ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the relationship between dialectical thought and musical analysis, paying special attention to close reading of the post-Beethovenian repertoire. The core debate surrounding the Hegelian dialectic centres on the extent to which he conceived it as a species of logic akin to syllogism, as a mode of reasoning analogous to deduction or induction, as a critical method, or indeed as a methodology of any kind. Adorno pursues Hegel's philosophy of history to the extent that he accepts the dialectic as history's basic mechanism, and adopts its Marxian inversion by seeing in this process the reflection of an economic or sociological base rather than a transcendent World Spirit. Theodor Adorno explicitly stressed the analogy between Beethoven's treatment of sonata form and the Hegelian dialectic, which was guaranteed by Beethoven's treatment of the recapitulation as a locus of reconciliation. Beethoven is not content simply to allow his themes to exist as self-sufficient melodies.
