music. These representatives of two different generations, with significantly different cultural and aesthetic backgrounds in each case, recognized a remarkable closeness to one another that subsequently led, over and beyond their specifically literary and musical collaboration, to a periodically renewed exchange of letters that touched repeatedly on broader social and political issues as well.

Adornos manuscript on Schoenberg provided the initial stimulus for a rapidly developing social and intellectual relationship between the philosopher and the writer. Personal invitations and mutual visits led to detailed discussions concerning both the composition of the whole novel and very specific musical details, such as those involved in Wendell Kretzschmars lectures on Beethoven in chapter 8 of the book. On 30 December 1945, when his narrative was approaching the subject of Adrian Leverkhns late works, Mann wrote his famous letter on the principle of montage in Doctor Faustus, explicitly inviting Adorno to consider, with me, how such a work and I mean Leverkhns work could more or less be practically realized. Adorno, having already examined the manuscript of the novel up to this point in the narrative, proceeded to sketch examples of Leverkhns final compositions, which Mann then versified, as he put it, developing and incorporating these ideas into the body of the novel ideas which, as models of Adornos exact imagination, give the lie to any blank or abstract opposition between the original sketch and the finished novel. In a letter to Erika Mann of 19 April 1962, Adorno described the nature of his collaboration with the writer in the following way:

Finally, a word concerning Leverkhns musical compositions. It turned out that T. M. had already chosen the titles for most of the works in question which he immediately communicated to me; I then set about thinking them out in detail. I think it was only with the Brentano songs that we did not proceed in this fashion, and in this case I didnt go beyond giving some general musical suggestions. As for the rest, it was extremely straightforward: I thought about the problems exactly as I would have done as a composer actually confronted with the task of writing such works, just as someone, like Berg for example, would generally prepare a plan before setting to work. I noted down the relevant considerations, and still possess a number of these sketches, before proceeding to elaborate them as if there were not merely preparatory outlines, but descriptions of real pieces of music. T. M. would then contribute his own part. Many things would be changed in the course of our discussions, whether it was a matter of developing the overall conception of the novel more concretely through the description of specific musical details, or of emphasizing alternative aspects and features of the narrative, as in the chapter on the Devil, or whether finally, and this is the most important point, it was a question of cutting a number of things precisely because the work in hand was a novel rather than a musical guide book. I do not believe that his conception of these afternoon discussions, of which I naturally possess the clearest and most precise recollection, would have differed in any way whatsoever from my own.

Even more than Thomas Mann, who was fascinated by the striking affinity between the aesthetic ground-plan of his novel and Adornos avant-garde aesthetic, Adorno himself must have regarded this effective collaboration as an epitome of his own utopian conception of knowledge namely the construction of a concrete form of understanding that successfully reconciles the conceptual and the intuitive moments of experience through an activity of productive imagination.

Although relatively few of the letters exchanged between Mann and Adorno belong precisely to the period in which Doctor Faustus was actually completed, their active collaboration with regard to the putative compositions of the novels protagonist Adrian Leverkhn nonetheless formed the basis and point of departure for their subsequent correspondence as well. Mann would later report back to Adorno about his fascinated reading of Minima Moralia and respond in detail to the Essay on Wagner,a work which he confessed he was as eager to read as the one in the Book of Revelation who consumes a book which tastes as sweet as honey . Adorno in turn communicated his own detailed comments upon, and enthusiastic support for, Manns later novels such as The Holy Sinner, The Black Swan and The Confessions of Felix Krull the last work being particularly close to Adornos heart. The letters also addressed extremely private concerns of great personal significance to both of them, as in the candid and carefully considered discussion of the difficulties involved in returning to Europe after the end of the war. Although they were destined never to meet again in person after the autumn of 1949, when Adorno returned to Germany, their continuing correspondence testifies to their persisting mutual concern for and interest in one another. Adorno always remained faithful to his personal encounter with Mann, something which he himself described in his letter of 3 June 1945 on commemoration of the writers seventieth birthday as a moment of realized utopia.