| B minor, C minor, and D minor | A significant error on Woods’s part, for the original has “B-flat major, C major, and D major.” The ensuing technical discussion doesn’t make sense when applied to minor scales. |
| Dominant of the second degree […] exactly in between | The dominant is the fifth scale degree of the diatonic scale. D is thus the dominant of the scale built on G, which in turn is the dominant of the scale built on C. The subdominant is the fourth scale degree of the diatonic scale, which is harmonically equivalent to moving five degrees downwards rather than upwards. Performing such a downwards movement twice from C yields first F, then B♭. B♭ is thus the subdominant of the second degree to C, while D is the dominant of the second degree. TM accidentally omitted the words “of the second degree” when describing the subdominant, the result of a transcription error from Adorno’s notes, which heavily influenced these paragraphs. |
| the tonic triad of each of the three main keys | The tonic triad of C major is C–E–G, while the tonic triad of B-flat major is B♭–D–F, and the tonic triad of D major is D–F♯–A. |
| In its physical effect, in the way it grabs one by the head and shoulders […] | The original is even stronger, having körperlich (= “corporeal”) rather than “physical.” The musical structure of the piece that L. wrote for Schwerdtfeger thus anticipates the physical union that took place during their trip to Hungary in XXXVII. |
| Tartini’s “Devil’s Trill” Sonata | |
| “apotheosis of drawing-room music” | The original Salonmusik does indeed mean “drawing-room music,” but could also be translated more literally as “salon music.” Since Z. has repeatedly used the term “salon” to refer to the various social circles in which he and L. move in Munich, the violin concerto might also be understood as a commentary on its own time. |
| from some land where no one else dwells. | A phrase drawn from a description of Friedrich Nietzsche in a letter by Erwin Rohde dated January 24, 1889. TM copied the passage into his notebooks and wrote “dementia” next to it. |
| Berlioz’s Symphonie fantastique | Berlioz’s programmatic Symphonie fantastique features both hallucinatory visions and a witches’ sabbath—themes of some relevance to DF. |
| | The opera Samson and Delilah (1877) by Camille Saint-Saëns is about a man who is robbed of his supernatural powers by a woman in a moment of intimacy—the exact inverse of the plot of DF. |
| Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix | French “My heart opens at the sound of your voice.” Title of a popular duet [here mistakenly called an aria] from Samson and Delilah. |
| Philine […] Wilhelm Meister | Characters in Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meister (1795/96). |
| A knight who defends fear and reproach | The original here is Ein Ritter der Furcht und des Tadels—an ironic inversion of the idiomatic Ritter ohne Furcht und Tadel (“Knight without Fear and Reproach”). |