Erwartung’s expressionism facing the problem of musical fetishism

Abstract

Arnold Schoenberg’s monodrama Erwartung was characterized on one hand, as the epitome of expressionism and, on the other, as a composition not definable by formal categories. This involves three moments: first, the development of Adorno’s concept of musical fetishism; second, the approach to the relationship of expression and convention seen from the perspective of musical fetishism, which enables us to approximate some notions as the denial of convention, the Romantic denial of musical objectivism in favor of subjective expression, and the refusal of fetishized material; and finally, the approach to the Erwartung, showing that the problem of convention, objectivism and fetishism still remains in a piece which leads the radicalization of expression through denial of convention to the
ultimate consequences.