Composing for the State: Music in Twentieth-Century Dictatorships

Music and Letters

2016

An exploration of the link between three totalitarian regimes and their attempt at wielding power through artistic propaganda in their respective countries.

Ab imperio 2/2013, S. 278–297

After Second World War socialist realism, developed in Soviet Union, became a dominant style in art in USRR and other socialist countries of Soviet bloc, like Czechoslovakia, Hungary, East Germany and Poland. Having – as its purpose - the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism, socialist realism and government cut down the artistic freedom of painters, filmmakers, directors, poets, dancers and composers. According to the music – this is a time of a mass songs, cantatas and other vocal and instrumental music pieces which refer to communism propaganda imposed by the government. Music became a medium of a doctrine and indoctrination, as well as a tool to educate working class. How did it happen that music – an artistic phenomenon – became an art at the service of a state, more political than just the one with an esthetic aim?

As the distance from the Cold War increases, we are able to understand that the image of the period's culture has been conceived with a bipolarity that leads to unrealistic interpretations. Although such bipolar looks to the immediate past/ are as a rule moderated with the process of time, in the case of the Cold War it will take, it seems, much longer than usual because of the propaganda techniques and nets --brutal or refined--that have been cultivated in both sides. Also, because one of the poles has the significance of the war's winner, and the advantage of a globalised language.

Examination of the lives and performances of master musicians who remained active under dictatorships. Oswald Kabasta, Alfred Hoehn, and Oskar Fried are fleshed out in their own words and by eye-witnesses. First translations of many unique documents accompanying their recordings.

2014

ion’ (1995: 19). Let’s call this the slippery-sticky-empty paradigm of music. My claim is that it has been the dominant conceptual paradigm steering how the relationship between music and ideology, if not the political tout court, has been addressed during the last quarter century (or so) of music scholarship. I say steering, but as we are about to see, the slippery-sticky-empty paradigm has also proved a kind of limit or impasse, a theoretical obstruction to the cultural historian’s effort to grasp the music-politics relation in its plenitude. (This has certainly been true of recent work on music in the Third Reich, as noted in the introduction to this thesis.) Jean-Jacques Nattiez’s influential theoretical work Music and Discourse (1990; first published in French in 1987) sheds light on this disabling aspect of the paradigm. The crux of the problem is circumscribed in a simple tripartite schema, introduced in the opening chapter, where ‘trace’ refers to the musical object, ‘poieti...

Cultural Values, 2000

How does music -or any cultural artefact -assume significance for those who encounter it? Why does one sound or image come to matter, while others are overlooked or forgotten? The answer is not to be found in the sounds alone, but in the context and conditions in which they are heard. This article explores this argument by considering the case of The Anthology of American Folk Music, a set of recordings from the 1920s and 1930s, which has exercised an extraordinary power over popular music since its release in 1952. Using the arguments expounded by Robert Cantwell and Greil Marcus, and pointing to the uses of music in establishing national identities and mobilising social movements, the article argues for an understanding of music's significance that links social experience, aesthetic pleasure and political values.

JOURNAL OF ACADEMIC PERSPECTIVE ON SOCIAL STUDIES (JAPSS), 2022

Music is used by politicians as means to reach the masses by conveying succinctly their message and boosting their images. The state also uses music to preserve some of its memories as well. However, music and musicians have suffered at the hands of politicians when the music turns to criticize politicians or the standard norms in the state or society. Thus, Music can be either an ideological tool in the hands of the state or a symbol of critique that incurs state oppression. Historically, different examples show how important role music can play in the dissolution and collapse of a political organization as well as its establishment and construction. From Plato, More, Campanella to Khomeini, philosophers, thinkers, rulers, and politicians mention the significance of music in statehood. In this study, it is argued that this view can be seen as a projection of totalitarian thought within the historical line mentioned. In this context, although music is seen as a harmless act that is essentially non-political, depending on the preference of the individual or group, and a harmless act that is not inherently political, some thinkers consider it a disruptive act that can disrupt the social order and harmony, and encourage people's indifference or disobedience to political power, or even rebellion, therefore, it is perceived as a phenomenon that should be controlled and censored.