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Nikolai Alexandrovich Yaroshenko's
painting 'The Student' (1881) |
In
Crime and Punishment (1866), Raskolnikov, after receiving some jeering comment in the street about his German hat (someone shouts at him "немецкий шляпник!") and realising how conspicuous it makes him, exclaims: Мелочи, мелочи главное!.. Вот эти-то мелочи и губят всегда и всё… (Trivial details, trivial details above all … It's these trivial details that ruin everything always).
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| Adorno posing with a musical score |
Adorno also saw the power of trifling details: in
Minima Moralia he writes "Keine Verbesserung ist zu klein oder geringfügig, als daß man sie nicht durchführen sollte. Von hundert Änderungen mag jede einzelne läppisch und pedantisch erscheinen; zusammen können sie ein neues Niveau des Textes ausmachen." (“No improvement is too small or insignificant to be carried out. Out of a hundred changes, a single one may appear trifling and pedantic; together they can raise the text to a new level.”).
Adorno, of course, understood music, and music is all details; as Emperor Joseph is reported to have said:
Gewaltig viel Noten lieber Mozart!
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