I had been reflecting on thoughts around the social realism and music. Namely, the history of this movement is distorted heavily by discussions of censorship within the U.S.S.R. or meant with a cynicism implying the movement is just ‘conservative music painted red’. The flaw in both of these approaches is firstly the particular issues faced by music, namely how do you portray reality or ‘music of the people’ with sound? Secondly, these reductive criticisms ultimately negate the validity of the initial core of the movement; namely, art should be reflective of reality, highlighting the strength, sadness, beauty, and horror of the ordinary life. This stance is in complete contrast to the romantic ideas of wandering off into the wilderness until the masterpiece strikes you.
My initial ramblings wanted to dissect the class character of historic music, and show how one response a composer living today could respond; namely by engaging with reality instead of shying away from it.
From there, I started returning to essays by the German composer, Hanns Eisler. In particular, I was reading a wonderful collection of translated essays published in 1978 by International Publishers, New York called A Rebel in Music. What struck me about these essays, predominantly written in the early 1930s, show Eisler was presented with a similar concern for the world around him. This included discussions of how concentration prisoners managed to create a revolutionary song, despite being forcibly worked by the SA and SS, it also included discussions of how a ‘crisis’ in music often reflects or responds to a crisis of capital. These discussions are illuminating and have given me a lot to consider as a composer.
I want to use this as a chance to reflect on certain quotes and how they can be considered today:
The anarchic bourgeois music business produces a kind of music fetishism with the result of the broad masses of the people are only able to take music in its stupidest, most dangerous, and above all its most acceptable, soporific form. — Progress in the Workers’ Music Movement (1931).
The broader essay discusses how music education, amateur performing, and politics showed music ‘for the working class’ was at a point of significant change. Eisler pointed to the contradictions workers’ music organisations faced. Particularly, how should you respond to the bourgeois and overall classist nature of music today, especially if you are trying to espouse politics that are in contradiction to it.
Eisler used this as an opportunity to show how the assumptions from the bourgeois class of amateur organisations is that of inferiority, namely non-professionals could never really perform complex music let alone understand it. He also proposed pragmatic solutions, namely not relying on the traditional ‘bourgeois concert format’ but instead encouraging workers’ orchestras to inter-disperse revolutionary/fighter songs alongside ‘serious’ songs. In a way, this would make a concert experience a more communal one as it would push audiences to absorb the lessons being given to them but also stimulating the workers’ to challenge themselves into producing greater works that could not be made by bourgeois society.
In today’s circumstances, there are very few workers’ musical associations left, and due to the rising costs of music lessons and access to concerts, music is returning into the control of the bourgeois class (to use the Marxist term). In Britain in particular, we see fewer and fewer working class kids getting into music and our orchestras are relying more and more heavily on middle class individuals or on migrant musicians looking for better pay than in their homeland. This being said, is it right to say the battle has been lost?
Workers were not yet in a position to be culturally effective themselves, due to their one-sided employment in the production process. At that time they did not establish a new musical direction, but they did introduce a new method. With regard to their musical material, that is to say from the bourgeois aesthetic standpoint, it was a style which was regarded as old-fashioned and ridiculous by the more advanced circles of the bourgeoisie. — The Builders of a New Music Culture (1931).
The broader essay is an illuminating discussion of the dialectical-materialist evolution of music, highlighting the role of music and the church, music and the growing industrial revolution, and pointing to where music could head in a future communist utopia.
In the discussions of evolution of music, Eisler points out how due to the class nature of the church, once a capitalist began to become the ruling class, they were in the luxurious position of being in prominent positions as the feudal class disappeared. Namely, this meant that the shift from church music defining the evolution of music to the concert hall defining the evolution was seamless due to bourgeois class having individuals taking the control of this, or being in a position of wealth so they could dedicate their lives to their art. This is in complete contrast to the workers. Due to the working class depending on their labour power to make ends meet, a working class musician is almost certainly doomed to ‘amateur’ regardless of personal talent. This in turn has meant as we march towards the next stage of humanity, the working class are starting from a backwards position making up ground before they can consider making revolutionary and ‘new’ art.
Eisler also goes on to discuss the class nature of musical enjoyment, namely those in power want music to be pleasurable. This pleasure can take many forms, but like almost all luxury items they are most pleasurable if you are wealthy enough to spend long periods of time enjoying them. This nature of classical music, despite in no way being inherently ‘less pleasurable’ for the working class, means it is a distraction as it distracts from the woes faced in everyday life; when the workers response to the grief of reality should be agitation.
This combination of influences mean a ‘Revolutionary’ music needs to be led by the working class as they develop artistically, but should also avoid the bourgeois trappings ingrained into classical music.
Today we can still see this disconnect between the connoisseur and the average listener. Many lovers of music criticise the music listened by the masses as being ‘crude’ due to its inane manner. However, as Eisler alluded to, we can see how familiarity and beauty has been a way to remove politics from popular music. The simple fact that you can sell the ‘punk aesthetic’ shows the wealthy are happy to adopt ‘radical’ things if it means the radicalism is removed from it.
A revolutionary composer has three tasks. The first is agitational and propagandistic, the second is technical experiment in orchestral works and film music, and the third is pedagogic-finding new methods necessary for the musical education of the working class. — Address to a Solidarity Concert (1935).
This particular quote is what struck me most amongst the collection of essays. Namely, what is the role of composer? and how do we use this role to respond to our drifting from our connection to reality? The broader address mostly acknowledges and thanks the organisers for their solidarity with individuals and activists being imprisoned by the Nazis.
This single quote that we should use our art as a platform and showcase of our political beliefs. To paraphrase Eisler, it is the bourgeois character to make music for music’s sake, just like a bourgeois architect designs houses to design houses not to make homes. Regardless of personal beliefs, if we use our art to respond to the world around us more proactively, we would reaffirm the necessity of our art, namely we are in this world with you.
The second, name technical experiment shows that politically driven music should not dumb down but should do the opposite. We need to constantly expand and evolve, just like technology and society is evolving around us.
The third point is pleasing, one because it brings us back to make music a communal thing i.e. I present an idea to you and you respond and challenge me to build upon it. The other communal layer is the community between composers. Neo-liberal society has each of us fighting over superiority of ‘style’ and forcing us to fill our niche, instead if we worked with each other and learnt from each other we and our art would be stronger.
I would highly recommend anyone to read A Rebel in Music. It is an illuminating discussion and also highlights how Eisler was not just apart of the ‘communist party line’ but an actively engaged individual whose concern was only for the ordinary people of this world. The discussions also give us ideas on how today we can respond to the socio-political environment around us, never making assumptions of style, but questioning our substance, ethics, and conscience.
That lesson alone is probably the most valuable lesson composers should be learning today.
