Steve Schwartz caught the man's essence in describing

>....  Adorno, a toady with a large vocabulary...

actually this is rather kind...His interactions with Schoenberg, Berg and
above all, his manipulation of the musical content of Thomas Mann's Faustus
are not pleasant to read...

And most of the oral history about Schoenberg from those outside his circle
of adulators isn't any too nice either.  Alas--I too love the music, but
even in the context of the Austro-German patriarchal tradition his behavior
seems a bit much.

One goes back to the "mal mot" Charles Rosen had from an emigre
psychoanalyst about the grovelling letters Berg and Webern continued to
write to their former teacher--"Masochists abound in every era, but really
high-class sadists are rare."

Best-Joel Lazar