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Composers who resisted tyrannical regimes

20K views 71 replies 30 participants last post by  Johnnie Burgess 
#1 · (Edited)
On this forum there has been much discussion of issues to do with the relationship between composers and their political views, particularly in light of Wagner but also many others.

I thought I'd do this thread focussing on those composers who in some way resisted or opposed tyrannical regimes. This is in part because often in our discussions here we focus on the composers who served these regimes and those who resisted them are often left out of the picture. There is an assumption by some that serving such regimes, either overtly or covertly, was the only option available to people. With this thread I am giving an opportunity to put the other side of the story.

I think there is at least sometimes a relationship between such composers' resistance in political terms and their music. In other ways they also often bear witness to the extraordinary - and at times horrific - events going on around them.

There are instances of these things from all parts of the world (sadly), however in this opening post I will focus on the resistance during World War II.

An example I have cited at times on this forum is Zoltan Kodaly, who was involved in the resistance during World War II. After the war he was also supportive of reestablishing Hungarian democracy during the ill-fated 1956 uprising against Soviet rule. Another one I have talked of before is K.A. Hartmann, who during the war went into a kind of internal exile. He didn't allow any of his works to be performed in Nazi Germany or the countries occupied by it. After the war Hartmann established Musica Viva, an organisation dedicated to repairing some of the damage done by the Nazis, allowing for more opportunities to perform new music.

Kodaly was a Christian and Hartmann a Communist, and this speaks to how many people like them joined together in a common effort to defeat fascism.

Others similar to Hartmann, on the left of the political spectrum, who where in the resistance in their countries where Luigi Nono of Italy, Louis Duray (formerly of the Les Six group) of France and Iannis Xenakis of Greece. Another one from Greece was Mikis Theodorakis, who is now in his eighties. One who was similar to Kodaly was Olivier Messiaen, he survived a period interned as a prisoner of war, and there he wrote his Quartet for the End of Time - a work drawing on his views of spirituality, nature and humanity.

In terms of conductors, Louis Fremaux and Erich Kleiber where part of the resistance as well.

These guys took great risks. Kodaly had to go into hiding with his family for a couple of months during the Winter of 1944. The Hungarian fascists wanted him dead. He hid in an annexe underneath Budapest's main cathedral and it was there that his Missa Brevis in Tempore Belli was given its premiere, for his ears only. Xenakis was nearly killed in the Greek civil war after the end of WWII, an explosion disfiguring his face. Theodorakis was put into a concentration camp and buried alive. Hartmann witnessed a death march during the end of the war and commemorated that in his Piano Sonata '27 April 1945.'

Another type of resistance was like that of Paul Hindemith, who tried to separate himself from politics as much as possible during the Nazi era, but in the end he was forced to leave Germany as this was impossible. The famous story behind his work Mathis der maler (which exists as both an opera and symphony) highlights the plight of composers under the Third Reich. They simply could not be apolitical, they had to make some sort of choice to adapt themselves to the regime, and if they didn't do this they would be counted as enemies. It can basically be summed up in the line "you're either with us or against us."

So I'm inviting a discussion of the composers and musicians who took part in resisting such despotic regimes.
 
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#57 ·
To be pedantic the Normans were originally Vikings.
 
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#61 ·
"We are stardust
We are golden..."
 
#63 ·
'Babi Yar' was composed while Khrushchev was in power, hp, but it still nearly got DSCH into what was possibly his final bit of hot water. Putting a work like that out while Stalin was alive doesn't really bear thinking about.
 
#65 ·
^
^

We aren't the only ones...

 
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