In Peter Bürger's "Theory of the avant-garde", the concept of shock is rendered as an intentional avant-garde procedure against the institutionalization of art, i.e., against the autonomous criteria of modernist aestheticism, with the purpose of bringing art back to everyday life and vital praxis. From a quite different materialistic perspective, the concept of shock, in Adorno's musical writings, exposes the crisis of experience (Erfahrung) of the dissociation of time within two major streams of modern music, namely Schoenberg's school and Stravinsky's. This paper aims to point out the conflicting assumptions and consequences between Adorno and Bürger regarding their respective theoretical grasps on the concept of shock, as well as the critique to Adorno's musical modernism that Bürger addresses in this book.
Adorno; Peter Bürger; modern music; shock; avant-garde; construction; Stravinsky; Schoenberg
