councilor.org
| Source | Peter Dorman |
| Date | 99/07/09/02:21 |
| Date: Thu, 08 Jul 1999 21:38:57 -0700 From: Peter Dorman To: pen-l@galaxy.csuchico.edu Subject: [PEN-L:9027] Re: Re: Re: Re: Hanns Eisler By going back to the 18th c. we are adding new layers to the question. Mozart did not have strong political views in the conventional sense, although he clearly identified with the main themes of the enlightenment (much trashed on this list). Within the confines of a society stratified by birth he favored greater social leveling, and he treats servants and other low-born persons in his operas with respect. (Even women get some respect.) But it would be wrong to say that he ever put forward a strong political statement, and his music -- as music -- was unaffected by politics. Interestingly, Haydn's *music* is intrinsically progressive within the context of his era. He was the first composer in the classical tradition to use folk and folk-like music as an essential component of his work, rather than as a novelty element. (Compare any landler from the third movement of a Haydn symphony to, say, Bach's peasant cantata.) Moreover, the sonata form (which he more or less invented) mirrors the novel as a formal expression of the transformation of individual consciousness as it makes its way through the world. (Here I am arguing by homology, but in music I think it makes more sense.) Music passes definitively from decoration to narrative. The irony is that Haydn wrote the anthem that became "Deutschland Uber Alles". Beethoven is known for having responded positively to the French Revolution, but there is little actual politics in his music. (Yes, there is the ode to brotherhood in the 9th symphony and the prisoners' hymn to freedom in Fidelio.) For the most part he was pursuing the same inner/other-worldliness that German romanticism fled to. There was a practical radicalism, however, in works like the late piano sonatas, the Grosse Fuge, etc., that broke with music as entertainment (for either the castle chamber or the bourgeois drawing room) and looked forward to a different socioeconomic model. The revolutions of 1848 did not leave a large musical footprint. We have a revolutionary etude from Chopin, and Wagner's nationalistic frenzy was his own response to the failure of the revolutionary dream. But most European music from the latter half of the 19th century is either salon noodling or inward spiritual quest. When new winds were finally to blow, they would come from nationalism on the European periphery, formalism (fulfilling the promise of Beethoven's late works), and fin de siecle mystical sensualism. So what we have are the broad themes of modern society: the rise of nationalist politics, professionalization of the arts and sciences, and the endless search for methods to arouse consumers/citizens/audiences at ever deeper emotional and cognitive levels. In all of this, leftist politics is exceptional and, at most, coincidental. |
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