POLITICAL MUSIC

...The situation in Spain is exactly the opposite...

...The man who wrote music which he found to be true as his own expression and as the only possible expression of his times, in spit* of continuous pares, cation on tbe.part of the academicians...

...The man who wrote these words -and his entire book on harmony is pervaded by the same spirit—was certainly a political human being...

...But the issues contained there reached further than the immediate demand: "Gome to church, pay your tithe and pray...

...In s different future, when politics snd art will mean living by all, there will be no need to cry in frantic hysteria for what now seems sn irreconcilable contradiction...

...From 1931 until the disappesrsnce of the Republic, Spain had a libersl snd democratic government...

...The freedom of the *rti,t » the essence of his art, is what partly makes ¦¦»rt...

...The result of this ready-made ideological order was dismal...

...Whatever Schoenberg has done and thought is the work""of a non-conformist...

...The two antipodes of political music today, Strauss and Shostekovitch, posses very little Of this political character...

...Political art will retain its sccent on art at long as present politics persist...

...embodying the present social situation...

...Not because of their respective party affiliations, but because, for whatever the reasons may be, they have reverted to a musical atyle which as means of creation has long outlived Its possibilities...

...Strauss continues te write in his antiquated style of thirty years ago and is also alleged to hsve Nasi sympathies...

...This mskes him music politician...

...When the human being becomes universally known ¦• General Issue, it can hardly be surprising that a ¦aa whose first name is invsrisbly Joe is expected to "*are always and every place as described in a script...

...It is true that Schoenberg hss not found the formula of incorporating the real issues of today in hia art...

...concern, creative artists to a greater -X aaCTSa than nny other group of the i r »rticing IXntgenteia Tha art work of musicians, if restricted Dakar* tonal expr**eio«i» free from any literary pro-101 tWdtee a political evaluation completely Cense Efitp, ths postanal politic...

...But once that it is accepted by a vast majority of the P**«lation that every American soldier, trapped by a f;*™*n contingent, breaks out into the most fanatical •ad best-etyled speech about all problems confronting th* State Department, the artist does not feel free to remove the subject matter of his art from the general tliehft even if he himself has not accepted intellectually the infeetuona germ of monotony...

...Jotted down under the immediate impression of Napoleon's death, the poet, still deeply impresssd by tbe monumental figure ef the Fiench emperor, condemns his lust for tyranny and at the end juxtaposes the American revolution snd it* resultant democracy to the lust of the autocrat...

...As soon as the Constitution of 1931 is once more in force, the people will be given the right to say what changes should be made in the government of Spain, When they have spoken in the.elections, all Spaniards will sreept the decision...

...Even more so is the democratic solution...

...There is s mushroom-like growth of commercialism in all branches of the a ts...

...Schoenberg has chosen a poem of Byron which dons not belong to his beat...

...the rest being the essence . . . Comfort as world view...

...Not in the senae of a ward heeler of the Republican Party, but in tbe intention to better the world in whatever fiekl he may find his vocation...

...There are also official directions of what •hall and shall not be aaid in the work to satisfy the propaganda desires of those who see in the arts nothing but s pleasant device to smuggle convenient ideologies into the mind of the public...

...In this rase it is obvious that the arts, expressions of the intangible feelings of comparatively eternal values, were entirely out of their medium in leading only their technics...

...If any new motion the arts, or better if any art at a>U, could attract •Uention in these times of rapid decrease of humanist By Kurt LM values, then thia work should have created a sensation For here we have a oomposss who has never fallowed th* general taste but who in his search for truth has remained alone and unbowed for many a decade...

...Spain must not become "the problem" for the European democracies...

...As little motion as possible, no shock...

...Who love comfort that much will never search where they are not certain to find something...

...By Diego Martinez Barrio TrlK Spanish Committee of Liberation was organized in order to defend the principles of the Constitution of 1931, which represents the last legal expression of the Spanish people...

...spplirations but not then essential function of expressing the unspeakable, to very earthy and up-to-date postulates...

...Shostekovitch adapts his musical style to the wishes of a demanding government...

...In Spain tbe Catholic Church has intervened actively in the civil life of the people...

...And precisely this untimeliness and grandeur of the issues represented could make the paintings of Michelangelo into great works of art...

...Music is Schoenberg's vocation...

...As it is, his music is as political as all his previous music...

...Had it meant a compromise of his atyle it would fall into the same category as all the other "political" works...

...But had he never written the above words, had be never given expression to one single intellectual thought, he still would have been a political musician...

...What Michelangelo was able to do, because the arte of his times tended toward the representstivs, seems impossible todsy...

...However, his "Ode" is but another of his great compositions...

...Modern art has tended toward abstraction more and more in the past decades...

...That makes him a poor musician so far as the past thirty years are concerned snd it also makes him an individual whoss philosophy is slien to anybody believing in freedom...

...In the music Schoenberg uses cliche device* like the insipid quotation of Beethoven's Victory theme...

...But above all, it has found one thing: Oom-fort...

...To those who know nothing about Schoenberg's person, it may be a source of joy to find out that the man who writes great music is also an anti-fascist...

...These forces hsve sympathised and hsve worked actively with the fascist forces of Hitler and Mussolini...

...It it possible that the present struggle does not involve any issues going further than immediate demands of power politics...

...Ia keeping with this trend the American League ef Composers together with the New York Philharmonic commissioned seventeen contemporary composers to writs from two to five-minute symphonic pieces dealing with the subject of the war...

...Or haa tho composer of so many revolutionising works found the formula which so far has been missing T All the outer details of the creative procedure of this work bear close resemblance to similar enterprises...

...Bin it is much more probable that while the war of today centers around problems no less important, deep-going and eternal, than those of the Renaissance, the artiste of today are absolutely incapable of grasping the profundity of these very issues which to express artistically would be their chief function...

...It is easy to possess a world view when one only looks at what is pleasant and does not contemplate the rest...

...and t political musician he has remained...

...Until this development has come to an absolute standstill and until grest social chsges determine new conceptions, abstraction will be the modnt vivrndi of tht arts...

...For this reason intellectual responsibility will consist of being fsithful to one's own and not to sn official or mass intellect...

...Neither hss embarked on a course which can be a basis for a further desirable evolution...

...Thus neither music nor propaganda was aided to any degree...

...Mora-over, the United States has had tolerant churches who have not attempted to engage in politics...

...After all, if seen divested of later glorification, Mirhelangelo's paintings at the Sistine Chapel were nothing but poster art for the Catholic Church...

...What then, if at all, he makes this work different from all previous creations done wiih the intention to evoke a spin...

...Now Arnold Schoenberg, uncompromising composer °»the most radical of all of modern music, has created • work which, for tha first time in his life, gives literary *q>ression to his political credo...

...If Strauss and Shostakovich are political then they are so only as reactionaries...

...Both have forced every-oody, including the artists, into a pattern of behavior end belief which is as true to life and the inner ideas •f one of the most vigorous bsttles of humanity, as Walter Button resembles Ambassador Davies...

...As a result of the meeting of the Cortes, a government representing the legsl will of the Republic will come again into existence...

...What came tut,so far, were a few inferior musical works, written in hsste, crowded into the allotted time space, imitative of some outer noise, and embellished with titles taken from a patriotic highsrhool student's vocabulary...

...True Spsniards everywhere are trying to free themselves of these tyrannical forces and to become incorporated at a western democratic nation with those liberties common to all modern peoples, and we are asking thst the iemocratic peoples shall aid us to establish these liberties, or at least not to hinder our efforts...

...If he does not do so, he will bo accused of tetag a slacker, an accusation which in tho long run tsar load te his being completely banned from the reper-tssre...

...They wore iaauea which involved man's immortal soul, his striving for another, a better world, and they hinged rather strongly on the emotionally' involved family situation of parent and son, guidance and follower, problems which so far have proved as lasting...

...Schoenberg's attempt at political srt in the "Ode" is naive, but it is, among other things, an expression of his private view on world affairs...

...This By Diego Martinez Barrio government will ratify its sdherence to the cause of the United Nations...

...The people of Spain aspire to see thst libersl and democratic regime reestablished...

...POLITICAL MUSIC The Premiere of Schoenberg's "Ode to Napoleon " By Kurt List *<m~\Jh|K c*ia*«T« •** U<« phrase "intellectual xu...

...The psrsllel to Hitler is clear...

...I want to add that Spain cannot now take the place which Turkey held in the 19th century...

...But both composers sre hot political in our essentisl sense...

...North America never knew feudalism snd those institutions through which the lend wss concentrated in t he hands of a few and who thereby controlled also the political power of the nation...

...that to find is the goal hut that it may easily become the end of all striving...

...Whither Spain...

...Our time searches for much...

...It is still searching for its own true expression and for its place in the historical evolution of all music...

...b*tr»n arts wt «at when a cotnpoeet has managed te escape the najilli r"T politsml goaturea in tho past, which once pBs" nsmidsTtfl an outstanding virtue, ho ia now com-mHm*t to adorn hie opu* with s title pregnant with tctealrtj...

...The Russians, from Altxardtr Stitky to Tolstoi's War and Peace, have done so ad noin'om...

...Thai is not his fault...

...More than thirty years ago he wrote: "I hope my pupils will sea rrb...

...The pursuit of his own way and tha search for truth in musicsl creation made him a political figure in his field...

...Because they will know that one searches only to search...

...On the other hand, many artists have without doubt been sincerely moved by the contemporary upheaval ami attempted to express their feelings which went beyond the limited artistic field, in some grandiose protest in the very field of art That even the most sincere attempt* resulted in flashy but shallow works was largely doe to what may be called the "poster conception...

...All |aar tn* werid, -frem Soviet Art Coasmissara to poetic WaeaoAtton librarian*, the mUllortual meaaborahip sard gj the aetertaiaauit ef good and and in tha spheres of nv...

...once regimented, whether by command or by *oci*l habit, it ceases to be srt because it has ceased, fcfcfres...

...The United States has, also, never known the traditions of tyrannical absolutism as hss Spain...

...a man who never desisted from his musical path in spite of the strongest recriminations by dictatorial and rsactioaary governmenU, is, indeed, s political musician...

...Tt) understand the significance of thi« work, extending beyond the importance of one work of a great composei, one must understand the meaning of Schocn-berg's life work...

...The parties which hsve joined the Committee of Liberation hope to svoid Civil Wsr and to reestablish the Republic peacefully...

...The task of the Cortes will be to reestablish Constitutional order in line with what is prescribed by the Constitution itself...

...As a step in this direction we are summoning a meeting of the Republican Cortes in Mexico for January 10, IMS...

...We value Beethoven as a revolutionary musician not because he once tore np a dedication to tbe tyrannical Napoleon, nor because as a perverted music criticism ' stated "he represented the rising bourgeon It," but because he followed in his art what he believed and what history later proved to be the right path In this very same sense Schoenberg is a political being...

...Yea—one—the first—the last—the best— The Cineinnatus of the West, Whom envy dared not hate, Bequeath'd the name of Washington, To make man blush there wss but one...

...Is hie "Ode cn .Napoleon," performed by the New York Philharmonic Inst weak, an addition to tho scores of political music which is neither political in tho sense of the real issue nor music as individual expression...

...It is not new to draw artistic inspiration for the present from past history...

...Unfortunately, the people of this grest North American democracy do not know the problems which faced Spain, because they never knew those Institutions which were the csuse of the suffering of the Spsinsh people...

...Spain waa deprived of ite legal government through the intervention of Hitler and Mussolini...

...When they are overthrown, it seems cruel that democratic governments should aid General Franco to consolidats this internstional crime...

...The elections will prevent a new Civil War, something which ought to be generally avoided but would constitute a crime for the Spain of today...

...bsliaf and action of ths Ijtp-m *re mod* tho decisive criterion apoa which KawaW h»a aaaak in regard te ite aoeiai value...