# Music to change society



## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

There is a piece in today's Guardian by American composer, David Lang. It is mostly about Fidelio but moves on to a work inspired by Fidelio that he has written. It includes the following statement



> Of course, it was Beethoven, with such works as Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony, who pioneered the idea that a composer could challenge society, that music has the power to stand up for something, that a composer's job might transcend nice tunes and dances and instead take on the meaning of our lives and our obligations to each other.


This may be true about Beethoven but I find it hard to come up with other examples of composers who sought to change society through their music. Can you think of examples?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Wagner comes to mind. I'm pretty sure his operas and his ideas about an "all encompassing art form" were intended to have a profound effect on German culture (and it did, actually).

Scriabin, with the last piece he was working on before he died, literally wanted to send the world into a sort of aesthetically induced euphoric apocalypse and into a new age of enlightenment.

Both Luigi Nono and Hans Werner Henze (modernist composers that were contemporaries of each other) were communists and wrote works that were highly charged with political themes and messages. Henze's 6th symphony, for example, was inspired by the Cuban revolution and Nono's opera "Intollerenza" is all about oppression of people and human rights and such https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolleranza_1960

I'm pretty sure Berio's Sinfonia was supposed to evoke a message of universality, with it's inclusion of many styles, quotes and genres in a collage type way, and including a second movement dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King.

Phillip Glass has wrote a few pieces, like music for the film Koyaanisqatsi, which attempts to warn people about the effect of human activity on the earth and its other inhabitants.

In a similar vein, there are lots of contemporary classical composers writing music in protest of Global Warming and such.

Peter Maxwell-Davies wrote his 3rd "Naxos" quartet as a piece in protest to the Iraq war.

There are lots of examples actually, especially the closer we get to our own time.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Certainly Stravinsky changed society with _Le Sacre du Printemps_; it started a riot at the premiere and was considered, with Schoenberg's _Pierrot Lunaire_, one of two pieces of music that changed the trajectory of music in the 20th century. I think Schoenberg was the main instrument of that change that both reflected the new century and changed it.

People in the 20th century not only endured new, noisier music, they endured a noisier century. The inventions of the automobile and airplane in the early 20th century changed the world and made it a noisy place. The horrors of World War I did more to make this change.

I think this was what emerged that helped Schoenberg and the Second Viennese School in the days following the Great War change music forever. Schoenberg said tonality under the 8-note scale had gone as far as it could go and needed replacing. He invented the 12 tone scale and said no note could be played in a tone row until all 11 others were played. This created a newer, noisier form of music that what the world was used to.

In my opinion this was for more revolutionary on a worldwide scale than anything Beethoven did with _Eroica_ or Wagner with his operas. They took systems that were intact and made them bigger. Schoenberg completely reinvented music and his influence is still heard today.

One of the last acolytes of 12 tone, Elliott Carter, died in recent years -- meaning there are (were) still composers alive in the 21st century practicing what Schoenberg invented almost 100 years ago. Anyone that makes this influential a change that lasts a century has changed the world especially considering the changes that have occurred since that time that haven't stuck.


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## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Popular music changed society in profound ways. Stravinsky is no match for the voice of youth that was created through rock n roll and popular music.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

But mention of the war reminds me of Tippett's Child of Our Time and Britten's War Requiem ... and even Britten's Sinfonia da Requiem (a pacifist work that was a response to a commission from what was a martial and war-hungry Japan). I suppose all three of those works are overtly political in their intent.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2020)

Enthusiast said:


> There is a piece in today's Guardian by American composer, David Lang. It is mostly about Fidelio but moves on to a work inspired by Fidelio that he has written. It includes the following statement
> 
> 
> 
> > Of course, it was Beethoven, with such works as Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony, who pioneered the idea that a composer could challenge society, .


A composer seeking to challenge society is one thing. The music actually causing change is quite another, and I'm doubtful that there are any examples of the latter


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

starthrower said:


> Popular music changed society in profound ways. Stravinsky is no match for the voice of youth that was created through rock n roll and popular music.


Oh yes. But popular music (and folk music before it) has often been overtly political. I feel that classical examples are more rare ...


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

MacLeod said:


> A composer seeking to challenge society is one thing. The music actually causing change is quite another, and I'm doubtful that there are any examples of the latter


Yes, composers may try to use music to change society but succeeding is another matter. I guess, though that most societal changes (for good or bad) cannot easily be attributed to one person or event ... there needs to be growing pressure and recognition of the need.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Enthusiast said:


> This may be true about Beethoven but I find it hard to come up with other examples of composers who sought to change society through their music. Can you think of examples?


Luigi Nono, Cornelius Cardew, John Cage, Julius Eastman, Pauline Oliveros, the authors of the Liber Usualis.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Classical music has generally been patronized by relatively privileged people - it's been the music of kings, emperors, princes, capitalists, and scholars. 

Although some it has always had a wider audience (and now of course everyone with the internet can access more recordings of it than even the most privileged person could 40 years ago), it's not the kind of tradition you'd look to if you want music on the side of justice, mercy, or defending the oppressed. 

The same is true of almost all the "great" accomplishments of civilization, at least until industrialization.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

_Popular music changed society in profound ways. Stravinsky is no match for the voice of youth that was created through rock n roll and popular music. _

Did you mean "The Charleston" from 1929? That was played 90 years ago but I'm unsure if it is related to popular music played today.

Meanwhile the influence of Le Sacre and Schoenberg is still heard often in film music.

So I guess he's still a match to Justin Bieber, Elvis and Britney Spears.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Fidelio and the 9th are texted works, so their potential to "take on the meaning of our lives and our obligations to each other" is the same as any other drama or poem. Set controversial words, as Shostakovich did with poems by Yevtushenko in his 13th Symphony, and one can address universal ethical questions, but it is the words that are doing most of the work. As Violadude's post shows (Welcome back Dude!), there are numerous examples of hybrid literary-musical works that address such issues. But until someone comes up with abstract musical works that communicate ethical ideas, the question is not really about composers or music in a central way, but about the words and images they've borrowed.



larold said:


> Meanwhile the influence of Le Sacre and Schoenberg is still heard often in film music.
> 
> So I guess he's still a match to Justin Bieber, Elvis and Britney Spears.


The OPs focus is on music that changes extramusical society, not on music that changes future musical culture. If it were the latter, every musical work ever written might qualify.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2020)

starthrower said:


> Popular music changed society in profound ways. Stravinsky is no match for the voice of youth that was created through rock n roll and popular music.


I'm not sure it did. As Enthusiast says, it's not a simple matter to attribute change in society to a single cause.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

The OPs focus is on music that changes *extramusical society*

I believe the name of this discussion is *Music to change society*, not extramusical society whatever that is.


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

We should be careful about attributing societal change to one cause, especially one of the arts. A society is a moving vortex of cultural milieus to which music "may" contribute an influence on occasion. Far more often music is just a reflection of society and the artist the mirror, hence Will Shakey's famous line:

"....to hold as 'twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his own form and pressure."


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

There was this dude in the Soviet Union, one Josef Stalin, who seemed to think that music could change society, and that it was the responsibility of composers to write music for that goal. Didn't work out so well. You say you want a revolution? Pop music is much more powerful than classical. Early radio stations broadcasting folk and country/western music live had a more profound impact than people realize. Jimmie Rodgers did more to change society than Stravinsky ever could.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

The opening post gave this quote: "Of course, it was Beethoven, with such works as Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony, who pioneered the idea that a composer could _challenge _society, that music has the power to stand up for something, that a composer's job might transcend nice tunes and dances and instead take on the meaning of our lives and our obligations to each other."

I think the key word here is challenge which became, for this discussion, change.

Beethoven's music and his style influenced music after him though he was influenced by French art of the revolution as well as the American revolution and its democratic ideals. He may have fostered ideals of equality among all men but the revolutions actually did it...as did the magna carta a couple hundred years earlier.

In the next century Karl Marx had a much larger influence in European society, however, as did Adam Smith on English and American societies. No music played this large a role.

It's clear whomever invented the microchip had a much larger influence on the course of today's world affairs than any musician.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Enthusiast said:


> "Of course, it was Beethoven, with such works as Fidelio and the Ninth Symphony, who pioneered *the idea that a composer could challenge society*, that music has the power to *stand up for something*, that a composer's job might transcend nice tunes and dances and instead *take on the meaning of our lives and our obligations to each other."*
> 
> This may be true about Beethoven but I find it hard to come up with other examples of composers who *sought to change society* through their music. Can you think of examples?


A careful reading of the OP makes clear that the question is how composers _conceive_ of the purpose of music in human life. The actual impact on the course of human events of any work of art is a different matter; in most cases I'd say it's negligible. Music can expresses to varying degrees the way a composer feels about life, but by itself carries no message unambiguous enough to move society unmistakably in one direction or another.

I question the assertion that Beethoven thought music had the power to "stand up for something." _Fidelio_ is an opera, the _Ninth Symphony_ incorporates a poem, and in both cases it's the words that offer whatever challenge to society the works contain. The idea that music in conjunction with words can be used to help convey or reinforce a view of life wasn't new with Beethoven; the church and the state have always relied on it to inspire and induce desired states of mind and behaviors.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

There is the example of _Finlandia_. Unlike _Deutschland Über Alles_ or the other anthems with lyrics, we have music alone carrying the message. Probably other examples, but none other come immediately to mind.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> A careful reading of the OP makes clear that the question is how composers _conceive_ of the purpose of music in human life. The actual impact on the course of human events of any work of art is a different matter; in most cases I'd say it's negligible. Music can expresses to varying degrees the way a composer feels about life, but by itself carries no message unambiguous enough to move society unmistakably in one direction or another.
> 
> I question the assertion that Beethoven thought music had the power to "stand up for something." _Fidelio_ is an opera, the _Ninth Symphony_ incorporates a poem, and in both cases it's the words that offer whatever challenge to society the works contain. The idea that music in conjunction with words can be used to help convey or reinforce a view of life wasn't new with Beethoven; the church and the state have always relied on it to inspire and induce desired states of mind and behaviors.


I'm not so sure it's that simple. In the famous 1989 Berlin concert held to celebrate the tearing down of the Berlin wall, Beethoven's ninth symphony was performed. They could simply have recited Goethe's Ode to Joy without music, but they didn't. The specificity of music's message no doubt depends on context and circumstances to a great extent, but that doesn't mean it can't convey a specific message.

The specific meaning of words can also depend to a great extent on context and circumstances. The Shostakovich opera Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk was a big international hit, until Stalin saw it. Suddenly, a harshly critical editorial entitled Muddle Instead of Music appeared in Pravda, and it was no longer performed. But why, exactly? Too much sex and violence? The heroine too oppressed and bullied by male characters, and exiled to Siberia, a common punishment in the USSR at the time, as it was in the Tsarist regime when the opera (based on a popular 19th century novella) takes place? A police chief who could be seen as a subtle reference to Stalin himself? The general theme of tragic and disastrous oppression by authority figures (my theory)?

Of course, the Pravda article solely addresses the music, not the words: "The singing on the stage is expressed by shrieks. If the composer chances to come upon the path of a clear and simple melody, he throws himself back into a wilderness of musical chaos -- in places becoming cacophony. The expression which the listener expects is supplanted by wild rhythm. Passion is here supposed to be expressed by noise."

The funny thing about that music critique is, under different circumstances and in a different place and (probably later) time, it could have been part of a rave review. Stravinsky's Rite of Spring, and certainly Berg's Lulu, make extensive use of shrieks, wild rhythm, and musical chaos in places becoming cacophony. But to Stalin all that sent a very specific message that he didn't like.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

> There is the example of _Finlandia_. Unlike _Deutschland Über Alles_ or the other anthems with lyrics, we have music alone carrying the message. Probably other examples, but none other come immediately to mind.





> In the famous 1989 Berlin concert held to celebrate the tearing down of the Berlin wall, Beethoven's ninth symphony was performed. They could simply have recited Goethe's Ode to Joy without music, but they didn't. The specificity of music's message no doubt depends on context and circumstances to a great extent, but that doesn't mean it can't convey a specific message.


It isn't necessarily a matter of music setting a text, but of the ideas the listener is urged to associate with it. The whole concept of program music is based on this: call it "Romeo and Juliet" or "Till Eulenspiegel's Merry Pranks" - or "Finlandia" - and voila! Plenty of instances could be cited of music conveying a fairly specific message when used in a specific context or for a specific occasion. Take away the context or occasion and what would we make of the music? Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance" represents "Land of Hope and Glory" to an Englishman with fond memories of empire, but it represents graduating from high school to an American. So much for the ability of music to "stand for something."


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

This is beginning to illuminate the differences between High Art and Low Art. In Low Art, people would take 90 percent of what someone else did, and put a little twist on it for themselves. That's one of the things that High Art people thought was rather low about it. In Low Art, originality is clearly an evolutionary form, whereas in High Art it is presented as a revolutionary form, where suddenly everything is turned upside down.
High Art had a sneering contempt for this notion of art that evolved over a whole culture rather than art that was carried forward by an individual in a revolutionary way.
I think that singling out individual works or artists in this way is simply a matter of perspective.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> A careful reading of the OP makes clear that the question is how composers _conceive_ of the purpose of music in human life. The actual impact on the course of human events of any work of art is a different matter; in most cases I'd say it's negligible. Music can expresses to varying degrees the way a composer feels about life, but by itself carries no message unambiguous enough to move society unmistakably in one direction or another.
> 
> I question the assertion that Beethoven thought music had the power to "stand up for something." _Fidelio_ is an opera, the _Ninth Symphony_ incorporates a poem, and in both cases it's the words that offer whatever challenge to society the works contain. The idea that music in conjunction with words can be used to help convey or reinforce a view of life wasn't new with Beethoven; the church and the state have always relied on it to inspire and induce desired states of mind and behaviors.


All art changes society, that's its purpose.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

When Hitler lived in Vienna, he visited Wagner's operas and a lot of his delusions of Germanic grandeur came from there. He imagined himself to be some kind of modern Rienzi. Maybe without those operas, he would not have become the moster. So that is the power of music to change the world. 
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/wagners-influence-hitler-and-hitlers-wagner
_"Hitler claimed that his Weltanschauung was derived from Wagner. His youthful reaction to Rienzi led him to exclaim 30 years later: 'It began at that hour'. In Mein Kampf, he praised Wagner as a great revolutionary and claimed to have no forerunner except Wagner. Fest suggests that Wagner had an immense effect upon Hitler. 'The Master of Bayreuth was not only Hitler's great exemplar; he was also the young man's ideological mentor. Wagner's political writing... together with the operas, form the entire framework for Hitler's ideology.... Here he found the granite foundations for his view of the world'."_


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## MaxKellerman (Jun 4, 2017)

Jacck said:


> When Hitler lived in Vienna, he visited Wagner's operas and a lot of his delusions of Germanic grandeur came from there. He imagined himself to be some kind of modern Rienzi. *Maybe without those operas, he would not have become the moster. So that is the power of music to change the world.*


These sorts of claims are beyond ridiculous, not even accounting for the dubiousness of the source. Anyone interested in doing some further research on the topic for themselves would do well to start with this blog:

Think Classical - Book Review: "Wagner's Hitler-The Prophet and his Disciple" by Joachim Köhler


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

As much as I love Classical Music, I have to agree that its effect on culture and society at large is relatively negligible most of the time, especially in this time period.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2020)

Jacck said:


> When Hitler lived in Vienna, he visited Wagner's operas and a lot of his delusions of Germanic grandeur came from there. He imagined himself to be some kind of modern Rienzi. Maybe without those operas, he would not have become the moster. So that is the power of music to change the world.
> https://www.historytoday.com/archive/wagners-influence-hitler-and-hitlers-wagner
> _"Hitler claimed that his Weltanschauung was derived from Wagner. His youthful reaction to Rienzi led him to exclaim 30 years later: 'It began at that hour'. In Mein Kampf, he praised Wagner as a great revolutionary and claimed to have no forerunner except Wagner. Fest suggests that Wagner had an immense effect upon Hitler. 'The Master of Bayreuth was not only Hitler's great exemplar; he was also the young man's ideological mentor. Wagner's political writing... together with the operas, form the entire framework for Hitler's ideology.... Here he found the granite foundations for his view of the world'."_


Who is the historian who wrote this?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> Who is the historian who wrote this?


Jayne Rosefield - Published in History Review Issue 32 December 1998


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

Jacck said:


> When Hitler lived in Vienna, he visited Wagner's operas and a lot of his delusions of Germanic grandeur came from there. He imagined himself to be some kind of modern Rienzi. Maybe without those operas, he would not have become the moster. So that is the power of music to change the world.
> https://www.historytoday.com/archive/wagners-influence-hitler-and-hitlers-wagner
> _"Hitler claimed that his Weltanschauung was derived from Wagner. His youthful reaction to Rienzi led him to exclaim 30 years later: 'It began at that hour'. In Mein Kampf, he praised Wagner as a great revolutionary and claimed to have no forerunner except Wagner. Fest suggests that Wagner had an immense effect upon Hitler. 'The Master of Bayreuth was not only Hitler's great exemplar; he was also the young man's ideological mentor. Wagner's political writing... together with the operas, form the entire framework for Hitler's ideology.... Here he found the granite foundations for his view of the world'."_


Eh...people often have a strange way of organizing their thoughts about themselves with regards to their own development and life experience. Psychologists have shown that people will even make up memories to make sense of their own self-perceived timeline. I'm not saying Hitler's claim about Wagner's effect on him is a made up memory, but we're often unreliable narrators about our own lives and there were lots and lots of societal changes leading up to the holocaust. My best guess is that Hitler (or perhaps even someone else) would have done what he did (or something similar) anyway, even in a universe where Wagner didn't exist at all.


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## MaxKellerman (Jun 4, 2017)

MacLeod said:


> Who is the historian who wrote this?


The article is based on the anecdote of his boyhood friend, August Kubizek. In _Mein Kampf_ Hitler is said to have admired Wagner after seeing "Wilhelm Tell," followed by "Lohengrin." In his memoirs, _The Young Hitler I Knew,_ Kubizek narrates how Hitler was enthralled with "Rienzi," but this has been proven to be a fabricated account.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2020)

Jacck said:


> Jayne Rosefield - Published in History Review Issue 32 December 1998


Odd. I can't find any information about a historian called Jayne Rosefield, only the Rosefield who won an essay competition while at Uni.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> So much for the ability of music to "stand for something."


But my example of Lady Macbeth suggests something slightly different, doesn't it? On one level, the story portrays humiliation, suffering, downfall and death. Those ideas are also reflected, at least on a visceral level, in the discordant, cacophonous music. Lady Macbeth was also attacked in Pravda as "anti-Socialist". But isn't that only because it happened to be composed by a Soviet composer during Stalin's regime rather than having anything to do with the words or the music? The story dates back to 1865. How could it be anti-Socialist? This is an example of how context is needed for words to stand for something as much as it is for music.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

fluteman said:


> But my example of Lady Macbeth suggests something slightly different, doesn't it? On one level, the story portrays humiliation, suffering, downfall and death. Those ideas are also reflected, at least on a visceral level, in the discordant, cacophonous music. Lady Macbeth was also attacked in Pravda as "anti-Socialist". But isn't that only because it happened to be composed by a Soviet composer during Stalin's regime rather than having anything to do with the words or the music? The story dates back to 1865. How could it be anti-Socialist? This is an example of how context is needed for words to stand for something as much as it is for music.


The true beauty about any sort of art is that it has different levels in which you can understand it, meant for different people. It's not only in literature or philosophy but all art forms.

There are no different interpretations, only different levels of understanding, of depth of understanding. This is why it changes society, because the men that will change it directly will understand the art in its full complexity, and this will give them the tools, it will open their minds.


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## Guest (Jan 10, 2020)

Music that changes society is, it seems to me, a different proposition from music that changes man. The quote in the OP seemed more about the former, not the latter.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Jacck said:


> When Hitler lived in Vienna, he visited Wagner's operas and *a lot of his delusions of Germanic grandeur came from there.* He imagined himself to be some kind of modern Rienzi. *Maybe without those operas, he would not have become the moster. So that is the power of music to change the world.*
> https://www.historytoday.com/archive/wagners-influence-hitler-and-hitlers-wagner
> _"Hitler *claimed* that his Weltanschauung was derived from Wagner. His youthful reaction to Rienzi led him to exclaim 30 years later: 'It began at that hour'. In Mein Kampf, he praised Wagner as a great revolutionary and claimed to have no forerunner except Wagner. Fest *suggests *that Wagner had an immense effect upon Hitler. *'The Master of Bayreuth was not only Hitler's great exemplar; he was also the young man's ideological mentor. Wagner's political writing... together with the operas, form the entire framework for Hitler's ideology*.... Here he found the granite foundations for his view of the world'."_


Somebody had to bring this up, and somebody (guess who?) had to "like" it. It's tired nonsense. The "master of Bayreuth" was not in any sense an "exemplar" or an "ideolgical mentor" for Hitler, and Wagner's "political writings" (which writings?) did not form any sort of "framework for Hitler's ideology." Hitler's ideas, such as they were, and the mash of racial concepts and military ambitions we know as Nazism, were derived from others. He is not known to have read Wagner's prose writings and he never mentioned them publicly or in writing. His few statements about Wagner are basically the meaningless ravings of an adolescent fan.

As for the operas themselves, there are no "delusions of Germanic grandeur" in them. There are, on the other hand, a great many things that would not have been encouraging to Hitler had he understood them. Young, failed artist Adolf was excited by Wagner's music and by the heroic political leader Rienzi in the opera, and fancied himself some sort of Germanic hero. The magic of Wagner's music and tales from myth and legend inspired him, but they have equally inspired thousands of people whose thought and lives differed diametrically from Hitler's.

Wagner and his music are not responsible for Hitler's own delusions. Who might be responsible for the delusions of Jayne Rosefield (author of the article you cite) I don't know, but we need to do our homework before we confidently rehash this Wagner/Hitler meme.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MacLeod said:


> Who is the historian who wrote this?


There's no reason to think that the writer is a historian. If she is, she's a bad one.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> All art changes society, that's its purpose.


Most art vanishes without a sigh. Art's purpose is whatever the artist says it is.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Most art vanishes without a sigh. Art's purpose is whatever the artist says it is.


Then it's not art.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

MacLeod said:


> Music that changes society is, it seems to me, a different proposition from music that changes man. The quote in the OP seemed more about the former, not the latter.


Art is for the few, it always has been, but these few are the ones that have the power to change society, there is simply no other way to change it.

What changes society and what changes one man are the same thing.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> Then it's not art.


Oh my. Do we dare request a definition of art? Are you The Decider of which artists are really artists? How do we know that _you're_ really one? Because you say so?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> Art is for the few, it always has been


Art is for everyone who wants it.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Somebody had to bring this up, and somebody (guess who?) had to "like" it. It's tired nonsense. The "master of Bayreuth" was not in any sense an "exemplar" or an "ideolgical mentor" for Hitler, and Wagner's "political writings" (which writings?) did not form any sort of "framework for Hitler's ideology." Hitler's ideas, such as they were, and the mash of racial concepts and military ambitions we know as Nazism, were derived from others. He is not known to have read Wagner's prose writings and he never mentioned them publicly or in writing. His few statements about Wagner are basically the meaningless ravings of an adolescent fan.
> 
> As for the operas themselves, there are no "delusions of Germanic grandeur" in them. There are, on the other hand, a great many things that would not have been encouraging to Hitler had he understood them. Young, failed artist Adolf was excited by Wagner's music and by the heroic political leader Rienzi in the opera, and fancied himself some sort of Germanic hero. The magic of Wagner's music and tales from myth and legend inspired him, but they have equally inspired thousands of people whose thought and lives differed diametrically from Hitler's.
> 
> Wagner and his music are not responsible for Hitler's own delusions. Who might be responsible for the delusions of Jayne Rosefield (author of the article you cite) I don't know, but we need to do our homework before we confidently rehash this Wagner/Hitler meme.


All true, and it will remain true the next dozen times you have to post it. The only thing I would add is that Hitler, as a master of propaganda, understood the propaganda value of, among other things, music, so his "ravings" were not entirely meaningless, but rather part of a calculated strategy of manipulation that Wagner, as anti-semitic, self-centered and arrogant as he may have been, could have had no part in, having died before Hitler was born.

In this regard, I find it supremely ironic that the young Shostakovich, busy creating an international sensation and establishing himself as one of the leading Soviet composers, if not the leading one, with Lady Macbeth, should suddenly find his career and possibly even his personal safety in jeopardy due to the fury his opera happened to arouse when Josef Stalin finally attended a performance.

This is a great illustration of how an artist can never anticipate, much less control, the impact his or her work will have or the uses to which it will be put, especially political uses. The utter shock and dismay with which the zealously patriotic Shostakovich must have felt reading the attack on his work as "anti-Socialist" is similar to what Wagner would have felt had he lived (at least to the age of 130) to see his music so closely associated with Hitler and the Nazis.

To me, the conclusion to be drawn is, yes, music, and art in general, can stand for things, or be made to stand for things, but those things can differ from anything the artist originally intended, slightly or greatly.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> All true, and it will remain true the next dozen times you have to post it. The only thing I would add is that Hitler, as a master of propaganda, understood the propaganda value of, among other things, music, so his "ravings" were not entirely meaningless, but rather part of a calculated strategy of manipulation that Wagner, as anti-semitic, self-centered and arrogant as he may have been, could have had no part in, having died before Hitler was born.
> 
> In this regard, I find it supremely ironic that the young Shostakovich, busy creating an international sensation and establishing himself as one of the leading Soviet composers, if not the leading one, with Lady Macbeth, should suddenly find his career and possibly even his personal safety in jeopardy due to the fury his opera happened to arouse when Josef Stalin finally attended a performance.
> 
> ...


Great post. .......................


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## regenmusic (Oct 23, 2014)

violadude said:


> Both Luigi Nono and Hans Werner Henze (modernist composers that were contemporaries of each other) were communists and wrote works that were highly charged with political themes and messages. Henze's 6th symphony, for example, was inspired by the Cuban revolution and Nono's opera "Intollerenza" is all about oppression of people and human rights and such https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intolleranza_1960


Thought I would examine this as, probably like many, the idea of helping humanity and Marxism seems like suspect pair in this day and age. Christianity always had the aims of helping the poor (witness the biographies of the saints and what they did for the poor), and Marxism co-opted that like it was some original and unique idea.

Not sure what kind of uplift we are supposed to draw from Nono.

Quote from your Wiki link:

3rd Scene: Projections of episodes of terror and fanaticism

To the hero appears the woman he has left in the mining village, and this confuses him. Together with his companion (compagna) he sends her away. Then the woman transforms herself along with a group of fanatics into ghosts and shadows. In the dream, she sees the migrant, the mine, the mocking slogan "Arbeit macht frei" over the entrance of the camp, and she sees the nightmares of the intolerance he holds with his companion, "Never, never again". The choir sings Mayakovsky's "Our march".

4th Scene: In the vicinity of a village on the banks of a great river

The hero and his companion have reached the great river, which forms the border of his native country. It is flooding; its level increases more and more. The deluge swallows roads, broken bridges, barracks, and crushes houses. Even the migrant and his companion are unable to save themselves. They die an agonizing death.

Final chorus (Coro finale) set to excerpts from Brecht's poem "To Posterity", again without orchestral accompaniment.

Recordings

end quote


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

regenmusic said:


> Thought I would examine this as, probably like many, the idea of helping humanity and Marxism seems like suspect pair in this day and age. Christianity always had the aims of helping the poor (witness the biographies of the saints and what they did for the poor), and Marxism co-opted that like it was some original and unique idea.
> 
> Not sure what kind of uplift we are supposed to draw from Nono.
> 
> ...




I just gave examples of composers that attempted to use their music to change society. I never said whether or not I agreed with any of it.

I will contest that I think there is a difference between how Christianity and Marxism attempts to change the world and it's not really a matter of Marxist though "co-opting" anything, at least not any more than any other philosophy. Christianity attempts to change the world through individual spiritual change and providing remedies to the suffering that our world causes, while Marxism seeks to change the systems that cause the suffering in the first place through collective action.

Again, I'm choosing to remain neutral regarding my personal thoughts on either of these solutions...


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

I might be coming a little bit late to this thread, so I don't know if what I am writing in this post has already been said by everyone else, but this is just how I have come to understand the issue myself...

I think the music that _most_ changes society isn't so much due to the music itself, but the movements it is part of. When a single composer comes along and captures that essence of a changing society, I am not sure exactly how much they are doing to change it themselves, but I am sure that what they are doing is an extremely valuable addition to the culture that it grew from.

_El pueblo unido jamás será vencido_ is by far more famous in its arrangements and cultural usage than the fact it was written by Sergio Ortega and Quilapayún. And whenever classical music fans hear this melody it's far more likely to be attributed to Rzewski in his epic set of variations anyway. It was a slogan and a song for democracy, people power and the social reforms made in Chile before their democracy was crushed by the USA and replaced with a military dictatorship. I think this usage is more powerful than the impact Rzewski had in composing his set of variations on it.

In saying that, of course it is extremely important that composers be allowed and encouraged to be moved and inspired by movements to change society if they have a personal interest in that themselves. It's pretty much unavoidable that our interests will reflect in the music we write. How that meaning finds its way into how we listen to and absorb these works would be different for everyone, but it's certainly something we can give a lot of importance to if we want to.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2020)

1996D said:


> Then it's not art.


I wondered when the Scotsman might put in an appearance...I knew who was going to bring him up.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2020)

composer jess said:


> I think the music that _most_ changes society isn't so much due to the music itself, but the movements it is part of.


Exactly so. Music can be the soundtrack to revolution, and composers can be revolutionaries...but I'm not sure 'music can change society' in the vague way implied in the OP.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Frankly if we think classical music has much influence when it comes to changing society, then I think we live in cloud cuckoo land. The simple reason is that very few people in the population are actually interested in listening to classical music. They might know a few tunes but as a whole the vast majority of the population are ignorant of the classics so are totally unlikely to be changed by them. I grew up in the swinging 60s and was even then a classical music fan but the vast majority of my friends were influenced by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. They were the people who are influencing society through music. It wasn’t the people I listened to.Like it or not we are a very small minority taste for better or worse. That is just a fact.


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## Guest (Jan 11, 2020)

DavidA said:


> the vast majority of my friends were influenced by the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan. They were *the people who are influencing society through music*.


Can you explain how?


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## Lilijana (Dec 17, 2019)

MacLeod said:


> Can you explain how?


Subliminal messages, recorded backwards, of course! Paul is dead, man; miss him, miss him.


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

composer jess said:


> ............ it is extremely important that composers be allowed and encouraged to be moved and inspired by movements to change society if they have a personal interest in that themselves. It's pretty much unavoidable that our interests will reflect in the music we write. How that meaning finds its way into how we listen to and absorb these works would be different for everyone, but it's certainly something* we can give a lot of importance to if we want to.*


This sums it up for me too. Artistically and creatively, politics and religion are powerful motivators and inspirators for composers, but they are not the only ones. Whatever the source, art music alone surely cannot change society although it can be an effective and manipulative campaign tool if the language is reduced to the simplest, lowest common denominators. It is however naive imv to imbue music with a remit beyond the ms, especially one that fails to take into account the potential ambiguity of the medium, how that impacts upon the listeners perception and interpretation, along with the definitive role aesthetic taste plays.

What music can do more readily (and perhaps less controversially), is provide much needed succour and transcendence, perhaps even enlightenment to those with receptive ears, but that alone is not necessary, nor indeed enough to collectively galvanise wills in order to change society imv. The turn of the world onto a darker side is required before change becomes an imperative in peoples' minds, no tunes required, just man and his weaknesses.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)




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## Guest (Jan 11, 2020)

mikeh375 said:


> This sums it up for me too. Artistically and creatively, politics and religion are powerful motivators and inspirators for composers, but they are not the only ones. Whatever the source, art music alone surely cannot change society although it can be an effective and manipulative campaign tool if the language is reduced to the simplest, lowest common denominators. It is however naive imv to imbue music with a remit beyond the ms, especially one that fails to take into account the potential ambiguity of the medium, how that impacts upon the listeners perception and interpretation, along with the definitive role aesthetic taste plays.
> 
> What music can do more readily (and perhaps less controversially), is provide much needed succour and transcendence, perhaps even enlightenment to those with receptive ears, but that alone is not necessary, nor indeed enough to collectively galvanise wills in order to change society imv. The turn of the world onto a darker side is required before change becomes an imperative in peoples' minds, no tunes required, just man and his weaknesses.


Quite. Music can be deployed as a tool to assist in conveying a "message", but if "music can change society" then one presumes it can do so willy-nilly, and society would be changing all the time as a result of whatever happens to be dominant on the wireless at any particular time. 

Then of course there's the business of what we mean by 'society'. The idea that society _as a whole_ can be changed by _anything _is a nonsense (well...the wheel, possibly...and the printing press...dynamite, perhaps...) never mind something as nebulous as music.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

composer jess said:


> Subliminal messages, recorded backwards, of course! Paul is dead, man; miss him, miss him.


I think the idea was that if Strawberry Fields is played backwards, you can hear the words, "I bury Paul". When I read this as a young 'un in a fan magazine left lying about by a friend's older sister, my reaction was, "If they want to know whether Paul McCartney is dead, why don't they see if he gets out of bed in the morning?"


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## mikeh375 (Sep 7, 2017)

fluteman said:


> I think the idea was that *if Strawberry Fields is played backwards, you can hear the words, "I bury Paul". * When I read this as a young 'un in a fan magazine left lying about by a friend's older sister, my reaction was, "If they want to know whether Paul McCartney is dead, why don't they see if he gets out of bed in the morning?"


For the love of me, I cannot recall these lyrics...."Luap y rub I" in Strawberry Fields and I'm a big Beatles fan (bought the albums on vinyl and then on CD. I'm also from Liverpool and my mum lived in the same street as Harrison when they where kids in Wavertree.)............:lol:


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

mikeh375 said:


> For the love of me, I cannot recall these lyrics...."Luap y rub I" in Strawberry Fields and I'm a big Beatles fan (bought the albums on vinyl and then on CD. I'm also from Liverpool and my mum lived in the same street as Harrison when they where kids in Wavertree.)............:lol:


I did try it when I had a turntable and yes, it's there. Lennon characteristically debunked it by saying that the actual words were 'cranberry sauce'.


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> *Most art vanishes without a sigh*. Art's purpose is whatever the artist says it is.





Woodduck said:


> Oh my. Do we dare request a definition of art? Are you The Decider of which artists are really artists? How do we know that _you're_ really one? Because you say so?


If it vanishes without a sigh then it can't be anything at all can it?


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Art is for everyone who wants it.


And not many do.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> If it vanishes without a sigh then it can't be anything at all can it?


Do you sigh over things in order to ensure that they exist and are something rather than nothing?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> And not many do.


Most of mankind wants art. Maybe not great art, but art nonetheless. No need to be a cultural snob.

You'll be more convincing when you produce that promised new music that you claim will change society. Are you expecting any changes in particular?


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## violadude (May 2, 2011)

1996D said:


> If it vanishes without a sigh then it can't be anything at all can it?


Well uh, everything will vanish into nothing eventually, afraid to tell you.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

If we accept as Webern the example of a composer's evolution, then as a caveat, we must also accept the idea of a musical evolution based on a nuts-and-bolts evolution of musical language, which transcends individual achievment. Wagner is frequently cited as 'the apotheosis' of musical language, so the example of Webern puts us squarely in the arena of 'individual achievement vs. cultural evolution.'
Boulez, Stockhausen, and Cage have already demonstrated the departure from the 'individual revolution' paradigm. The can of worms is now exposed, again, as 'modernists vs. traditionalists.'


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## 1996D (Dec 18, 2018)

Woodduck said:


> Do you sigh over things in order to ensure that they exist and are something rather than nothing?


Why would you even want to define or talk about something that has no impact?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

1996D said:


> Why would you even want to define or talk about something that has no impact?


I'm afraid you have lost the thread. To refresh: you said that "all art changes society, that's its purpose." I said that most art does not change society, and that art need not have that purpose. You are claiming that art which doesn't change society and is not intended to change society is not actually art. That is what MacLeod has correctly identified as the "no true Scotsman" fallacy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_true_Scotsman

You don't get to redefine things however you wish, unless you'd rather just wander out into the desert and talk to yourself. In the real world, among actual human beings, throughout history and prehistory, art is produced in endless quantity and variety for no other purpose than to give us pleasure. Much of it does a perfectly good job of that, and most of it is then forgotten. You'll be forgotten someday too, as will, most likely, whatever "society-changing" music you're cooking up "on purpose." Whether you're the next Beethoven or Wagner very much remains to be proven. But society is desperate for change, so here's hoping that that's what you turn out to be.


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

I'm afraid that the OP has led everyone on a wild goose-chase. This is simply a matter of the confusion of yin and yang (yin is active, yang is passive or receptive). Art is yang, by the way.

Art is like a mirror, and it can _reflect_ societal change. Art is like a catalyst, which reacts with actual or potential changes in culture. It can speed things up, but it can't create them from scratch. That's why Marshall McLuhan used ads to analyze culture in the books _The Mechanical Bride _and _Culture Is Our Business._ Advertising and popular media are good indicators of what is happening in a culture.

Popular music is much more accurate at reflecting and indicating changes in culture than Classical music is, because of their different paradigms. The classical composer is always an individual, who represents the old 'heroic' paradigm of traditional art, and who comes up with 'revolutionary' ideas and works. This may be why the OP got it wrong, because of the belief in this High Art paradigm. 
Popular music is, by contrast, created more collectively, in the case of pop groups and record companies, cinema (which is in many ways a collective pursuit), and other forms of popular or "Low Art" which does not seek "originality" as such, but is content to add-on to existing ideas within the form. 
"High Art" seeks 'original' and 'heroic' ideas and solutions which are seen as 'revolutionary' rather than part of an 'evolutionary' process.
So what is all this conflict about? Waking up on the wrong side of the bed? :lol:


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm afraid that the OP has led everyone on a wild goose-chase. This is simply a matter of the confusion of yin and yang (yin is active, yang is passive or receptive). Art is yang, by the way.
> 
> Art is like a mirror, and it can _reflect_ societal change. Art is like a catalyst, which reacts with actual or potential changes in culture. It can speed things up, but it can't create them from scratch.


No - you can't blame it on me! :angel:

Society is not a unified edifice. The example that I started with was Beethoven's opera about a political prisoner. There were many in his time and the custom of ruling elites imprisoning, torturing, killing those who disagreed publically with them continued long after he died. No-one was suggesting that Beethoven was the first to notice and object. But he took sides and did so publically. There will have been those who disagreed with him and those who didn't and many who didn't care either way so long as they were safe and comfortable.

As for his opera being a mirror, the metaphor doesn't work all that well. Art shows us a picture of something related to our world, our lives, but it adds and subtracts meanings: the artist is saying "I think this matters and I see it like this". As good art also makes sense and has validity, it is not a distorting mirror (like in a fairground), either.


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## Rubens (Nov 5, 2017)

I recommend Cyril Scott's book Music: Its Secret Influence Throughout the Ages for a fun read on this topic. I think he was mostly wrong, but it is a fun read.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm afraid that the OP has led everyone on a wild goose-chase. This is simply a matter of the confusion of yin and yang (yin is active, yang is passive or receptive). Art is yang, by the way.
> 
> Art is like a mirror, and it can _reflect_ societal change. Art is like a catalyst, which reacts with actual or potential changes in culture. It can speed things up, but it can't create them from scratch. That's why Marshall McLuhan used ads to analyze culture in the books _The Mechanical Bride _and _Culture Is Our Business._ Advertising and popular media are good indicators of what is happening in a culture.
> 
> ...


Wow. A millionrainbows post I can agree with wholeheartedly. Well done. I'd describe the distinction between the classical and the popular artist slightly differently, but we essentially agree there as well.

For me, the classical artist seeks to convey universal, timeless, and fundamental ideas that will remain relevant in widely different cultures and eras. He (or she) is less worried about whether his art is an immediate major success, though probably needs it to achieve at least some immediate success. (I suppose that encompasses your paradigm of the heroic individual and the revolutionary.) In contrast, the popular artist seeks to capitalize on the zeitgeist of a specific time and place, and even a specific audience demographic. His or her goal is to achieve as much success as possible, with as large an audience as possible, and to achieve it immediately, rather than cause any long-term, universal impact. (Though I can't agree that popular art lacks originality. The most successful art, high or low, nearly always offers something original, as its extraordinary success is a direct result of that originality.)

Either way, as you say, art reflects the society in which it is created, and as you also say, can be a catalyst for change.


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## Tikoo Tuba (Oct 15, 2018)

Art music has power . But , god-like , is not recordable .


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2020)

millionrainbows said:


> I'm afraid that the OP has led everyone on a wild goose-chase.


Not really. The question is a standard for this Forum, and the quote...well, it's just a quote.



millionrainbows said:


> Popular music is much more accurate at reflecting and indicating changes in culture than Classical music is, because of their different paradigms.


Yes, though reflecting change and causing change, and "culture" and "society" are not the same. As for paradigms, I think the reason that pop reflects change better is simply that it is of the 'here and now', and one of CM's most enduring features is its conservatism (despite the efforts of those wishing to bring it up to date and/or move it into the future.)

Having said that, pop has its conservative tendencies too. There has always been a willingness to pay to hear a man with a guitar sing ballads, and there still is. Not much societal change there.

Blondel
View attachment 128927


Sheeran
View attachment 128928


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Having said that, pop has its conservative tendencies too. There has always been a willingness to pay to hear a man with a guitar sing ballads, and there still is. Not much societal change there.


Yes, unconsciously, you get it: "a man with a guitar" is a _type._ By contrast, "Brahms is Brahms." I am glad that we are at least in _unconscious_ agreement.

I still maintain that art reflects change, incites pre-existing tendencies, speeds-up, or illuminates societal change, but is not actually the origin of change. Art at most is a catalyst.

The point is really "originality," and how much premium one places on it. High Art people say that Low Art is low because it is more derivative; it takes 95% of what someone else did and just adds a twist. In light of this, popular music (Low Art) is "evolutionary" rather than "revolutionary" as High Art considers itself.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> For me, the classical artist seeks to convey universal, timeless, and fundamental ideas that will remain relevant in widely different cultures and eras. He (or she) is less worried about whether his art is an immediate major success, though probably needs it to achieve at least some immediate success. (I suppose that encompasses your paradigm of the heroic individual and the revolutionary.) In contrast, the popular artist seeks to capitalize on the zeitgeist of a specific time and place, and even a specific audience demographic. His or her goal is to achieve as much success as possible, with as large an audience as possible, and to achieve it immediately, rather than cause any long-term, universal impact.


But that's a Romantic conception of art, isn't it, and a bit obsolete? Do you think that during the first several centuries of what we call classical music, composers were mainly concerned to embody "universal, timeless, and fundamental ideas that they thought would remain relevant in widely different cultures and eras"? Did they think of themselves as heroes and revolutionaries? Or were they more concerned to "capitalize on the zeitgeist of a specific time and place, and even a specific audience demographic" such as the world of the court or the church? The Romantic artist may be an icon that largely defines our idealized image of what a creator of "high" art should be, but before the Enlightenment broke up traditional patterns of thought and society the artist was mainly an entertainer or a functionary, successful to the extent that he could meet his society's expectations and fulfill its appetites. And make a living at it, of course.

Culture is no longer what we grew up thinking it was. We're now in a time when the busts of classical composers on pianos look like quaint relics of a sepia-tinted, rose-scented, dead world rather than the emblems of greatness our grandparents venerated. Somehow it's easier to imagine a bust of Katy Perry than one of Philip Glass - or would be, if people still made busts and had pianos to put them on. I guess now you carry your culture hero in your iphone, or someplace.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Can you explain how?


Well I think you only have to read a cultural history of the swinging 60s and his hangover into the seventies to realise how these people influenced society through their music and attitudes among young peopke. I happened to know because I was someone growing up in those times


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## Guest (Jan 13, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Well I think you only have to read a cultural history of the swinging 60s and his hangover into the seventies to realise how these people influenced society through their music and attitudes among young peopke. I happened to know because I was someone growing up in those times


I don't think you've really answered my question. You've just advised me to go elsewhere to find out the truth about _your _assertion (which I think is false).

I won't challenge you, as someone who grew up in those times, to explain how you've changed society, but I will say that my understanding of the OP is the idea that music itself has the power to directly change "society". The musical background to cultural change is not the same thing.

The whole notion of any kind of direct and lasting change is a chimera, whether we're talking pop or classical. The alleged idealism of the 60s dissipated fairly swiftly, and the umpteen songs of protest about life in the 50s and 60s are now historical curiosities (_Little Boxes _- they're still being built; _Eve of Destruction _- it's still somewhere between 7pm and midnight; _The Times They are A Changin _- yes, but only in the sense that what goes around comes around, societally speaking.

I can think of some highly specific examples of art that, it is claimed, brought about change - such as _Cathy Come Home _- but the UK still fails to ensure there are no homeless.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> But that's a Romantic conception of art, isn't it, and a bit obsolete? Do you think that during the first several centuries of what we call classical music, composers were mainly concerned to embody "universal, timeless, and fundamental ideas that they thought would remain relevant in widely different cultures and eras"? Did they think of themselves as heroes and revolutionaries? Or were they more concerned to "capitalize on the zeitgeist of a specific time and place, and even a specific audience demographic" such as the world of the court or the church? The Romantic artist may be an icon that largely defines our idealized image of what a creator of "high" art should be, but before the Enlightenment broke up traditional patterns of thought and society the artist was mainly an entertainer or a functionary, successful to the extent that he could meet his society's expectations and fulfill its appetites. And make a living at it, of course.
> 
> Culture is no longer what we grew up thinking it was. We're now in a time when the busts of classical composers on pianos look like quaint relics of a sepia-tinted, rose-scented, dead world rather than the emblems of greatness our grandparents venerated. Somehow it's easier to imagine a bust of Katy Perry than one of Philip Glass - or would be, if people still made busts and had pianos to put them on. I guess now you carry your culture hero in your iphone, or someplace.


Universal and timeless, yes. Heroes and revolutionaries, not necessarily. Those were millionrainbows' terms, and seemed to be related to his earlier point about Webern, which you may have understood, but utterly perplexed me. And you needn't take my word. In many cases, you can read what the composers themselves said about their goals, Beethoven, for example. He said he didn't expect his late string quartets would be understood in his own time but wrote them for future generations.

I also think this distinction isn't a black-and-white but can be made in shades and gradations. Telemann's music was more popular than that of Bach in their own time, but Bach dominates the "greatest" lists today and Telemann is well out of the top 20. Meyerbeer's operas arguably were more popular and certainly more profitable than Wagner's at one point, much to the latter's chagrin, as we endlessly discuss here due to his resulting essay about Jews. Liszt ruled the concert hall with his music, while Chopin seldom performed his in public. All of this might be termed "classical" today, but in the end the music of Bach, Chopin and Wagner turned out to have something more universal and enduring than that of their contemporaries, though somewhat less popular in their own time.

I do think the idea of classicism and "classical" (really neoclassical) art is largely an Enlightenment, and post-Enlightenment, concept. However, it has been expanded beyond solely being an homage to the culture and philosophies of ancient Greece and Rome to include universal and enduring ideas generally.


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## Andrew Kenneth (Feb 17, 2018)

MacLeod said:


> A composer seeking to challenge society is one thing. The music actually causing change is quite another, and I'm doubtful that there are any examples of the latter


The Belgian revolution =>

On 25 August 1830, at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, an uprising followed a special performance, in honor of William I's birthday, of Daniel Auber's La Muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici), a sentimental and patriotic opera set against Masaniello's uprising against the Spanish masters of Naples in the 17th century. After the duet, "Amour sacré de la patrie", (Sacred love of Fatherland) with Adolphe Nourrit in the tenor role, many audience members left the theater and joined the riots which had already begun.[10] The crowd poured into the streets shouting patriotic slogans. The rioters swiftly took possession of government buildings.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution#"Night_at_the_opera"


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## Room2201974 (Jan 23, 2018)

Andrew Kenneth said:


> The Belgian revolution =>
> 
> On 25 August 1830, at the Théâtre Royal de la Monnaie in Brussels, an uprising followed a special performance, in honor of William I's birthday, of Daniel Auber's La Muette de Portici (The Mute Girl of Portici), a sentimental and patriotic opera set against Masaniello's uprising against the Spanish masters of Naples in the 17th century. After the duet, "Amour sacré de la patrie", (Sacred love of Fatherland) with Adolphe Nourrit in the tenor role, many audience members left the theater and joined the riots which had already begun.[10] The crowd poured into the streets shouting patriotic slogans. The rioters swiftly took possession of government buildings.
> 
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Revolution#"Night_at_the_opera"


If the theatre members left and joined riots already in progress...how did they cause them?


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