Classical music as 'protest music'

[Guest]

In one of the other threads here, talking about general ignorance about classical music, I wrote the following...

'As someone who WAS ignorant of classical music until well into his 30s, I find this discussion especially interesting. I didn't necessarily feel that I lacked anything per se, but I did feel that there was a huge field of human endeavour, enjoyed by many intelligent people, that I had no understanding off, or natural inclination towards. Having dipped my toe in, I quickly became obsessed. In cultural terms (rather than personal) I think the great unexplored benefit of classical music is that it forces a degree of concentration (of slowing down and focussing) that is absent in most other fields of endeavour, and certainly in the general aspirations of our culture.'

Is there anyone who has a sense of classical music, in the complexity of its conception and the demands (emotional as well as intellectual) that it makes on its listener, as being, in a sense, an art embracing protest? In this day and age, professing an enjoyment of classical music seems to me one of the more radical artistic gestures one can make. What do others think?

[Serial_Apologist]

Is there anyone who has a sense of classical music, in the complexity of its conception and the demands (emotional as well as intellectual) that it makes on its listener, as being, in a sense, an art embracing protest? In this day and age, professing an enjoyment of classical music seems to me one of the more radical artistic gestures one can make. What do others think?

It all depends on who and what one is protesting about.

I remember at the time of the Anti-Nazi League's campaign against racism in the late 70s, Punk and Reggae were more strongly associated with protest than classical music or jazz. Somebody on one of the ANL's demos was heard to say, "If the (racist) National Front were ever to come to power, we'd all be forced to listen to Elgar all day on the radio". At the following demo several protesters wore "Elgarians against Racism and Fascism" T-shirts and handed out leaflects exonerating Elgar of associations with fascism and racism.

But from reading many of the posts in this forum, you will doubtless have been made aware that love of classical music, and deploration of Radio 3 dumbing down its standards and presentation, is by no means confined to the left-leaning of us.

As Chris Caudwell pointed out in his book, "How Music Expresses Ideas", Beethoven's symphonies were a rhetorical call to revolution at the beginning of the 19th century - a meaning which has become totally divorced from its significance to the majority of the world's oppressed today, when Beethoven's appeal is largely to the same middle class audiences it called on to overthrow the landed gentry 200 years ago.

It's the uses to which music can be put that determines its political significance, imv.

[MrGongGong]

Earlier this evening I was listening to a recording of a gig by the band Sun O))) if you need music to make huge demands on it's audience it is maybe more found in that world (and in the commitment and dedication that folk like Evan Parker and Eddie Prevost have had to their music ) more than in the mainstream of classical music ?

[french frank]

I was going to say that, because protests tend to be popular by nature, the music of protest will tend to be in popular song, folk songs, rebel songs. But in contemporary 'classical' music it wouldn't be uncommon to find composers writing in support of (particularly left-wing) political ideals, and doing so as a personal protest.

[Thropplenoggin]

"All we are saying is...give Liszt a chance!"

[heliocentric]

Earlier this evening I was listening to a recording of a gig by the band Sun O)))

Did you like it? I find their stuff a bit overrated (not here obviously!!! ).

In answer to the OP, yes: many composers from the 1960s onwards saw a clear connection between radical politics and radical musical ideas: Luigi Nono, Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, Iannis Xenakis, Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, Christian Wolff...

[amateur51]

It's the uses to which music can be put that determines its political significance, imv.

Good stuff, S_A - ah those ANL events - takes me back

Sadly it takes me back to some streets in East London as I was trying to find the bus home and realised that I was no longer in a big friendly crowd but quite alone wearing umpteen Gay Pride badges in an area not known for its Live & Let Live approach - tho there was a pub of that name.

Re your final point above, that would explain the appeal (or otherwise) of The Last Night of the Proms to music lovers and to those who attend

[MrGongGong]

Did you like it? I find their stuff a bit overrated (not here obviously!!! ).

In answer to the OP, yes: many composers from the 1960s onwards saw a clear connection between radical politics and radical musical ideas: Luigi Nono, Cornelius Cardew, Frederic Rzewski, Iannis Xenakis, Luciano Berio, Hans Werner Henze, Christian Wolff...

I do like Monoliths and Dimensions but I have yet to see them live which I guess would be the more significant experience

I'm not sure that this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RSuuwJFw4wU

is what the OP had in mind ?
but tis a wonderful piece IMV

[heliocentric]

but tis a wonderful piece IMV

Yes. Although that performance is maybe a bit careful. Did you happen to see Rzewski perform it with the Hoketus ensemble in the Round House some time in the early 80s? (and between two of the spoken phrases make an aside to someone in the front row to stop talking)

As for Sunn O))), I guess you're right that the live experience would be decisive, but I'm a bit suspicious of music that uses loudness to make up for being otherwise uninteresting (Keiji Haino is another one - I saw him play not long ago and thought that if it wasn't loud it wouldn't really be anything much).

Returning to the OP, it's a nice idea that there's something radical about being interested in classical music, but actually that depends on social class to a great extent: if you're in the social stratum that might go to Glyndebourne or Bayreuth, for example, it wouldn't be at all radical.

[Bryn]

Re. Cardew, all the items here, taken from a B&L CD, were written in support of his political outlook in the 1970s. Bethanien Song, for instance, is based on a song he wrote in support of a campaign to stop a Berlin children's clinic being closed and converted into an arts centre.

It [Bethanien Song] embodies our demand for a children's polyclinic in Bethanien, not an artists' centre. It sings of our children's future, threatened by the myriad abuses of capitalist society. It derides bourgeois art, exposes the politics of the urban planners, and indicates the perspectives of revolutionary change, with the working people of all nationalities uniting to take their destiny into their own hands.

[MrGongGong]

Yes. Although that performance is maybe a bit careful. Did you happen to see Rzewski perform it with the Hoketus ensemble in the Round House some time in the early 80s? (and between two of the spoken phrases make an aside to someone in the front row to stop talking)

yes it is a bit "safe"
and sadly I didn't see it at the Round House but I would think that they would give it a bit more oooomph

[Bryn]

MrGG, look out for a PM with a link to a broadcast performance by the same forces (from HCMF IIRC). I have to dig out the CD-R first though. I caught sight of it somewhere it should not have been (i.e. unfiled) recently.

[MrGongGong]

MrGG, look out for a PM with a link to a broadcast performance by the same forces (from HCMF IIRC). I have to dig out the CD-R first though. I caught sight of it somewhere it should not have been (i.e. unfiled) recently.

Thanks

[LeMartinPecheur]

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies might be included in the classical protesters list.

There's the Yellowcake Review, the source of Farewell to Stromness and Yesnaby Ground, written as a protest against the uranium mining planned for Orkney, and the 3rd Naxos Quartet which I would venture to say is not least among anti-war protest music (contra the Iraq war).

[Wheels of Cheese]

Really enjoying this thread, thanks to all for their contribution. Initially I did mean the notion of the mere act of listening to classical music as having a radical and therefore political ethos, but am loving being introduced to composers who are overtly political in message. Going to listen to a bunch of the above now, although I'm still not sure about Mr Cardew - despite my lefty credentials I think this might be the worst thing (not just music) ever...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UXEDZy4Z8os