The Spin Doctor Europadisc's Weekly Column

Many people turn to classical music to escape the hurly-burly of modern life, whether it’s the inanity of much popular culture, the mundanity of day-to-day existence, or the constant spouting of politicians from the airwaves. Yet, as we’ve pointed out before, music and politics have been inextricably entwined for centuries, whether it’s the ecclesiastical composer serving church dignitaries who wield very temporal powers, court composers writing for royals and nobles engaged in affairs of state, or in more recent times musicians who have struggled against political turmoil and oppression, or who have been drawn to certain causes. In our own time, musicians who engage directly with politics may be in the (vocal) minority, yet few are left unaffected by the decisions and policies of the governing classes.

So – with apologies for those who’ve already had enough of politics in this year of significant and seemingly endless elections across the globe – we’ve come up with an election ‘playlist’ which includes both famous and lesser-known works which have been either written in a political spirit or appropriated by the political sphere.

Of the many works of early music that have been written not just for the glory of God but to bolster the worldly status of his spiritual servants, few are as impressive as the Missa Salisburgensis composed to celebrate the 1100th anniversary of Salzburg as a centre of Christianity, and now attributed to Heinrich Biber. The 53 vocal and instrumental performers were organised into seven ‘choirs’ arranged spatially around the vast interior of Salzburg Cathedral, including four of them in the organ lofts at the base of the central dome. This was a projection not just of celestial glory but of the temporal power wielded by the Prince-Archbishops of Salzburg, as the opulent scoring (including martial trumpets and drums) clearly suggests. Of several notable recordings, few capture the sheer splendour of the work as vividly as that made by Václav Luks and his Collegium 1704 forces in the cathedral itself, and captured on DVD and Blu-ray by Naxos.

Mozart famously fell out with his one-time employer, the Salzburg Archbishop Colloredo, and quit his job there in August 1777. Once released from his Salzburg duties, he was able to spread his creative wings more freely, not least in the first of his three operatic collaborations with the librettist Lorenzo da Ponte, Le nozze di Figaro (Vienna, 1786). This was a setting of Beaumarchais’s controversial revolutionary play La Folle Journée, ou Le Mariage de Figaro, the performance of which had been forbidden by the Austrian censor. The libretto of Mozart’s opera was eventually passed for performance, despite the work’s frank and witty treatment of the class struggle between servants and their aristocratic superiors (not least the notorious droit de seigneur) just a few years before the French Revolution. The opera was soon a resounding success, which owed as much to the crackling wit of Mozart’s score as to the sublime music and deep humanity of several of its arias and ensembles.

Less than 20 years later, the works of Beethoven’s middle period were closely bound up with his political idealism. He had an ambivalent relationship with the aristocracy, many of whom were his patrons and friends. Works like the two early cantatas on the death of Emperor Joseph II and the accession of Leopold II suggest a traditional relationship between the composer-as-subject and his imperial overlords. Nowadays Beethoven’s most ‘political’ work might be held to be the ‘Ode to Joy’, a setting of Schiller which formed the culmination of his Ninth Symphony, and which was co-opted in 1972 by the Council of Europe (and later by the European Union) as the European anthem. Yet earlier works like the opera Fidelio have a clear political message, and so too does the ‘Eroica’ Symphony, initially dedicated to Beethoven’s revolutionary hero Napoleon Bonaparte – a dedication which was furiously erased when the composer heard that Bonaparte had declared himself emperor. If one work illustrates Beethoven’s complex relationship with the politics of his era, this is it, with its last two movements rising phoenix-like from the ashes of the funeral march.

The two operatic titans of the 19th century, Verdi and Wagner, were both central figures in the politics of their day. Verdi was adopted by the Italian Risorgimento movement, not least on the basis of the powerful Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves from his early opera Nabucco (1841), whose strains are still a popular rallying cry for liberation movements, particularly in countries of the Romance languages. At the opposite end of the political spectrum stands another early opera, Wagner’s Rienzi (1842), inspired by Spontini and the French grand opera of Auber, Halévy and Meyerbeer, influences from which he subsequently distanced himself. Post-1848, Wagner gave vent to antisemitic sentiments which still cloud his reputation, and which led to much of his artistic and cultural ideology being appropriated by the Nazis in the 1930s. Yet ironically it was Rienzi that was Hitler’s favourite opera, with its tub-thumpingly straightforward melodies and scoring, and it has never really shaken off this unhappy association – for which the outspoken composer himself is not entirely without blame.

In the 20th century, the political leanings of composers have often been determined by their social surroundings and pressures. The Nazi associations of such figures as Pfitzner, Orff and Richard Strauss are shady areas, as much the result of naivety and careerism as any deep political conviction, and much pored over by musicologists and critics. Yet who is to say that those on the left of the political spectrum were not equally naïve? Hanns Eisler, however, was genuinely committed to the Communist from the years of the Great Depression onwards. His Solidaritätslied (‘Solidarity Song’, 1929–31) is one of the strongest manifestations of his political beliefs.

Works by such composers as Shostakovich and his mentee Weinberg reflect the pain and suffering caused by oppressive regimes, often in subtle ways that had to satisfy the censors and cultural commissars. While their ‘public’ works are often couched in a sardonic optimism, their chamber music lays bare the human and artistic pain and suffering they had to endure at the hands of a totalitarian regime. However, for a genuinely politically-engaged work that nevertheless transcends its most obvious associations, none can rival the virtuosic splendour combined with revolutionary fervour of Frederic Rzewski’s monumental Variations on ‘The People United Will Never Be Defeated!’ (1975), based on a Chilean liberation song which can still raise the hairs on the back of the neck, whatever one’s persuasion.

As ever, happy listening, whether or not you’re voting!

Recommended recordings:
Biber - Missa Salisburgensis (Collegium 1704) 2110394 (DVD) / NBD0066V (Blu-ray)
Mozart - Le nozze di Figaro (ROH / Pappano) OA0990D (DVD) / OABD7033D (Blu-ray)
Beethoven - Symphony no.3 ‘Eroica’, Coriolan Overture (BFO / Fischer) CCSSA46524
Verdi – Nabucco (Muti) 2564648317
Wagner – Rienzi (Deutsche Oper Berlin) 101521 (DVD)
Eisler - Lieder & Ballads Vol.1 (Falk, Schleiermacher) MDG6132001
Rzewski - Variations on ‘The People United…’ (Igor Levit) 88875060962