“We are paupers. There is no paper. The workers are hungry and cold and have no clothing or shoes. The machines are worn out. The buildings are collapsing.”

Lenin wrote these lines in February 1921 following the end of the Russian revolution. Later that year Lenin introduced the ‘New Economic Policy’ and the country seemingly began to regain control of the economy, despite the dismay of the communists.

Soviet composers of the 1920’s were confronted by many new problems. Firstly, the audiences at the time were the most diverse they had ever been, with both sophisticated intelligent listeners and the uneducated, although there was still a void where the middle class should be. Because of this diversity, composers found themselves writing for either end of the spectrum, but never both. This obtained a satisfactory effect for that particular audience, but was never completely successful as the music was composed against a set of conditions, and few works pro

Orff frequently tried to dispel any ideas that his music was Nazi related or even liked by the Nazi’s in many different ways. ‘Carmina Burana’ had originally been torn to shreds by Herbert Gerigk, the influential critic of the Volkischer Beobachter, who referred to the ‘incomprehensibility of the language’ coloured by a ‘jazzy atmosphere’, caused many of Germany’s opera intendants to fear staging the work after its premier. However, another reviewer who said that Orff’s settings of bawdy medieval ballads expressed through their ‘folk-like structure’ later praised the same work. The question that has to be asked when determining whether or not Orff’s music was political, is whether or not it is possible to just concentrate on the music and not take into account at all. The American musicologist Kim Kowalke offers one side of the argument. He says that Orff first employed his primitive idiom, the one now associated with his ‘Nazi’ pieces, in songs predating the Nazi regime, to words by the eventual Hitler refugee Franz Werfel and the eventual Communist poet laureate Bertolt Brecht. With this knowledge, Kowalke attempts to challenge a position that many have taken: “If the musical idiom of ‘Carmina Burana’ derives from settings of Brecht’s poetry, can it inherently inscribe a celebration of Nazi youth culture?” Another possibly argument when discussing whether or not Orff’s music is political is the idea that there is no difference between music that accompanies leftist propaganda and music that accompanies rightist propaganda.

“Pfitzner’s Palestrina is an essay that defends on several levels the ideal of the autonomy of music, and its connection to neoplatonic truths, against alternative modernist constructs.”

In contrast to both Shostakovich and Orff, the German composer Pfitzner did have a very political background. He was anti-Semitic, pro Hitler and anti modernist but despite his greatest efforts to receive the approval of Hitler, Hitler did not like neither him nor his music. Pfitzner believed:

“Since the musical gift was rare, inborn, and God given, a new generation of aspiring, hardworking intellectuals were intent on blurring the boundary between the concreteness of music and its power of expression on one hand, and language, thought, and ideas on the other, all in order to cover up their lack of spontaneous musicality. The mental powers associated with science, mathematics, logic, and language were being applied to the writing of music. These early twentieth century writers and musicians mirrored a novel phenomenon unique to industrial modernity: a large cadre of highly trained, clever, and smart professionals who substituted their undeniable skills in reasoning and critical reflection for their bankruptcy of innate musicality and inspiration. Musicality was understood by Pfitzner as akin to a racial attribute (to which Germans were particularly susceptible) largely absent in Jews”- Leon Botstein, The Musical Quarterly, Spring 2001

In the early 1930’s, after nearly a decade of failed compositions, a change came about in the Soviet’s attitudes towards the arts. In 1932, a union was set up, ‘The Union of Soviet Composers’ which was then split up into sections which governs the various musical genres. Composers had the moral obligation to submit their work to the USC for approval. Although it was not necessary to submit work, failure to do so would almost certainly result in national criticism and the work not being successful. Because Stalin had with the USC controlled the arts, in particularly music, it has often been argued that many composers rebelled against this by seemingly complying by the rules and even in some cases, actually praising Stalin.

Some topics in this essay:
Fifth Symphony, David Cesarani, Hitler Hitler, Pfitzner’s Palestrina, Economic Policy’, Paul Bekker, Festspielhaus Bayreuth, Night’s Dream’, Stalin Due, Bertolt Brecht, music political, fifth symphony, nazi germany, piece music, soviet composers, political meaning, composers intentions, piece wagner, piece political, piece music seen, wagner’s music, music seen political, orff’s music political, own personal views, question music political,