Composers Forum is a daily web log that allows invited contemporary composers to share their thoughts and ideas on any topic that interests them--from the ethereal, like how new music gets created, music history, theory, performance, other composers, alive or dead, to the mundane, like getting works played and recorded and the joys of teaching. If you're a professional composer and would like to participate, send us an e-mail.
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Friday, February 18, 2005
re: politics and music
In my opinion, it's the music that matters. On one hand, you cannot divorce your art from your politics. On the other hand, art has to be divorced from politics. Guernica is a great painting, period, regardless of whether one agrees with the political undercurrents. Some of what I've heard of Klinghoffer is great music, some isn't, but none of that has anything to do with politics. In other words, it's fine to express one's political views in music. But the music has to stand by itself. Luigi Nono is perhaps better known for his politics than the music that conveyed them. I think the music should have come first, or at least had been the primary focus, rather than Nono's politics.
I've long toyed with the idea of a three-part opera about what I consider to be a sad paradigm of racism, hatred and evil, namely an opera about Meir Kahane, Baruch Goldstein (a physician who killed over 20 Palestinians as they worshipped at the Al-Ibriahmi Mosque in Hebron), and Yigal Amir (a religious zealot who killed Yitzhak Rabin). It's an interesting subject-the idea that a fellow physician would murder in cold blood, the notion that a religious leader [Kahane] could be so filled with hatred, and that a religious follower could kill a member of his own faith without remorse. The reason I haven't done anything with it (besides a chronic absence of time) is that the issues are important and thought-provoking, but could easily be trivialized by setting it to music. In addition, there just aren't any positive characters-if everyone involved for the most part is "bad," any opera rapidly loses interest.
So I'm stuck with an intriguing concept for an opera, one that would likely get me into a lot of hot water with my coreligionists (far worse than Adams), but no interest in writing one that has only negative characters. Again, the music has to come first, since that needs to transcend the politics. That said, I think I'd still have a lot of trouble enjoying a work extolling our current administration, no matter how beautiful the music...
posted by David Toub
2:58 PM
Music & Politics
Among the many refreshing things about The Gates, Christo and Jeanne-Claude's spectacular February gift to New York City is its inclusiveness. In a society so fraught with political tensions that even Clint Eastwood movies create controversy, it is a cheerfully apolitical event that makes most people smile even if they think the whole idea of draping 23 miles of Central Park in saffron schmate is kind of nutty. By raising the money to stage the event themselves, donating the proceeds from the sale of any authorized books, T-shirts and so on to a Central Park nature fund, refusing to accept corporate sponsorships or advertising money, and steadfastly declining to create an agenda by explaining what it "means," the artists have removed the project from the unpleasant realities of modern life. Laura Bush loved it; Abbie Hoffman would have loved it.
Which brings us to a topic. (By the way, CF bloggers, don't wait for me to ask a question. Write whatever is on your mind when the spirit moves you.) Do art and politics mix and, if so, what are the consequences. John Adams provides a useful cautionary tale in the saga of Klinghoffer which has clearly suffered somewhat because of its evenhanded treatment of the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The meta-issue, of course, is should we care that Wagner had political ideas we might find abhorrent or should we shut up and listen to the music?
posted by Jerry Bowles
11:44 AM
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