The Doctor Faustus Dossier by E. Randol Schoenberg

Author:E. Randol Schoenberg
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780520296824
Publisher: University of California Press
Published: 2018-07-23T16:00:00+00:00

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Conclusion.By way of its vehemence and the reactions in the press, the dispute shows the topicality of Mann’s novel, which obviously had captured the state of contemporary music of the time with great precision. At the same time, it also sheds light on the irritable intellectual climate of immigration, which had thrown together people of the most diverse intellectual directions. Two phases can clearly be differentiated:

1. The private phase, which had at the root of the dispute Schoenberg’s fear that he might be forgotten as the inventor of the twelve-tone system because of the way it had been presented in Mann’s novel was manifested to a great extent in amicable letters or by word of mouth through friends. The postscript to Doctor Faustus ends this phase.

2. The public dispute, mainly carried on in letters to the press, becomes inflamed because of the postscript and its placement at the end of the book. Adorno comes into focus for Schoenberg as Thomas Mann’s adviser. A flood of articles in the press follow the exchange of letters in the SRL, but after Schoenberg’s letter to Music Survey, reactions in the press are absent. The peace agreement comes as a surprise but is understandable if one takes into consideration that Schoenberg might have gradually, at first, and only later fully realized Adorno’s role with respect to Doctor Faustus after the appearance of the Philosophy of New Music. Schoenberg’s resentment was thus redirected from Mann to Adorno.

Schoenberg’s behavior is characterized by a certain unpredictability, which seems understandable given his increasing aggravation, especially since he was unaware of the relationships (such as Adorno’s role), which had been unknown to him from the beginning. No fewer than three letters of thanks or reconciliation to Mann are known (February 22, 1948; October 15, 1948; and January 2 and 9, 1950). The fierce attacks against Mann were communicated either by way of a pseudonym (Triebsamen letter) or publicly through the press. The main reason for Schoenberg’s behavior always shows itself to be his concern over his posthumous reputation.

Mann’s demeanor, however, is characterized by cautious defense, at times also by subtle irony (answer to the Triebsamen letter of February 17, 1948; letter of December 19, 1949), not, however, by intensity of emotion. Mann intentionally did not use as a counteraction to Schoenberg’s accusation of plagiarism the latter’s incriminating appropriation of Hauer’s Tropenlehre, as a letter shows.48 One is under the impression that Mann was conscious of the fact that, by way of his overwrought animosity, Schoenberg was presenting a negative picture of himself through the very form of his attacks or, respectively, that Mann, by contrast, by way of his cleverly considerate reaction, would be presented in an even more favorable light. Based on the very divergent conduct of both, Schoenberg is presented mostly as the aggressor in the press reports of the time, though his actions, stemming from his worry over his posthumous reputation, or his being neglected, become understandable. Conversely, Mann’s demeanor appears strange in that he never,

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