Musicians & politics

[Mischa]

Of course you await an opinion of writers about politics, but musicians? Let's forget about dictatorships or risky relationships between musician and politics for a while and talk about the last years. I know from a lot of musicians that they stipulate not to be asked about political issues during interviews. From my perspective, it's a pity, though I understand well, that no artist wants to lose parts of the audience for one or two remarks or his/her engagement. Just take a look on certain forums, some fellows boycott Barenboim recordings.

There're some musicians voicing there opinions, people like the great pianist Jeremy Denk ("Jeremy, I guess my point is, a fugue is more than one voice, just like America. And it has certain values" - if you want to read what Sarah Palins opinion about Beethoven's Hammerklavier-sonata is, read his wonderfull Blog. The Interview starts lame, but has highlights later on.), Thomas Quasthoff etc., but the vast majority of artists tend to avoid any issues.

What are your thoughts about it? Do you think it would be just populistic of an artist to (let's say) endorse a politician publically like artists in so many other arts do? Do you think there's a certain gap between artist and audience alienating music from life?

[haydnguy]

I'm glad they don't express political views. For me it's a breath of fresh air to be able to sit down and discuss music without getting in to politics.

I've never quite understood why people are interested in what political views that actors, musicians, etc., have.

[Florestan]

I think it depends on whether the person speaking has a clue what they are talking about. In the case of most pop musicians, they don't.

In the case of, say, Daniel Barenboim, I think they do, no matter what the egregious Peter Osborne says. (The awful Osborne quite recently wrote a vitriol-dripping tirade of spite (masquerading as a review) on Barenboim's last book and the late, great Edward Said's anthology of music essays, 'Music at the limits' - all because Said apparently once called Osborne egregious. I personally think the description was too flattering.)

If they (musicians in whatever idiom) do have a clue politically, and are not just sounding off because they think it makes them look good, then I have no problem with it on principle. As long as I agree with their politics, of course.

[Florestan]

Originally Posted by haydnguy

I'm glad they don't express political views. For me it's a breath of fresh air to be able to sit down and discuss music without getting in to politics.

I've never quite understood why people are interested in what political views that actors, musicians, etc., have.

Because it shapes the way they create their art. Sorry, but it does. I usually detest postmodernist thought but you can't get away from it.

The idea that art comes from some divine source away from the mundane trials of earthly life is b*ll*cks cooked up by the establishment to explain to their own advantage why most artists are white, male and have rich parents. They are not divinely blessed with artistic inspiration - they are just more socially and economically privileged than everyone else.

[Philidor]

After the Spanish Civil War (1936–39), when General Francisco Franco took power, Casals announced he would never return to Spain while Franco was in charge. He settled in Prades, France, and gave occasional concerts until 1946, when, to take a stand against tyrants such as Franco, Casals vowed never to perform again.

However, encouraged by friends, Casals resumed playing in 1950, participating in the Prades Festival organized to honor Bach. At the end of the festival and every concert he gave after that, Casals played "Song of the Birds," a Catalonian folk song, to protest the continued oppression in Spain. In 1956 he settled in Puerto Rico and started the Casals Festival, which led to the creation of a symphony orchestra and a music school on the island. Casals never returned to Spain.

Casals also continued to refuse to perform in countries that officially recognized the Franco government. Until his death in 1973, Casals made only one exception—in 1961 he performed at the White House for U.S. President John F. Kennedy (1917–1963), a man he greatly admired. In 1971, at the age of ninety-five, he performed his "Hymn of the United Nations" before the United Nations General Assembly. Casals sought to inspire harmony among people, with both his cello and his silence.

Source

Casals at the UN in 1971. He was so old he couldn't tune his cello, someone did it for him, and didn't do a very good job. But it doesn't matter.


[ame="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=rt9iz3xApVg"]YouTube - Casals "El Cant dels Ocells" at U.N. Day　カザルス『鳥ã�®æ*Œã€�[/ame]



It seems a nonsense for Western musicians to compose patriotic music, be influenced by patriotic music, play patriotic music, but then keep quiet about their own politics.

Are there any vocal right wing international musicians -- who think George Bush is marvelous, disapprove of the economic bailouts because the market should be allowed to let rip, wish to nuke Iran, and consider Obama a dangerous communist? They must exist.

[Herzeleide]

Originally Posted by Florestan

In the case of most pop musicians, they don't.

[Alpha Centauri]

There is quite a bit of music written with a political point of view. If you perform it, you cannot avoid this aspect of the work.

For example, anyone who performs FIDELIO would need to decide how they feel personally about the political topics in the piece.

[Mischa]

It seems I was misunderstood, maybe politics was the wrong word. Society is a better word. Wouldn't it be great, if more artists would show a standing towards issues? I agree, I don't want to see artists being involved in Bush bashing or EUnuch trashing, but aren't there enough problems some artists are confronted with day by day? Isn't there a connection to their art?

Let me say it this way: the very first persons a dictatorship wants to get rid off are novelists, no matter how unpolitical and harmless their novels are, the target of a novel is the individuum. No dictatorship needs an individuum. Is it so different to let's say a Mahler symphony or a Beethoven string quartet? How authentic would a writer be if she/he would ask for non-social or non-political questions before an interview? Frankly said, I'm tired of all those i-rants against Furtwängler, Shostakovic, who had to do private decisions under terrible circumstances, while we're accepting generations of artists without standing towards education or general social problems in a free world.

Wouldn't it be refreshing and honest towards the art of classical music if you'd see an artist answering "Fuck you. Kind regards, X" to an invitation of the VPO with their unique female and Asian politics they do?

We're all concerned about the education in our countries, aren't we? Why not having an artist like let's say Anne-Sophie Mutter with her children fighting for their personal ideas of a way out?

Please do not get me wrong here and have mercy with me for all those big words like individuum: classical music is not punk music, I know that. But at the end of the day, where's the connection between our music and society? It's thin ice, I know. Maybe I'm just tired of all those paroles you read in statements ("Classical music builds the soul" etc.)

Long story short - if classical music really refines your mind and soul that way as they tell you in interviews etc, why not showing it?

[Alpha Centauri]

Originally Posted by Mischa

Frankly said, I'm tired of all those i-rants against Furtwängler, Shostakovic,

Any such rants about Shostakovich are made by utterly ignorant fools, who haven't a clue about the man or his music, but just think they should be seen "criticising Commies". Utter cretins.

[Kuhlau]

Mischa, I'll be honest and admit that I'm still not entirely clear on your point.

Are you saying that there's no apparent evidence that great music has a demonstrable bearing on our society? If so, I largely agree with you and share in your disappointment regarding this.

But the truth is very plain: classical (or 'serious') music has only a bit-part to play in our modern world - even among our supposedly 'culturally aware' middle classes. These Guardian and Independent-reading psuedo-lefties are quite happy to have their Tarquins and Anabellas take cello and ballet classes, but will strenuously avoid discussion of serious music at their one-up-manship dinner parties, despite talking for hours of everything from the latest fads in conceptual art to books as diverse as White Teeth and the Harry Potter novels. (I've even overheard members of the aptly named 'chattering classes' intellectualising the X Factor.) But where classical music is concerned, they remain both embarrassingly ignorant and neglectfully silent.

Hmm ... okay, that was slightly more of a rant than I intended. Let's get back to what else I imagine might be the thrust of this thread.

Mischa, do you sense some inconsistency, perhaps, between the way musicians talk of great music and act in their everyday lives? If so, I'd suggest this is wholly human and nothing remarkable. A great many people hold noble views and can speak learnedly - nay, almost spiritually - about a great many things, but one has only to observe their actions and compare these with their words to realise what a wide and saddening gulf exists there. In this, the vast majority of us are very much alike.

Now, if I'm still misunderstanding, Mischa, please feel free to put me right.

Originally Posted by Florestan

The idea that art comes from some divine source away from the mundane trials of earthly life is b*ll*cks ...

Flo, dearest, would it be fair to say that this is something which no one but an artist can ever truly know?

FK