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Propaganda music

9K views 25 replies 15 participants last post by  Badinerie 
#1 · (Edited)
In many totalitarian states, particularly those that feature a cult of personality aimed at the leader, many composers were called upon to compose propaganda music that paid homage to the leader, mainly in order to consolidate their power.

A good example is Prokofiev's "Zdravitsa", Op. 85, a cantata composed for Stalin's 60th birthday



Another example is Shostakovich's "The Sun Shines over our Motherland"



Ceausescu was the subject of many propaganda songs. Here are two examples:

Partidul, Ceausescu, Romania ("The Party, Ceausescu, Romania")



Lui Ceausescu, ziditor de tara ("To Ceausescu, country builder")



Even though you cannot understand the lyrics, you can appreciate the scale.
 
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#2 · (Edited)
Franz Schmidt's cantata "German Resurrection" (Deutsche Auferstehung) is a good example. Composed to celebrate Anschluss in 1938, Hitler's invasion of Austria.

In China under the rule of Chairman Mao, you had his wife Jiang Qing compose these operas for propaganda purposes during the cultural revolution which reached its peak in the 1960's.

Its wierd how these types of regime said music they didn't like didn't have aesthetic value or was decadent and so on. But you look at an image I got on wikipedia of one of those Maoist operas, and I mean does this speak to good taste? Or more like cheesy soc-real agitprop? Its the same with music, these regimes commissioned vast numbers of schematic rubbish and at the same suppressed music that was of great value. Many composers, Shostakovich included, wrote their real works "for the drawer" to only be given light of day once political conditions became more favourable (eg. after Stalin carked it). But I suppose its useless to try and expect such regimes to make sense in their cultural policy when in all other areas they where the same - basically horrible.

 
#3 ·
Propaganda music is by no means unique to totalitarian states. One of the most notorious open secrets of modernism is that the Darmstadt International Summer Courses for New Music, the institution that brought us "avant-garde" composers like Boulez and Stockhausen and which is often celebrated for creating an environment in which composers can write music for its own sake rather than for the service of some political end, was partially funded by the U.S. government. The purpose of the institution was to introduce to Europeans some Western trends that were previously unavailable (and sometimes explicitly banned) in totalitarian states. Darmstadt thus served as a vehicle for promoting democratic ideals of art in contrast to the strict rules of censorship in totalitarian states. In that sense, its music was no less a tool of propaganda than the music on the other side of the Cold War divide.
 
#4 · (Edited)
...Darmstadt thus served as a vehicle for promoting democratic ideals of art in contrast to the strict rules of censorship in totalitarian states. In that sense, its music was no less a tool of propaganda than the music on the other side of the Cold War divide.
I didn't know that about Darmstadt but it makes sense in terms of how the USA poured vast amounts of money into Western Europe, including West Germany, after the war (the Marshall Plan and such). This was no doubt part of the politics of the Cold War - they didn't want Western Europe to fall to Communism like the East did. I have read that they funded the Berlin Philharmonic Hall, for example. It makes sense, West Berlin being a symbol of free Europe, right on the doorstep (well, surrounded by) Communist East Germany. It was American money that rebuilt Vienna after the war, including cultural institutions like the Singverein and the Vienna State Opera. The Americans also funded Radio Free Europe which did broadcast pro-Western propaganda. Marshall Aid money was offered to the countries of Eastern Europe but of course their Soviet puppet government declined it.

In terms of your last sentence, I would say there is a big difference between what the Americans did and what the Russians did in East Europe and the USSR. In Western Europe, nobody was forced to listen to the music coming out of Darmstadt for example. By contrast in Eastern Europe you had school children singing Communist propaganda songs in schools, you had them learning Russian (it was compulsory), you had composers castigated for being 'formalist' such as in the 1948 Zhdanov decree. Some intellectuals, including musicians, also ended up in the gulags.

Similar things can be said about any totalitarian system of course, from Hitler's Germany, to Mao's China, and both took a lesson or two from the methods used by Stalin, whether they admitted it or not. You just can't imagine the amount of control and manipulation that went on under these regimes. Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago and Jung Chang's Wild Swans are two memoirs/histories that convey the damage done to ordinary people under these regimes.

In terms of the "music for its own sake" line in your post, I wouldn't say what Boulez was doing was apolitical. I wonder if music for its own sake actually exists in its purest form, or is that yet another ideal of Modernist ideology that doesn't work in practice? All Pierre did was substitute the word mannerisms to formalist when he damned those composers who in his opinion didn't stack up to his ideological position on music. Same thing to me, just more oppression. If your work had no tone row then you didn't get Pierre's endorsement. Even Stockhausen fell out with him in the end. History repeats itself in these ways, and classical music seems prone to more of this nastiness and outright hypocrisy than other genres of music. But since music is just music, that lets the dictators of the classical music world off the hook.
 
#15 · (Edited)
Why stop at Napoleon, I would not hesitate a second to characterize all religious music as forms of propaganda! I can't really see that there are any differences in use and both in- and outward purpose of say a Bach oratorio and Shostakovich "The Sun Shine over our Motherland", the text may express different things, but it aims at seducing their respective audiences in to submission to the paradigm under which either composer worked.

/ptr
 
#12 ·
❦❦❦❦❦❦Oh the sincere nationalistic expression is what has moved my heart ♥ deeply. I bet they practiced night and day without eating or sleeping just to express their unconditional love to the Dear Leader ❤❤❤❤❤❤❤ which will never be enough as he cares for them infinitely.❦❦❦❦❦❦❧
 
#14 ·
There is propaganda music that is propaganda music both in theory and practice, and then another type of music that is not propaganda music in theory but very much so in practice.

I just hope that we don't stop at condemning only the first type and seeing nothing wrong with the second.

But on the other hand, it could be argued that the only type of music that is not propaganda music is pure and absolute music written by angels disinterestedly contemplating the Creation... While music is not language as such, it has ties to a language and a context and a world-view. And when you have a world-view and you are expressing something, propaganda is not that far away.
 
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#22 ·
The difference (decisive) is that the political propaganda music has the predominant aim to "seduce people into the etc", whereas the predominant aim of religious music (in a non "church-state" context of course) is a liturgic/spiritual one.
The possible effect for some individuals to be "drawn in" into their own (already present) beliefs by the music is a side effect, definitely not the aim of music.

To get back in topic, I think Prokofiev's Cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution is definitely a fine piece of music, despite its aim.
 
#24 · (Edited)
To get back in topic, I think Prokofiev's Cantata for the 20th anniversary of the October Revolution is definitely a fine piece of music, despite its aim.
Ironic that Prokofiev got into trouble with it - Uncle Joe liked being praised but certainly did not like being quoted. After making such a determined effort to stay onside with this work Prokofiev must have been tearing what was left of his hair out.
 
#23 ·
Just because you agree with it doesn't stop it from being propaganda:





But most propaganda is far more subtle than that, it won't let you think you are listening to or watching propaganda or half its effect will be lost.
 
#25 ·
I like some "propaganda" music, but I guess in general I find it to be a little shallow, as with any "praise for a leader" composition, even if they weren't a malicious dictator.

Glière's Heroic March for the Mongolian ASSR is probably propaganda music, but I like it nonetheless.

 
#26 ·
Any music can become Propaganda music. All it needs is a memorable melody line and a dubious association.
Songs in particular can be hijacked into doing service for a regime or political orientation.
Even though sometimes when the regime chooses an inappropriate tune or song.
 
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