Music and politics

Seriously speaking, I do think that music opens up immense spiritual and psychological resources in the task of lessening some of the misunderstandings which result in political conflicts and their attendant social disasters.
Once when I was Director of Music at the British Broadcasting Corporation, a distinguished ex-soldier who had taken control of the programme output of the BBC said to me: 'I left the Army and came to the BBC, simply because I felt nthat if anything can prevent another war broadcasting will do it. This I feel will be the first duty of broadcasting. Now, how are your crotchets and quavers going to help s prevent a war?'
That question has haunted me ever since. And now I am more convinced than ever that interpreters of the great tone-poets also have some duty in working for that kind of understanding and spiritual harmony, without which civilisation cannot go forward.
How, indeed, can the language of music help? Being abstract and universal, this language is already a unifying force among the peoples of the world. The interpretative powers of executants, and the guidance and clarification which musicologists and historians are able to offer, seem to be sufficient in spreading its message. Nevertheless, there is something which nations and organisations can do to enhance its function, especially in these times of conflicting ideologies and power politics.

From my own experience I have learnt to appreciate the usefulness of personal contact. During my work for the British Council I have always felt that personal contacts with fellow musicians in other countries have not only confirmed but actually widened the universality of music in its power to transcend frontiers and misunderstanding. There was a strong feeling that something really concrete had been achieved when, for instance, the BBC Symphony Orchestra was allowed to entertain the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic Orchestras. When will we be able to welcome someone like Dmitri Shostakovich to this country and when will someone like our own Benjamin Britten be able to return such a compliment in Soviet Russia?
All misunderstandings, political ones included, are evil in essence. We need the help of the language of music to make them less formidable.
Sir Adrian Boult (photo above) wrote this essay, which he titled Music and politics, for the magazine European Affairs in October 1949, and it is reproduced in Boult on Music, Toccata Press 1983.
* My header photo shows the scene in 1989 as Leonard Bernstein conducted the historic "Berlin Celebration Concerts" featuring Beethoven's Ninth Symphony played on both sides of the Berlin Wall, as it was being dismantled. The concerts were an unprecedented gestures of cooperation, the musicians representing the former East Germany, West Germany and the four powers that had partitioned Berlin after World War II. The concert was put together by Justus Franz, who was then artistic advisor to the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Famously the text of the Ode to Joy was changed, where Schiller had written Freude (Joy), Bernstein and Franz substituted Freiheit (Freedom). Bernstein, who was never one for understatements, said: "I am sure we have Beethoven's blessing".
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Comments
I agree on the moving deeply, but what does it move people to?
A thought rather than an assertion
Gert