Composers and politics/ethics

[Florestan]

He defended the Soviet carve up of Poland and attacks on Finland.

This is bad enough, but if it's "horror" then how would you qualify FD Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill, who not only shook hands with, and praised no end, the man directly responsible for the carving up of Poland and attacking Finland, but joined him in carving up Germany and partitioning the whole Europe?

[North Star]

This is bad enough, but if it's "horror" then how would you qualify FD Roosevelt and Sir Winston Churchill, who not only shook hands with, and praised no end, the man directly responsible for the carving up of Poland and attacking Finland, but joined him in carving up Germany and partitioning the whole Europe?

And don't forget who declared war on Finland. It's rather easy to point fingers now, but those people had some really difficult choices to make - Finns too - but that doesn't make them monsters.

[Ken B]

And don't forget who declared war on Finland. It's rather easy to point fingers now, but those people had some really difficult choices to make - Finns too - but that doesn't make them monsters.

Right. But Hammett had no difficult choices to make.

[jochanaan]

Aren't we forgetting Carlo Gesualdo, who literally got away with murder?

Seriously, while I deplore some musicians' character--Wagner is a prime example, and not just for his antisemitism--in the end only the music counts.

[Daverz]

The composer himself is usually quite removed from the recreation of the music (and usually long dead), so Gesualdo's multiple murders, Wagner's vicious anti-Semitism, and Saint-Saens pederasty don't get in the way of my enjoyment of the music.  I'm not that bothered by Casella or Malipiero's love for Mussolini, either, though I would probably not miss their music much.

Performers are not as easy to separate from their art, but it can be done.  I just recently read that Cortot denounced people during WWII, so that does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

[Ken B]

Performers are not as easy to separate from their art, but it can be done.  I just recently read that Cortot denounced people during WWII, so that does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

This is odd but true. It doesn't seem rational, and it's not even a matter of still being alive. Maybe it's because performers in our age make a big to do about their politics and or idiocy. That seems to invite a reaction. Maybe it's because it's easier to give up one reading of a work than the work itself.

[Florestan]

Right. But Hammett had no difficult choices to make.

Of course not. He lived in an age where most writers and artists were leftists, and Stalinist for that matter. He just swam with the flow.

Much more "horror" than poor Hammett (whose influence on the world at large was basically nil) was the highly influential Jean-Paul Sartre who, although perfectly aware of the totalitarian and murderous nature of the Soviet regime, kept praising it and propagandizing for it enthusiastically in order "not to crush the hope of the world working class". Now there you have a real bastard.

[Florestan]

And don't forget who declared war on Finland.

England, of course, just as they declared war on Romania, which was fighting the USSR alongside Germany for exactly the same reasons as Finland.

It's rather easy to point fingers now, but those people had some really difficult choices to make

Yes, it is easy to judge and condemn post factum but one never knows how one would have acted and reacted back then. We (and I mean we GMG-ers) are all more or less liberal today, but had we lived in the 4th decade of the last century I wonder how many of us would have been liberals and how many of us communists or fascists? 

[Florestan]

Here's one article including some info on Quartet for the End of Time, and here's another, with a bit more on Messiaen and his involvement with the Vichy regime.  Interpret how you like.

That's how I like.  .

After the French surrender in 1940, Messiaen was imprisoned at Görlitz in Silesia. There, a German sergeant took a liking to Messiaen after learning he was a composer. He gave Messiaen extra rations of bread to eat and allowed him to write undisturbed in the afternoon. The product of these afternoon sessions was the Quartet for the End of Time, which the other prisoners were even commanded to stand and listen to when it was first performed in the camp.

So, we have an imprisoned composer and pianist, a music-loving and benevolent guard (actually more than one), three other imprisoned players and the result is one of the most beautiful and moving pieces of music ever written. Every person whose moral compass is not altered by ideology would see in all this a marvelous sign of the power of music to bring out man's capacity for goodness and beauty even in the most adverse circumstances; not so with Mr. Ivry, who sees nothing more than a Nazi commission.

Insofar as Nazi officers made the work materially possible to compose, and incited Messiaen to write it, his Quartet was a Nazi commission. Messiaen himself never explicitly denied this, stating decades later in an interview, "As Germans always admire music, wherever it may be found, not only did they leave me my scores, but an officer gave me pencils, erasers, and music paper."

The first sentence is a non sequitur. Nowhere in his statement does Messiaen imply that the German officers incited him to write exactly what he wrote  It seems that they just let him do his business as he saw fit, their only contribution being "pencils, erasers and music paper".

In the 1960's, he went so far as to object when an American recording was published with a cover design of a swastika torn into pieces: "This hideous and stupid drawing is the complete opposite of what I intended to do!"

If I understand him correctly, he implied that he intended not to tore apart, but to reunite flesh-and-bones human beings on a level far higher than any earthly ideological conflict.

To come back on topic, I tend to avoid artists, writers, philosophers and scientists only if there is clear evidence that they committed, or knowingly supported, persecutions and murders --- as the above-mentioned Sartre, for instance. Other than that, subscribing to this or that ideology in an age when "the time [was] out of joint" makes no difference to me.

[Archaic Torso of Apollo]

That Ivry article is a cheap hit piece on a great composer. The Quarter was "a Nazi commission"? Gimme a friggin' break. 

[Rinaldo]

How do feel about composers/performers that promote political/ethical stances that you're against? Quick examples woulf be Wagner or Gergiev.

Depends. I have no problems listening to Wagner. He's dead and the global society has come a long way since the times when even the brighter folks easily succumbed to dumb prejudices.

But I wouldn't go to a Gergiev concert. Befriending and supporting a leader that is against everything I believe in? No, thank you. Sure, that particular decision is easy - I've never been a fan anyway. Let's say one of my favourite composers turns out to be a child molester. Don't know if I'd stop listening to him altogether but for me, the music, the beauty of it, would be forever tarnished. Maybe it is genuinely possible to separate the artist and the art, but I'm able do it only to a certain degree. And if the artist is someone I consider a 'good person' (in very broad terms, I don't expect artists to be saints), my connection with his / her art is usually deeper.

[Rinaldo]

I just recently read that Cortot denounced people during WWII, so that does leave a bad taste in my mouth.

'Bad taste in the mouth' is a good way to put it. And when there's too much of it, I tend to opt out.

[Ken B]

Of course not. He lived in an age where most writers and artists were leftists, and Stalinist for that matter. He just swam with the flow.

Much more "horror" than poor Hammett (whose influence on the world at large was basically nil) was the highly influential Jean-Paul Sartre who, although perfectly aware of the totalitarian and murderous nature of the Soviet regime, kept praising it and propagandizing for it enthusiastically in order "not to crush the hope of the world working class". Now there you have a real bastard.

Indeed. Nicely flayed by Conquest in The Great Terror.

[Pierre]

That Ivry article is a cheap hit piece on a great composer. The Quarter was "a Nazi commission"? Gimme a friggin' break. 

Judging from this, and Ivry's biography of Poulenc, his writing is a load of merde which isn't worth anyone's time to read.

[king ubu]

Well, on the long run, Camus easily wins over Sartre ... though the later found it fun to make fun of his humanistically so superior colleague.

The Ivry piece is crap indeed - mixing together too many things, well-known and speculative ones.

As for the topic - I do like to know. And I don't think man and work can or should be totally separated. How to deal with it is personal of course, everyone may have his or her own reactions and stance - and mine is: I'm not always actively seeking it, but if I stumble of things, that might as well ignite my curiosity and I'll do some digging. It's rarely ever about black or white, but all shades of grey - has been, is and will be. There's no easy way out.