{"id":1206545,"date":"2025-02-14T16:19:14","date_gmt":"2025-02-14T16:19:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/?p=1206545"},"modified":"2025-02-14T16:19:14","modified_gmt":"2025-02-14T16:19:14","slug":"arts-commentary-art-music-and-the-new-age-of-anxiety","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/arts-commentary-art-music-and-the-new-age-of-anxiety\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts Commentary: Art, Music, and the New Age of Anxiety"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
\n

By Jonathan Blumhofer<\/strong><\/p>\n

However late the hour and however long the road ahead, the cause of standing for justice, knowledge, and freedom isn\u2019t yet doomed. Along the way, let the arts comfort, inspire, instruct, and help lead. That\u2019s what they\u2019re here for.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in 1935 with prominent Nazis in attendance. Photo: Wiki Common<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The Shadow of History: Furtw\u00e4ngler\u2019s Final Performances<\/strong><\/p>\n

When he took the podium in the Golden Hall of Vienna\u2019s miraculously intact Musikverein on January 28th<\/sup>, 1945, Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler likely had some inkling that time was not on his side. Though he\u2019d never been a member of the Nazi party and his relationship with the F\u00fchrer was equivocal at best, Furtw\u00e4ngler had long been regarded as Hitler\u2019s favorite conductor. But in the short duration of the thousand-year Reich, the maestro had made powerful enemies, among them Heinrich Himmler. Now, in the waning months of World War 2, the SS chief was seeking to settle personal scores.<\/p>\n

How aware Furtw\u00e4ngler was of his personal danger is an open question and how much these circumstances imprinted themselves on his musical interpretations of the time is impossible to know. Regardless, that Sunday, he led the Vienna Philharmonic in what proved to be his penultimate concert of the war years.<\/p>\n

The program consisted of two pieces: C\u00e9sar Franck\u2019s Symphony in D minor and Johannes Brahms\u2019s Symphony No. 2. Taped for radio broadcast, the performance has been preserved for posterity, and what a document it is, particularly the Brahms<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On this afternoon, the German symphonist\u2019s most serene essay followed, to a point, the Furtw\u00e4ngler norm. Tempos and phrasings were flexible, the unblemished radiance of the first two movements sounding astonishingly transcendent, especially given the context of this performance. Throughout, though, the interpretation is held together by a subtle undercurrent of electricity, which explodes in the finale. Here, some of Brahms\u2019s most utterly joyful music drops its mask and takes on, at the end, a completely new cast: the Philharmonic sounds as though it\u2019s playing for its very life.<\/p>\n

In a sense, it was. Around this time, Furtw\u00e4ngler advised the orchestra\u2019s members to stick together when the Russian army arrived in Vienna. When that happened in March, they did \u2014 and were quickly put to work providing music for the conquering Soviet forces, in the process surviving worse individual fates.<\/p>\n

By that time, the conductor was also safe. Tipped off by Albert Speer that he was about to be picked up by the Gestapo, he escaped to Switzerland in early February. His life spared, Furtw\u00e4ngler\u2019s postwar career and posthumous reputation were, however, clouded in ignominy.<\/p>\n

Furtw\u00e4ngler and his Brahms performance have been on the mind of late as the balance of power has shifted in the nation\u2019s capital and a neo-authoritarian lurch seems imminent. Granted, leaning too heavily into comparisons between past and present can be a risky business. But sometimes the effort can\u2019t be helped.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

In the years leading up to WWII, the Schauspielhaus Zurich became the last free German-speaking theatre. From 1933 on, German emigrants dominated the stage, transforming it into a kind of anti-fascist \u2018safety zone\u2019. Above is a scene from a 1939 production of Calder\u00f3n\u2019s The Great Theatre of the World, cast with actors exiled from Germany. Photo: Richard Schweizer\/Stadtarchiv Z\u00fcrich<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Now is one of those times. Elon Musk and his tech bros bankrolling last year\u2019s Republican campaign, for instance, had more than a whiff of Gustav Krupp, Fritz von Opel, and other Teutonic industrialists banding together to fund the Nazi\u2019s 1933 seizure of power. The threat that the U. S. government is building, essentially, concentration camps for undocumented immigrants \u2014 and prisons in El Salvador holding deported U.S. citizens \u2014 is terrifying, as are suggestions from some now in power that court rulings contradicting a president\u2019s executive orders should simply be ignored. With each day bringing new troubles and concerns, how should we proceed?<\/p>\n

Ideally, with boldness, though that quality seems to be in short supply, especially in the arts world. What a far cry from 2016 when, within hours of the shock Election Day result, Toni Morrison\u2019s quote that \u201cthis is precisely the time when artists go to work \u2014 not when everything is fine, but in times of dread\u201d started making the rounds. Eight years on, complacency and resignation seem to be the order of the day.<\/p>\n

Considering last November\u2019s result, perhaps that\u2019s to be expected. The American people weighed their options and made a clear-eyed choice. They knew \u2014 or think they know \u2013what they\u2019re getting. Unlike the last time, there\u2019s no question whether 2024 was an aberration or not.<\/p>\n

But while the electorate\u2019s verdict may give temporary sanction to questionable policies, it doesn\u2019t make right violations of what our sixteenth president invoked as the \u201cnatural law.\u201d Villainizing the \u201cother,\u201d demonizing immigrants, discriminating against the poor and needy, curtailing LGBTQ rights, ignoring the climate crisis, gutting ethical standards for public officials and protections for the general population \u2014 these and more have all been done before. As we should know by now, they entail deleterious consequences if left unchecked.<\/p>\n

The Role of Art in Turbulent Times<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leonard Bernstein conducting a performance of Candide<\/em>. Photo: Operalia.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

What, then, if anything, have the arts got to say to the moment? Is there any right way to fight this repression? Or do such efforts amount to little more than shouting into the void?<\/p>\n

When it comes to classical music, particularly, the idea that the genre can speak to the moment in purposeful, moral ways may strike some as surprising \u2014 if not outright ludicrous. After all, this art form is hardly part of the cultural mainstream and stereotypically appears as the disposable plaything of the rich and powerful, not the masses.<\/p>\n

On top of that, music \u2014 of any style \u2014 is not policy. It doesn\u2019t write legislation, enforce the law, or set immigration quotas. No symphony or power ballad is going to get Congress to grow a spine and assert its Constitutional role as a check on an out-of-control Executive.<\/p>\n

Be that as it may, this niche field has more than a few relevant things to say to our times. Certainly, many of its most noted practitioners held views that resonate with its urgent demands; often enough, these are reflected in their music.<\/p>\n

The esoteric customs of Mozart\u2019s freemasonry may remain obscure and unfamiliar. But that movement\u2019s emphasis on reason, fairness, and justice permeate various of the composer\u2019s mature works, most notably Die Zauberfl\u00f6te<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Similarly, Beethoven, despite the aristocratic airs he occasionally appropriated was, fundamentally, a republican of the 19th<\/sup>-century mold, opposed to monarchy and broadly supportive of what Abraham Lincoln would later describe as \u201cgovernment of the people, by the people, and for the people.\u201d The finale of his Ninth Symphony gives voice to some of these sentiments, though Beethoven\u2019s greatest hymn to justice and equality came some twenty years earlier in the form of his only opera, Fidelio<\/em>. In it, the political prisoner Florestan \u2014 incarcerated for exposing the corruption of the prison governor, Don Pizarro \u2014 is rescued from certain death by the courage of his wife, Leonore, and the timely arrival of the righteous minister Don Fernando.<\/p>\n

Examples don\u2019t just come to us from the far distant past.<\/p>\n

Leonard Bernstein lent his name and image to all manner of causes, mostly progressive, and never shied away from making big statements, either spoken or musical. True, these were sometimes embarrassing and periodically contradictory.<\/p>\n

But the caricatures that grew up around him belied Bernstein\u2019s often deep engagement with the details of the issues at hand. Take his most controversial composition, Mass<\/em>. For all the distractions its alleged moments of sacrilege provoke, this is a score in which a Jewish secular humanist demonstrates a firmer grasp of biblical commands to put faith into action and for individuals to act as peacemakers than most Christians do.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Audra McDonald in the final moments of LA Opera\u2019s 2007 production of\u00a0 Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny<\/em>. Photo by Robert Millard.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Meanwhile, Kurt Weill\u2019s critiques of capitalism\u2019s excesses and injustices with Bertolt Brecht also date from living \u2014 albeit barely living \u2014 memory. A small body, covering just six years and a half-dozen major works, those efforts remain timely and trenchant, especially their 1930 masterpiece, Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Set in a boomtown someplace in the imagined American West, Mahagonny is a place where anything goes \u2014 except a lack of money. In its final act, as one of the lead characters, Jim, awaits trial, a murderer is set free. Jim, however, is sent to the gallows for not being able to pay his bar tab.<\/p>\n

The Challenges Facing Arts Institutions Today<\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps Andris Nelsons will see fit to add Weill and Brecht\u2019s indictment of the love of money to his repertoire with the Boston Symphony Orchestra in the next year or two. Maybe Boston Lyric Opera will do the same.<\/p>\n

Or maybe not: the big money that funds these cultural apparatuses tends to ensure that their institutions remain impervious to change, not to mention averse to embracing social agendas the more sensitive among their number (or ours) might deem objectionable. At the very least, these attitudes encourage the fundamental conservatism of the nation\u2019s major institutions.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re aided by audiences and donors, who generally \u2014 though not always \u2014 prefer safe and familiar to challenging and provocative. Yet while the comfort to be derived from the music of Schubert, Brahms, Debussy, and others is as necessary today as ever, to only find safe haven in the repertoire means, often enough, to miss its larger point.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Leo Tolstoy and Maxim Gorky in 1900. Both writers would agree \u2014 in different ways \u2014 that art served a didactic purpose. Photo: Wiki Common<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Historically, those who control the levers of power \u2014 even the most low-born among them \u2014 have intuited this, often more readily than their better-enlightened peers. In a 1946 Q&A with his apparatchiks, Josef Stalin cited Tolstoy (\u201cnot for nothing did Lev Tolstoy say that art and literature is a strong form of indoctrination\u201d) before going on to declare that \u201cthere is no art for art\u2019s sake. There are no and cannot be \u2018free\u2019 artists, writers, poets, dramatists, directors, and journalists standing above a society. Nobody needs them. Such people don\u2019t and can\u2019t exist.\u201d<\/p>\n

Why the menacing, fearful tone at the end? Perhaps because the dictator understood on some level Aristotle\u2019s maxim that \u201cthe aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance.\u201d Hence the Soviet Union\u2019s slippery definitions of acceptable art. Hence the Zhdanov Decree. Hence the repeated purges of dissident artists (and many others).<\/p>\n

Stalinist Russia is, thank goodness, a far cry from where the United States stands at the beginning of 2025. There\u2019s no guarantee \u2014 as yet \u2014 that that\u2019s where we\u2019re headed. Even so, the speed with which rights long taken for granted (like the right to free expression) can erode, especially in the face of an aggressive, anti-democratic agenda like Project 2025 coupled with a reactionary Supreme Court and an impotent, demoralized opposition, provides more than a little cause for concern.<\/p>\n

Mencken\u2019s Critique: American Values Then and Now<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Gadfly H.L. Mencken: \u201cHallelujah, the desire of America\u2019s plain folks has been granted.\u201d Photo: Wiki Common<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

H.L. Mencken likely wouldn\u2019t be surprised at our current predicament. \u201cThird-rate men,\u201d the Sage of Baltimore bemoaned in a 1922 essay, \u201cexist in all countries, but it is only here that they are in full control of the state, and with it all of the national standards.\u201d<\/p>\n

One can only imagine what Mencken would have had to say about Trump. But the late slide in civic values is nothing new. In the same article, Mencken offered an assessment of \u201cthe normal Americano\u201d a hundred years back. It\u2019s one worth quoting at length:<\/p>\n

\n

He likes money and knows how to amass property, but his cultural development is but little above that of the domestic animals. He is intensely and cocksurely moral, but his morality and his self-interest are crudely identical. He is emotional and easy to scare, but his imagination cannot grasp an abstraction. He is a violent nationalist and patriot, but he admires rogues in office and always beats the tax-collector if he can. He has immovable opinions about all the great affairs of state, but nine-tenths of them are sheer imbecilities. He is violently jealous of what he conceives to be his rights, but brutally disregardful of the other fellow\u2019s. He is religious, but his religion is wholly devoid of beauty and dignity.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Depressing though the inevitable, Thucydidean conclusion appears \u2014 that, despite the ebbs and flows of the last ten decades, we\u2019re back where we started, spiritually and intellectually \u2014 the fact stands that art and music speak to all of those exasperating contradictions. That they haven\u2019t healed or purged them from the national spirit is hardly the indictment some might suppose. In fact, recognizing as much suggests that some definitions \u2014 of what art and the practice of it (\u201cthe arts\u201d) is and isn\u2019t, and what can reasonably be expected from them \u2014 are in order.<\/p>\n

First, as I noted earlier, art is not policy. It does not, at least as normally constituted, feed the hungry, shelter the unhoused, or clothe the indigent. To complain, as some do, that, because art doesn\u2019t fulfil these necessary social obligations it\u2019s little more than a disposable frivolity, is to completely miss the point: art is not meant to do any of these things.<\/p>\n

The second big misconception about art\u2019s purpose is especially pervasive in music. Like many things, this can be summed up by a hard-to-define German term, Bildung<\/em>. The essential idea of Bildung<\/em> is that culture has a purifying, elevating effect on a person\u2019s character and, through that, the larger community. Widely embraced in 19th<\/sup>-century Europe, the notion was \u2014 or at least should have been \u2014 killed off by the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s two world wars.<\/p>\n

Yet it\u2019s hard to shake, in part because it overlaps with Western ideas about the relationship between morality and art that go back to at least Ancient Greece. That one\u2019s a sticky subject and it leads into any number of intellectual cul-de-sacs while entirely avoiding easy solutions.<\/p>\n

As far as music goes, what do we do with loathsome people who happen to have been great artists? Do we shun Wagner on account of his vile anti-Semitism? How about Stravinsky (on the same charge)? What is one to make of Richard Strauss and his dalliances with the Nazis? Or Handel and his portfolio that included profits drawn from investments in the 18th<\/sup>-century British slave trade? How about the wider legacy of silenced voices \u2014 of women and artists of color?<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no way around the tension these questions and similar ones provoke: the distance between the ideal works of human hands and what \u201cthe gentlemen of God\u201d (as Mencken once styled them) call Man\u2019s Fallen Nature is often real. Sometimes it\u2019s crippling. But it\u2019s an issue we\u2019ve got to face head-on, in part, because, if we wrestle with it seriously and well, those contradictions end up getting us where we need to go, to wit: pondering \u2014 and pondering deeply \u2014 matters of real import.<\/p>\n

And this, if I can define such a large subject so succinctly, is the chief object of art: to get one to think, ideally in new, transformative ways. This isn\u2019t, at least in its purest form, politically motivated; rather, it fulfills a human necessity, presenting the voice and perspective of another \u2014 sometimes the Other.<\/p>\n

To accomplish this, the arts function on multiple levels. They soothe the soul and offend the eye. They enchant, dazzle, frustrate, and provoke \u2014 sometimes all at once. But, above all, they aim to engage the critical apparatus while giving voice to the dreams, disappointments, realities, and fantasies of the human experience.<\/p>\n

This is why Stalin feared artistic freedom and sought its control. This is why the free exercise of artistic expression is so vital to a healthy society. This is why public-school arts education is so important. This is why artists have an imperative, despite any personal shortcomings, to prophetically speak truth to power. This is why, when an administration seeks to silence and sweep away any and all things it finds objectionable, well-intentioned and civically minded artists and institutions have a responsibility to stand up and make some noise.<\/p>\n

Theater as a Platform for Political Commentary<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Michelle Trainor as Mrs. Peachum in the Boston Lyric Opera\u2019s production of The Threepenny Opera<\/em>. Photo: Lisa Voll.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The most natural place to do this is in the theater and there\u2019s no shortage of examples of stage works either speaking truth to power or channeling the moment. Remarkably, several potent models come to us from the 1920s and \u201830s.<\/p>\n

One of them is George and Ira Gershwin\u2019s first political satire, the 1927 flop Strike Up the Band!<\/em> Its daffy plot skewers the United States\u2019 motivations to involve itself in World War I: in this tale, punitive tariffs on cheese lead to a war with Switzerland that\u2019s underwritten by big business. Silly and absurd? Absolutely. Frighteningly resonant nearly a century on? You bet.<\/p>\n

The next year in Berlin, Brecht and Weill unveiled The Threepenny Opera<\/em>. An update of John Gay\u2019s 18th<\/sup>-century critique of the living situation of London\u2019s poor \u2014 now with a Socialist tinge \u2014 the show spawned a number of hit tunes, including \u201cMack the Knife\u201d and \u201cPirate Jenny,\u201d in the process highlighting the absurdities, still very much with us, of society\u2019s treatment of much of the 99%.<\/p>\n

A decade later, Marc Blitztein \u2014 who\u2019s 1953 English-language translation of The Threepenny Opera<\/em> revived that work\u2019s fortunes \u2014 brought Brechtian sensibilities directly into American musical theater with The Cradle Will Rock<\/em>. Again, greed, corruption, and hypocrisy underline an allegorical tale in which, at the end, an oppressed majority rises up to assert itself.<\/p>\n

The world of instrumental music is necessarily more abstracted, its interpretations more varied: after all, Hitler and Churchill both appropriated Beethoven during World War II. Yet, peel away the layers of tradition and complacency that shrouds much of the repertoire and even the most familiar of it \u2014 the symphonies of Mahler, the piano sonatas of Brahms, the string quartets of Haydn \u2014 takes on new meaning and perspective.<\/p>\n

At the same time, there\u2019s plenty that\u2019s been written since 1945 that speaks to the anxieties of our shared recent past, though much of it flies under the radar.<\/p>\n

Karl Amadeus Hartmann\u2019s output, for instance, has been all but neglected since his death in 1963. But this Munich-born composer, who spent the years of the Reich undergoing what he called an \u201cinternal exile,\u201d potently channeled the tumultuous experiences of his life into his music. Some years ago, I wrote about<\/a> his seething Symphony No. 6, a two-movement essay dating from the early \u201850s that packs a world of terror and beauty into only twenty-five minutes. It\u2019s music that\u2019s well worth seeking out, as are other Hartmann scores, like the Concerto funebre<\/em> and Piano Sonata No. 2.<\/p>\n

Likewise vital is Frederick Rzewski\u2019s mammoth set of piano variations, The People, United, Will Never Be Defeated<\/em>. Based on a revolutionary Chilean anthem, the piece is, on the one hand, a virtuoso tour-de-force that might be rightly regarded as the first and last word in 20th<\/sup>-century keyboard technique.<\/p>\n

But, much more than that, it is an absorbing, sweeping deconstruction of a song about the masses banding together and, collectively, creating a better life. After taking apart its strands, Rzewski rebuilds them, as it were, brick by brick. The imposing edifice that emerges at the end seems inevitable and sounds impregnable.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Important as examples from the past are, our day ultimately requires a body of music from artists that continues the tradition of boldly speaking to the time. In recent years, some of those who have proven most successful in this have hailed from two populations that have, historically, been sidelined by the classical music establishment: women and composers of color.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s still too soon to say if the effort begun in the late 2010s to belatedly address the systemic neglect of composers like Louise Farrenc, Amy Beach, William Grant Still, Florence Price, George Walker and others is going to stick or if, in another year or two, the enterprise will peter out. Those names (and others) are increasingly before the public, their music increasingly recorded and by leading individuals and groups, not just those of the second- or third tier.<\/p>\n

Programming, though, remains a touchy issue, whether in Boston, New York, or Chicago. Too often, a novelty aspect prevails and this repertoire is isolated: either shunted off to a single concert or lumped all together for one weekend in a season. It\u2019s good to hear this stuff, the thinking seems to go, but heaven forbid it rub elbows with Beethoven or Tchaikovsky, Stravinsky or Copland.<\/p>\n

But, like most things of value, this fare benefits from just such associations, as the BSO\u2019s 2023 pairing of Carlos Simon\u2019s Four Black American Dances<\/em> and Beethoven\u2019s Symphony No. 7 attested. Far from being overshadowed by the older work, Simon\u2019s opus more than held its own, the contrasts between his style and Beethoven\u2019s emphasizing just how much the younger composer had imbued these seemingly \u201clight\u201d musical idioms with serious musical content.<\/p>\n

One of the most commendable things about Simon and his generation \u2014 composers like Jessie Montgomery, Allison Loggins-Hull, and James Lee III, as well as performers like Randall Goosby, Davon Tin\u00e9s, and Julia Bullock \u2014 is their willingness and ability to fulfill the role of the citizen-artist. To attend a recital by Tin\u00e9s or Bullock means, for certain, to experience first-rate music making. But their programming is even better, often giving voice to the past in ways that powerfully echo in the present.<\/p>\n

Simon and several of his colleagues also write music that responds directly to our times. This can be a tricky needle to thread: the list of canonic repertoire composed in reply to current events in any era is awfully short. But when it\u2019s done carefully (as in, say, Richard Strauss\u2019s Metamorphosen<\/em>), the results speak for themselves.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the case with several of Simon\u2019s compositions, such as Requiem for the Enslaved \u2014 <\/em>a meditation on the 1838 sale of 272 enslaved men, women, and children by Georgetown University (where the composer now serves on the faculty) that draws on Spirituals, Catholic liturgy, and the spoken word \u2014 and An Elegy: A Cry from the Grave<\/em>. The last was written in response to the murders of Trayvon Martin, Eric Garner, and Michael Brown, and continues the tradition of the American instrumental lament that goes back at least to Barber and Walker. Mournful and reflective but not despairing, its unsettled chromaticism recalls Brahms but avoids predictable resolutions.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no shortage of more overtly political efforts, either. Loggins-Hull\u2019s Homeland<\/em>, for instance, ruminates on the composer\u2019s experience of feeling like a stranger in her own country, at one point offering a distorted quotation of \u201cThe Star-Spangled Banner.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s Julia Wolfe, whose subject matter often traffics in familiar totems from the national mythology: Steel Hammer<\/em> (based on John Henry folklore), Anthracite Fields<\/em> (coal mining), Fire in my Mouth<\/em> (the aftermath of the 1911 Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire), Her Story<\/em> (women\u2019s suffrage). In the process, Wolfe\u2019s rock- and Minimalist-influenced language brings the past\u2019s timeless themes into present, often hauntingly and dramatically.<\/p>\n

Boston\u2019s Arts Institutions Can Embrace the Challenge<\/strong><\/p>\n

As it happens, Boston\u2019s big musical institutions are well-poised to meet the moment, if they choose.<\/p>\n

Simon is the BSO\u2019s Composer Chair and Andris Nelsons has shown a clear interest in both presenting the music of our time and advocating for up-and-coming composers. What might happen next could be a more thorough-going thematic integration of old, new, and unfamiliar. How about, say, William Grant Still\u2019s \u201cAfro-American\u201d Symphony paired with some Shostakovich? Or Jessie Montgomery and Anna Clyne sharing an evening with Haydn?<\/p>\n

Better: bring artists like Bullock and Tin\u00e9s to Symphony Hall and have them curate programs with Simon, Nelsons, and the orchestra, like what Esa-Pekka Salonen began at the San Francisco Symphony before that institution faced a major financial crisis. The BSO seems to be in stronger fiscal shape. With Chad Smith now settled in at its helm, why not strike out and try something fresh?<\/p>\n

Then there are the city\u2019s scrappy opera companies.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

White Snake Projects Music Director Tianhui Ng in action. Photo: Kathy Wittman<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Both Boston Lyric Opera and White Snake Projects have, in recent years, engaged aggressively with timely concerns. The latter, which styles itself as Boston\u2019s \u201cactivist opera company\u201d has carved out a particularly notable position as an incubator of new works. Sometimes goofily and whimsically, but always with vigor and purpose, the troupe has embraced its mission, recently announcing a new season that focuses on the climate crisis.<\/p>\n

BLO\u2019s reckonings with questions of identity, appropriation, and gender in the standard canon have met with mixed results. Even so, the company\u2019s willingness to boldly address these issues is admirable. Like WSP, their upcoming March offering contends with environmental concerns, this time via the music of Antonio Vivaldi.<\/p>\n

Though their offerings are fewer and farther between, Odyssey Opera\u2019s programming regularly touches home, too. The company\u2019s October 2024 presentation of the other two Gershwin political satires \u2014 Of Thee I Sing<\/em> and Let \u2018em Eat Cake \u2014 <\/em>could hardly have come at a better moment. Similarly, Odyssey\u2019s 2023 production of Tobias Picker\u2019s Awakenings<\/em> hauntingly brought to life questions of medicine, science, and ethics.<\/p>\n

And let\u2019s not forget smaller local ensembles: chamber groups, choral assemblies, new music ensembles, and the like. The Cantata Singers, for instance, recently announced a March program focusing on the climate. And, a bit further afield, the Worcester Chamber Music Society is offering a Black History Month concert that includes music by Simon, Loggins-Hull, Lee, and Adolphus Hailstork.<\/p>\n

For the most part, these efforts haven\u2019t been of the tub-thumping variety. And maybe they mostly needn\u2019t be: the Boston Symphony\u2019s recent traversal of the complete Beethoven symphonies offered plenty of opportunity to draw philosophical and extra-musical conclusions. But it did that without any assisted guidance from the podium or the program booklet.<\/p>\n

When such things are needed, though, Boston\u2019s blessed to have a conductor like Benjamin Zander. His eloquent spoken introductions to the music he conducts with the Boston Philharmonic (most of it firmly canonical) illuminates details and contexts that might otherwise be lost to the listener, both casual and experienced. Those talks often underline the shared concerns of generations across time and space, reminding us that we\u2019re not alone and that, as the Kohelet puts it, \u201cthere is nothing new under the sun.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Call for the Arts to Comfort, Inspire, Instruct, and Help Lead<\/strong><\/p>\n

That said, there\u2019s always a danger, in discussions like these, to slip into a utopian mindset. If the right music is played, the correct messages conveyed, then the audience will respond and, a la The Cradle Will Rock<\/em>, rise up as one at the end. The crowd in the theater flows into the streets, the masses see the light, and, sure as day follows night, the proper kind of change ensues.<\/p>\n

The reality is usually far grimmer.<\/p>\n

Bildung<\/em> didn\u2019t save Europe\u2019s Jews or spare the globe the ravages of multiple world wars. Weill and Brecht were part of an illustrious exodus of artists who fled post-1933 Germany. Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and countless others were forced to divine the impenetrable labyrinth of Soviet artistic policy at their peril. Even the dream of art spurring the mind into action has limited provenance: just ask the culturally literate Soviet audiences who heard Shostakovich\u2019s Fifth Symphony under Stalin, Khrushchev, and Brezhnev.<\/p>\n

Besides, it\u2019s not as though one side of the political divide has a monopoly on making artistic statements. Wagner and Beethoven were made to speak for Hitler. John Powell, for one, freely channeled his racism into his music. Today, any number of artists vigorously embrace anti-equality, -immigrant, and -leftist viewpoints. What\u2019s more, the foes of reason, decency, and good-faith arguments are more than adept at manipulating outrage. Where does that leave us?<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Andris Nelsons conducts the BSO in a performance of Wake Up! Concerto for Orchestra<\/em> by Carlos Simon. Photo: Michael J. Lutch<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Hopefully more clear-eyed as to the challenges ahead than not. Music and art alone won\u2019t save us. They\u2019re not replacements for actions that people must take themselves. But they can help us along.<\/p>\n

Seventy-one days after Furtw\u00e4ngler conducted Brahms in the Musikverein, the Nazis, in a final spasm of violence, put to the sword the last members of the resistance in their custody, among them the dissident theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. As related by his biographer Charles Marsh, in his will, Bonhoeffer bequeathed a clavichord to his 15-year-old godson, Christoph, should \u201che take pleasure in it.\u201d The same day Bonhoeffer met his end, Christoph\u2019s father, the jurist Hans von Dohn\u00e1nyi, was executed in Sachsenhausen.<\/p>\n

What happened to the instrument is lost to history, but Christoph von Dohn\u00e1nyi became one of the postwar era\u2019s great conductors. In time, he followed in Furtw\u00e4ngler\u2019s footsteps, leading the Vienna Philharmonic and Vienna State Opera as well as the Berlin Philharmonic. Keeping with the family tradition, his life and career interacted energetically with the wider world: \u201cI believe it is essential to be interested in what is going on around us,\u201d he told<\/a> a journalist in 2002. As such, von Dohn\u00e1nyi\u2019s example forms an interesting counterpoint to Furtw\u00e4ngler\u2019s \u2014 after all, his conducting continued many of the same musical traditions the older maestro revered.<\/p>\n

That said, Furtw\u00e4ngler makes for a complicated scapegoat. He had legitimate reasons to remain in Germany, though, once he made his choice, he was only faced with bad options. In that, he\u2019s a more sympathetic figure than not. Indeed, as I wrote<\/a> a couple of years ago, there\u2019s more than a little bit of Furtw\u00e4ngler in all of us, \u201cquick to equivocate, justify, and play things safe \u2014 and, hopefully, to our advantage \u2014 all the while hoping for the best. Such is human nature. Courage is fleeting; moral courage, especially so.\u201d<\/p>\n

Knowing this, let us contend with the future bravely. However late the hour and however long the road ahead, the cause of standing for justice, knowledge, and freedom isn\u2019t yet doomed. Along the way, let the arts comfort, inspire, instruct, and help lead. That\u2019s what they\u2019re here for.<\/p>\n

\n

Jonathan Blumhofer<\/strong> is a composer and violist who has been active in the greater Boston area since 2004. His music has received numerous awards and been performed by various ensembles, including the American Composers Orchestra, Kiev Philharmonic, Camerata Chicago, Xanthos Ensemble, and Juventas New Music Group. Since receiving his doctorate from Boston University in 2010, Jon has taught at Clark University, Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and online for the University of Phoenix, in addition to writing music criticism for the Worcester Telegram & Gazette<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source artsfuse.org \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n

\u2018 O artigo anterior foi obtido e traduzido do site internacional da celebrity.land \u2019 Source Link <\/em><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jonathan Blumhofer However late the hour and however long the road ahead, the cause of standing for justice, knowledge, and freedom isn\u2019t yet doomed. Along the way, let the arts comfort, inspire, instruct, and help lead. That\u2019s what they\u2019re here for. Wilhelm Furtw\u00e4ngler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in 1935 with prominent Nazis in attendance. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1206546,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1206545","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-musica"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206545","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1206545"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1206545\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1206546"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1206545"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1206545"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/pt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1206545"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}