Apologies to Daniel for my earlier remark about serial music being "out of fashion," given that apparently he is a composer of such music. I'm sure what you compose is wonderful. Sorry we can't hear any on this list.
With regard to this general issue, let me throw out some more problematic issues and examples, partly in keeping with the theme that maybe "fascism" in music has something to do with being monumental and loud and that certainly that is not just what it is. Perhaps there also has to be some element of simple-mindedness, of jack-bootedness. Or maybe it is more subtle than that.
One example that comes to mind is Gustav Mahler. Some of his music is very subtle and sublime and beautiful in an almost Mozartian vein. But some is very loud and bombastic, if not especially simplistic. Thus we can contrast the achingly beautiful second movement of the Fifth Symphony (familiar to many as the score for Visconti's film, "Death in Venice") with the crashingly bombastic first movement of the Eighth Symphony (the "Symphony of a Thousand" (how many performers it takes)) or the last movement of the First Symphony (the "Titan"). Just to complicate things, Mahler was clearly heavily influenced by Wagner. OTOH he was of Jewish origin although he converted to Catholicism. Even so, he was forced out by anti-Semites from his position as Conductor of the Vienna State Opera and ended up conducting the New York Philharmonic at the end of his life. The famous wisecrack about him was that he was thrice alienated, as a Bohemian among Austrians, as an Austrian among Germans, and as a Jew throughout the world.
Then we have Dmitri Shostakovich. There is currently a new book out on Shostakovich arguing that his illegally smuggled (and critical of the Soviet leadership) memoirs are genuine, although that remains highly controversial, and many consider him to have been an extremely loyal Soviet composer. His music certainly spans the spectrum, with some of his chamber music being exquisitely subtle and beautiful while some of his symphonies contain considerable "potentially fascist" bombast, although in general these passages were precisely those that were praised by the Soviet culture tsars as "socialist realist." Thus we certainly have the, in some sense "objectively anti-fascist" Seventh Symphony, the "Leningrad", composed in honor of the heroic anti-Nazi resistance by the citizens of Leningrad during the awful siege of that city. I find it a very stirring and moving symphony and always have, but it certainly contains plenty of "martial music" and loud bombast as well. And then there is his "Festival Overture," frequently played at the Red Square parades for the Soviet missiles to roll by the leaders on Lenin's Tomb. They don't get more simplistically loud and bombastic than this particular piece, one that my Russian wife reviles, even though she has fond memories of parading in Red Square as a youth and deeply respects much of Shostakovich's work. If Carl Orff had composed it in 1938, I have no doubt that Hitler would have loved it. Of course in 1948 Zhdanov subjected Shostakovich to criticism for his alleged "formalism" and some would say that the Festival Overture in particular was a submissive response to this criticism. OTOH, this piece was composed in 1954 and some see it as Shostakovich's celebration of the death of Stalin.
And finally we have the figure of the late French composer, Olivier Messiaen, one of my favorites. He is politically correct in most peoples' eyes because he composed his most famous piece, "The Quartet for the End of Time," as sublime as they come, while sitting in a German concentration camp in WW II and for the four instruments available in that particular camp (piano, violin, cello, and clarinet). He also invented rhythmic serialism in 1948 or thereabouts with a piano etude. But he was a deeply committed Roman Catholic of mystic bent and most of his music is overtly oriented to glorifying that end. I do not know what his specific political views were, if he even had any. But I do know that Charles de Gaulle attended the world premiere of his rather bombastic "Et Expecto Resurrectionem et Mortuorum" in Sainte Chappelle in 1964. Barkley Rosser On Sun, 13 Dec 1998 18:16:13 -0800 Daniel <drdq at m5.sprynet.com> wrote:
> Well, Doug, as a classical musician I can only think of popular music as, by
> definition, "folkish." That is to say, a natural expression and
> manifestation of the innate and uncultivated musicality of human beings,
> only minimally concerned with aesthetic or spiritual matters.
>
> The reason that all the superficial trappings of power, such as loudness,
> monumentality, etc., are associated with fascism is precisely because they
> are used by fascism as basic tools of control, indoctrination,
> disempowerment, repression. I didn't see the post of the other day in which
> you spoke about "sublimity", and so I don't know what you were referring to
> specifically. It is certainly true that both loudness and the monumental can
> otherwise contribute to an expression of the sublime. But, as employed by
> the fascist, they have nothing to do with the sublime. They have instead to
> do with loudness and the monumental, which pose as excuses for themselves -
> an absurdity, of course, but one which is essential to the fascist cause
> that acknowledges only that might makes right.
>
> Now, you asked what is specifically fascist about these elements. I once
> participated in a discussion of what is fascism with a "Marxist." That
> discussion lasted for several years - easy enough considering that it was my
> father. I was defending Bertram Gross' viewpoint on fascism in America,
> against the more orthodox view that would like to reserve the term for
> Hitler and Franco, and a few select others. One of the most important things
> I learned from that discussion was that two intelligent people don't
> necessarily agree about what fascism may and may not be.
>
> Does the term have an objective meaning? Up to a point, I wouldn't deny that
> it has. Yet, it's important, I think, not to put TOO fine a point on it.
> What is the value of owning a word, as if that were possible? I called these
> musical elements fascist because fascism is associated with them as a
> carpenter is associated with a hammer. No black and white distinction was
> intended here. Should I be boring and point out that communism also was fond
> of the loud and the monumental? I needn't be so restrictive. Regarding that
> other element - exploitation of the "folkish" - even socialism in America
> induced a kind of glorification of folk art. Think only of Copland's
> Appalachian Spring. "'Tis a blessing to be simple. . ."
>
> On the other hand, one has to know when a mere toying with folkishness turns
> deadly, as in Orf's Carmina Burana. The Copland is not fascist. The Orf is.
> How can such a distinction be made? I could retreat to a position of
> expertise, and say that as a musician it has been my life long fate (and
> duty) to listen for the spiritual content in musical sound. After a time,
> certain things become rather clear and unmistakable. But I would rather put
> the matter more on the level of common sense. Add up enough of the
> ingredients of fascism, and one may actually arrive at fascism. This has
> practical implications in the political sphere. Who knows but that even a
> communist clique can make the transition in this way: we will have to
> conclude as much if China, for example, were to expand the private sector to
> such a degree that the ruling party elite begin to represent only a class of
> owners, and do so with the kind of "iron boot" that we associate with
> fascism? (Pace, Henry: I realize that I have no informed judgment on the
> actual course of change in China, which is why your posts have been so
> interesting and enlightening to me. I use the example of China only in an
> abstract way, in order to make a point.)
>
> Alec, you asked: "But by your criteria, why isn't John Adams' music fascist,
> because it's
> not loud enough? What about serialism: couldn't one argue it's a structural
> "iron boot"?"
>
> I don't know enough of Adams' music. Do you think it is fascist? The little
> bit I've heard of "Nixon in China" certainly seems to invite the label, but
> I find it especially easy to say that since I found the music to be
> intensely annoying and bereft of grace and beauty. In a curious way, all
> minimalism in art may be as fascist as the monumentalism I was referring to
> in my post. We would then be talking about the place of conjunction of yin
> and yang: the place of transformation into opposites. I've only really
> listened to Adams' Violin Concerto, which I don't think is minimalist, nor
> fascist. But, I am probably wrong. For there is no doubt that it is through
> and through American. Here again, I am probably confused by matters of
> personal taste. I quite liked the Violin Concerto, and so wouldn't like to
> think of it as fascist. What would that say about me? I have to be
> "brutally" honest when it comes to recognizing fascism in all its secret
> little hiding places.
>
> As for your question on serial music, Alec, I'm not sure if you are implying
> your own answer. For my part, the answer is an emphatic negative. No, serial
> music (12-tone music) is not in any way an expression of the fascist craving
> for "order" - especially, arbitrarily imposed order as the product of the
> individual will and its need to dominate. There is nothing in the least bit
> arbitrary about serial music.
>
> As it happens, I am a composer of serial music, and so I carry a heavy brief
> for its place in our tradition. Serial music is a natural unfolding of that
> tradition, and as such a reflection of the evolution of the human spirit. As
> our consciousness expands, we perceive ever more dimensions in this
> universe. The composer is no less a researcher into these many dimensions,
> than the physicist who opens our eyes to the multiple realms of time/space
> and a hundred other invisible dimensions besides.
>
> The many harmonic dimensions of polyphonic music have been only gradually
> and painstakingly perceived by successive generations of composers. Serial
> music is nothing new in this respect. For this reason, it should come as no
> surprise that serial music can express the permanent transcendence of the
> human being - or, just as easily, the subjugation of all that is in us
> yearning to breathe free. For the former, we have Schoenberg, for the
> latter, say, Stockhausen. In any case, serialism is a technical term. It
> pertains to matters of technique. Technique can be put to any purpose. Of
> course, fascism, per se, will never use serialism on purpose. Hardly anybody
> can understand it. It would be very counterproductive. But, far be it from
> me to give musical advice to the fascists.
>
> Daniel
>
-- Rosser Jr, John Barkley rosserjb at jmu.edu