The Spacialization Revisited: Extensive Type’s Characterization and Contradictions in Theodor W. Adorno

Abstract

As Adorno’s posthumous writings were released, a notable turn in his philosophy of music became noteworthy: by revealing an ambitious project on Beethoven, a quasi-axiomatic theory of musical time emerged, which seems to guide adornian thought at very significant works and texts, as Philosophy of New Music. Sketched in three configuration types of musical time, this theory surprises with the so-called “extensive type”. Adorno would then admit kinds of formal consistency (Stimmigkeit) that are not restricted to the ideal of development (Entwicklung) and assumes the possibility of a non-regressive spatialization, which contrasts with his own ontological definition of the medium. This paper discusses the contradictions of extensive type by presenting an analysis of the Archduke Trio op. 97, in the light of the well-known originary affinity between Beethoven and Hegel. At last, the text presents by which means and for what reasons the extensive type would lead Adorno to the last and most decisive modality of musical time’s configuration, the late style.