# Music and politics



## Sandra (Mar 5, 2017)

I need to define a more specific theme for my work (the main theme is "music and politics"). I thought about focusing on Verdi's work.. I don't know yet.. any ideas ? 

It could be, like, a short period in time that is politically interesting, a specific historical event that has brought new music, the use of classical music during war.. any serious ideas are welcome ! 
btw, if you have any references (documentaries or books or websites) or any useful explanation on the composer/the historical context/etc, they will be very appreciated ! 

:tiphat:


----------



## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

For Verdi, start with Julian Budden's three book survey of his operas. 

You know that Italy became a nation during Verdi's lifetime, right? And that some of his operas expressed his political ideas, for example, by substituting Biblical Jews looking for their homeland for 19thc Italians? You could also address his encounters with censorship, as in Rigoletto. The Hugo play on which it was based featured a libertine king — the censors insisted this be changed.


----------



## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Some examples of music mixing with politics and/or national pride:

Haydn composing the melody for the German national anthem.

Beethoven dedicating his third symphony to Napoleon (well, at least before the latter crowned himself emperor anyway).

Sibelius and Finlandia.

The Nazis and Wagner.

I seem to recall that during the world wars, on both sides of the war, the music of composers from the "other side" tended to become less popular. Didn't they even ban some of it at one point? I can't remember. 

And then of course Shostakovich and the Party. 

Considering how music can rile up the emotions, it is actually surprising that it doesn't get mixed up with politics even more than is already the case.


----------



## Meyerbeer Smith (Mar 25, 2016)

Auber's _Muette de Portici_ and the Belgian Revolution.


----------



## Sandra (Mar 5, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> For Verdi, start with Julian Budden's three book survey of his operas.
> 
> You know that Italy became a nation during Verdi's lifetime, right? And that some of his operas expressed his political ideas, for example, by substituting Biblical Jews looking for their homeland for 19thc Italians? You could also address his encounters with censorship, as in Rigoletto. The Hugo play on which it was based featured a libertine king - the censors insisted this be changed.


yes of course, that's why i was interested in his work, the letters of his name formed an acronym for *V*ittorio *E*manuele *R*e d'*I*talia  Nabucco also refleted the italian nation by the prisoners
Thanks for the reply:tiphat:


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Sandra said:


> I need to define a more specific theme for my work (the main theme is "music and politics"). I thought about focusing on Verdi's work.. I don't know yet.. any ideas ?
> 
> It could be, like, a short period in time that is politically interesting, a specific historical event that has brought new music, the use of classical music during war.. any serious ideas are welcome !
> btw, if you have any references (documentaries or books or websites) or any useful explanation on the composer/the historical context/etc, they will be very appreciated !
> ...


Ask the mods if they combine your topics, perhaps more response .


----------



## jenspen (Apr 25, 2015)

I'm not sure if I'm answering your question but here are some pieces that are well known to have been inspired by, or used during, wars:

Vaughan Williams: His cantata "Dona Nobis Pacem" commemorates two wars - the First World War, the horror of which the composer himself experienced in the trenches and the American Civil War (it includes settings Whitman poems about that previous slaughter - "Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage must in time be utterly lost, That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world...")

Messaien: Quartet for the End of Time￼ - quartet in eight movements for clarinet, violin, cello, and piano by French composer Olivier Messiaen. The piece premiered on January 15, 1941, at the Stalag VIIIA prisoner-of-war camp, in Görlitz, Germany, where the composer had been confined since his capture in May 1940

Butterworth's settings of the poems in Housman's "A Shropshire Lad". During World War I, the book accompanied many young men into the trenches and Butterworth himself was killed.

Shostakovich's Symphony No. 7. It's Leningrad premiere occurred on 9 August 1942 during the Second World War was performed by the surviving musicians of the Leningrad Radio Orchestra, supplemented with military performers. Most of the musicians were starving, which made rehearsing difficult: musicians frequently collapsed during rehearsals, and three died. Shostakovich himself had been evacuated. I saw a documentary once which I remember had the symphony being played over loudspeakers set up in the street of the city.

Beethoven: Wellington's Victory, or, the Battle of Vitoria (Wellingtons Sieg oder die Schlacht bei Vittoria). Also this jolly song which forum members mightn't be familiar with: The British Light Dragoons:





Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, of course

The British composer, William Walton, composed music for patriotic British films during WWII but I have never heard anything by Walton that I liked so you can look that up for yourself!!

Haydn composed The Emperor's Hymn: 



And the old composer got out of bed to play it as Napoleon was besieging Vienna.

Benjamin Britten's War Requiem was commissioned to mark the consecration of the new Coventry Cathedral, which was built after the original fourteenth-century structure was destroyed in a World War II bombing raid.


----------

