NO FREEDOM IN MUSIC

The paradox of great music being produced under tyranny does not end with Stalin. In Western Europe and the Americas there always seems to have been an inverse ratio between the amount of political freedom in a society and the artistic value of the music that blossoms in that society.

If historians can be believed, the best-governed nation of Europe during the nineteenth century was Great Britain. The government there underwent no upheaval or collapse as was frequent in France and the Italian peninsula. The monarchs were content to remain figureheads who committed only minor interference with the machinery of government. The church was not in control to the degree that it was in Italy and the Spanish-speaking nations. There was no Reign of Terror. "You are the slaves of laws," Voltaire remarked to Boswell. "The French are the slaves of men."

In the United States of that time, there was no aristocratic tradition, no monarch, a weak, ineffectual and divided central government, a free press and a libertarian tradition. As long as one had money, he was free to do as he pleased.

How is it, then, that during this entire century, the greatest composers to emerge from these two nations were, respectively, Arthur Sullivan and John Philip Sousa? (Louis Moreau Gottschalk spent much time in the USA, but he was born in and died in Brazil.) There is certainly nothing wrong with the music of either man, but it is scarcely what one would term serious music on the level of J. S. Bach.

Bach, of course, lived during the previous century in an area of the disintegrating Holy Roman Empire that was dominated by Prussia, then ruled by Frederick II. Bach once showed up at Frederick's court dressed as a cantor; he composed a fugue on the spot and dedicated it to the admiring monarch. But Frederick was tagged with the epithet "The Great" primarily for his brilliant military victories. The country he ruled was devastated by the series of pointless wars he started. With his capital occupied by the enemy, Frederick became a vagabond king, living with his army off British subsidies and roaming up and down a ruined and looted countryside. His subjects were heavily taxed and two-thirds of the revenue went to the army. One-sixth of the country's adult males served in the army. During the brief times of peace, Frederick kept 60 chamberlains to serve him at his palace, Sans Souci. To secure his power, he employed a network of spies who reported any voice of discontent or dissent in his kingdom. A permit was needed to travel from one city to another, and even the importation of mousetraps was heavily punished. Gotthold Lessing fled Prussia in 1769 and wrote to a friend, "Do not talk to me about your Berlinese freedom of thought and writing. It consists only of the freedom to make as much fun as you like of religion...Let someone in Berlin stand up for the rights of the peasants, or protest against despotism and exploitation...and you will know by experience which country is to this day the most slavish in Europe."

Moving south from the land of Bach and Buxtehude, we find the political situation even worse during the very period in which Vienna became the center of the music world. "People?" asked an indignant Emperor Francis of Austria (1792-1835), "People? What does that mean? I know only subjects." An Austrian general declared, "The human race begins with barons." The only right citizens enjoyed was the right to obey.

Moving chronologically forward from the Vienna of Beethoven and Schubert, we return to Germany which became united after the victory over France in the war of 1870-71. The largest section of Germany is Prussia, and it was run by Otto von Bismarck. Although Bismarck ran Prussia with benevolence and efficiency, his rule certainly did not resemble any modern concept of freedom. In 1862 he ignored the constitution, spoke of "Blood and Iron," and said, "Whoever has the power...acts according to his views." In 1871, Bismarck began what he called a Kulturkampf, which restricted the political activity of the clergy (by 1876, every Prussian bishop was in prison or exile), banned the Jesuits, dissolved the Socialist party and even drove the Social Democrats underground. But during the time Bismarck was chancellor, music in Germany flourished. There were 120 opera houses and more symphony orchestras, choral societies and chamber music societies than any place else on Earth.

Since the late 1960s, Americans enjoy more freedom than ever before. Yet during this same period the music in America has steadily worsened. In the early 1970s, there were a few rock groups which at least demonstrated musicianship and creativity, but they've all since disappeared. Gone too (or perhaps hidden) are any American symphonic composers worthy of the name. Whereas America could once boast of a Samuel Barber or a Walter Piston, the only new domestic works symphony orchestras here now premiere are by "composers in residence" employed at the local university—frauds who turn out one twelve-minute composition (typically an exercise in tone rows with extra percussion) every ten years. Such men became composers only because it was clean work with no heavy lifting and no particular ability was required. An English professor must have at least read a few books, but to be a composer in residence requires only the desire to feed at the public trough.

(There certainly are talented composers in Hollywood, but that is obviously a separate nation from the rest of the US, and I suspect that the land of Hollywood has one of the most oppressive societies on Earth.)

Assuming that it ever could, the United States can no longer claim to have a monopoly on freedom. With only two political parties, both depending entirely on the contributions of corporations and special-interests (i.e., bribes), American voters have very little real choice at the polls. If the highway lobby decides it would be profitable to build a thoroughfare through your orchard, your trees will soon meet an untimely demise. In contrast, the governments of Northern Europe appear to work more for the benefit of the average citizen, and in Germany, there are parties from the entire political spectrum, including a powerful Green Party.

But Germany now has the distinction of being the home of the worst music in the galaxy. Classical composers there are not only mired in dissonance, they desire to shock and test the tolerance of the audience. In popular music, Germany has likewise polluted the world with their industrial techno and a great number of noise bands.

Transparency International is a nonprofit organization devoted to ending corruption. Each year they release a list of nations ranked by the amount of corruption reported in each country, and each year these surveys reveal the least corrupt area of the world to be Scandinavia. (Peruse the Transparency International index of corruption.)

In years past, this region produced universally renowned composers—Franz Berwald, Carl Nielsen, Jan Sibelius and Ture Rangström are among my favorites. But now, the only living composers I can name from this region of good government are Einojuhani Rautavaara (the serene one) and Leif Segerstam. Pop music is also on a decline in Scandinavia; it's the home of retarded men in satanic metal bands (King Diamond, Mercyful Fate) and retro-garage-punk ineptitude (Hives, Hellacopters). Only Germany and the Netherlands produce more worthless and inane music.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the political spectrum, West Africa and Russia seem to be producing the best pop music, and I am very interested in the music of Osvaldo Golijov, a composer from Argentina, the land of the "dirty war" and where dissidents have simply disappeared. The music Osvaldo Golijov has discovered two important innovations—melody and rhythm. Danza del Pescador is lovely, but also has startling effects. I recently read that Golijov has written an opera, "Ainadamar," based on the story of the death of Federico Garcia Lorca, and I can't recall the last time I desired to hear a piece of music as much as this one.

It is not difficult to guess why great music seems to thrive under repression. In a society ruled by a tyrant—be it a monarch or a dictator, benevolent or murderous—everything moves from the top down—information, justice, privilege, wealth—and the populace naturally focuses its collective attention on those of higher status—if only for reasons of survival.

But in a democracy the humble, the average and the mediocre are what is important. A politician may a scion of the wealthiest family of the region, but if he wants to get elected, he must be shown pitching hay or shucking maize; he may have been chauffeured to every destination of his life, but he must appear on television driving a tractor or a truck. Intellectualism, or even literacy, is seen as being effete, even effeminate, so those who would hope to gain power in a democracy must try and distance themselves from "culchur."

Is it any wonder that complex and serious music will invariably languish in such a climate? The monarchs of Europe who ruled by divine right did not have to answer to the people. Instead, they bled them dry with taxes and gave the money to Mozart and Beethoven and built an opera house for Wagner. But in a government that attempts to perform the greatest good for the greatest number, the Lowest Common Denominator is the ideal. The finest music will be shunned in favor of the easiest, the most familiar, and the most ordinary.

Here is tragedy—and here is America. For the curse of the country, as well as of all democracies, is precisely the fact that it treats its best men as enemies. The aim of our society, if it may be said to have an aim, is to iron them out. The ideal American, in the public sense, is a respectable vacuum. —H. L. Mencken in the Chicago Tribune May 2, 1926