On Music and Politics

Author(s): György Ligeti

Source: Perspectives of New Music , Spring - Summer, 1978, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Spring -
Summer, 1978), pp. 19-24
Published by: Perspectives of New Music

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/832674

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide
range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and
facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at
https://about.jstor.org/terms

Perspectives of New Music is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access
to Perspectives of New Music

This content downloaded from

199.111.227.26 on Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:18:43 UTC:56 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ON MUSIC AND POLITICS

GYORGY LIGETI

Might I say something as a member of this so-called "e

circle of the avant-garde which was just addressed here? *
if young composers were to come along and do somethin
new-not simply an imitation of things done by Stockhau
Cage, Riley, Kagel, Ligeti, etc.-the composers just nam
very happy about it and that every possibility for perfor
be offered them with open arms. Speaking for myself,
always on the watch for new composers, for young peop
doing something completely different and who will say-j
said fifteen or twenty years ago: "Away with Schoenberg
to do something different"- "And now away with Boulez
hausen and Ligeti and Cage and all those fellows: we're
something completely different." I've seen and heard an
ber of scores in the last few years and my heart bleeds, f
I've found nothing totally new and nothing essentially di
I feel that the idea-a type of persecution complex-th
many composers who are not heard because they are shu
elite which exercises domination is an illusory idea. It do
respond to reality. The essence of the matter is that the
who are doing something new and essential have to demo
ity in their work, just as Boulez has done. Twenty years
Boulez brought something totally new and shocking in his

* Ligeti's remarks were made spontaneously in Darmstadt in 1

discussion which followed papers given by Carl Dahlhaus and Reinh
on aesthetic and political criteria in compositional criticism. Subseq
marks were published in German in the Darmsti~dter Beitriige zur
XIII, ed. Ernst Thomas (Mainz, 1973), pp. 42-46. This translation is offered
with the gracious permission of B. Schott's S6hne, to whom gratitude for their
kindness is herewith expressed. -Wes Blomster

This content downloaded from

199.111.227.26 on Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:18:43 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
20 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

or Le Marteau sans maitre, these works were convi

quality. And this quality is, I think, something w
of the elite expect.
But actually I wanted to talk about something qu
far as music and politics are concerned, I think ma
vails in terminology. "Music" is a word and this w
different contents. When, for example, one talks a
one possibility of functional music-and about a W
tet, then I think the only thing that brings a ma
Webern string quartet within one common concep
that both work with definite acoustic signals; tha
relations of tones. Otherwise, discussions about th
different planes. Such discussions do not get anyw
cause actually that which "music" is is a far too co
been thinking about the following facts for so
thoughts which I have not formulated and which
emerge somewhat chaotically.
When I listen to music, I perceive a very definit
text which is communicated through acoustic signa
the question is immediately asked: Indeed-and
only an optical matter? Then I am unable to exclu
score-i.e., something existing only on paper and n
rectly in any acoustic way-actually is a part of m
complex structures-I'm thinking of Bach, for exam
chorale preludes-in which a melodic line-let
worked out in canon and simultaneously a second
into it. It is hardly possible to follow this structure
nothing of the much more complicated structures
now I arrive at a question inherent in the remark
Brinkmann. I think one would have to imagine thin
is a nucleus which is musical structure in terms of
matter of sound. One doesn't really "hear" the
Schoenberg or Webern, the row is, to be sure, rele
ture, but on the immediate acoustic plane of musi
there is then a second plane and this is the scor
plane". And then there is a third plane, e.g., the t
that which the composer reveals in the program n
he keeps to himself. I'm sketching ever-broader cir
is still one more plane: part of music and of every a
which is taking place in society at this very mom

This content downloaded from

199.111.227.26 on Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:18:43 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ON MUSIC AND POLITICS 21

confusion lies for me in the following

relation between one thing and anoth
tion or, if you wish, the conditions of
tions which in Marxism constitute the
ously is related-when we talk about mu
structure, but it is not identical with
changeable. Might I offer an analogy?
thoughts. It is strange today, when it h
an absolute demand for political comm
music, but not beyond music, that th
pected from a mathematician.
Actually mathematics is not a scienc
or chemistry. It is a type of language
where between the natural sciences an
mathematics is actually an art, because
matical thought process is only of valu
It does not have to correspond to the
portion of mathematics can be applied
example, is one field where this takes
to music. We have to make a very clea
works as thought structures closed in
municated by means of acoustic signa
Musical works are related to the sur
Mozart string quartet reflects the soc
aristocracy and the ascent of rationalis
only traces of that which has happene
tet by Mozart or Haydn reactionary is
and-to a still greater degree-Haydn
(I'm thinking particularly of Haydn i
hazy). I think it would be equally in
mand upon a composer or painter or p
down: "You have to do something rele
tice! If you don't, you're a traitor!" I
for something which is not adequate.
from a mathematician: "Lay off your
to get out and fight in South America
that the mathematician or the compos
more worthwhile by concentrating up
that he closes his eyes and stops his e
which goes on in the world-this not at

This content downloaded from

199.111.227.26 on Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:18:43 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
22 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

naive confusion of various fields and against this

"Take a stand on political progress-and do it thr
well. If you don't, if you stand aside, then you're i
and with oppression !" I think erroneous logic is inv
one says: "If you're not for us, then you are
demagogy and totalitarianism.
Let me come back to mathematics and give an ex
in which certain conditions of social oppression can
thing quite progressive through transformation i
structure. It is well-known that cybernetics, an essent
day science, actually plays a practical role in the pro
through the use of computers and the cybernetic p
zation, a better life can be achieved for more peopl
began, it was actually a bad affair. It served the de
In America, John von Neumann was assigned probl
defense, i.e., the design of automatic weapons whic
enemy aircraft with greater certainty. And what
One knew that one had to have immediate signals
planes and also had to know exactly where the pla
moment when the projectile reached it. Consequent
at the plane, but somewhere else. To do this, a lar
had to be brought into a single context, including
data, e.g., the probable conduct of the pilot. A mat
tion was involved. And now just imagine-I'm b
that it was not John von Neumann in America do
English and American armies could fight against th
someone in Nazi-Germany. Would cybernetics, in
upon as something evil in terms of a thought stru
concerned with these calculations in Nazi-Germ
speaking with intentionally exaggerated blasphemy
an opponent of the Nazis, simply in terms of my b
mean is, however, that the same science, conceive
Nazi-Germany would "as science" have been of
to say, under certain conditions a reactionary situ
can give rise to a structure of thought which has a
that reason-and now I'm getting back to New
completely irrelevant to speak about the political p
actionary position of New Music. It is not progr
sense nor is it regressive, just as mathematics is nei
regressive. It is of a region which lies elsewhere. T

This content downloaded from

199.111.227.26 on Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:18:43 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
 ON MUSIC AND POLITICS 23

what it is related to life and to the social co

the so-called "broad masses"-who do not
word-do not need this music or this book o
more than a demagogic argument aimed at
of a smaller circle on the list of things to
it is a fascist, totalitarian attitude to call so
belongs to but a few people simply because
people. In America-and again I'm makin
thing blasphemous, because I really am on
lation of America-the blacks account for
tion. Now somebody might come and sa
the blacks should get out!" Consequently
workers and this elite New Music has to b
affair of 0.1 % of the population." When I
the days of Stalin and Zdhanov, they to
against the people, because you're doing so
esoteric. Come on, write songs and marches
the reason for my last remark.
As a child I lived in Rumania, which th
bad country with oppression of the worker
royal hymn composed by some Austrian co
commissioned it in the previous century fr
one else. In the Rumanian monarchy, in an
feudal country, this royal hymn, in terms
ponent of the oppression practiced there. A
I was oppressed because I had to sing thi
with my fellow pupils at the beginning an
thus I became a victim of "oppression"-
close attention: soon after World War II
a so-called socialist state-and I'd be inclined to underline "so-called"
rather than "socialist"-this hymn was banned, along with the exile
of the king, which was a truly happy event. No one was allowed to sing
it. By coincidence, this same melody at some earlier point in time had
gotten to Albania and was sung by Albanian partisans who fought
against the Italian occupation and against Mussolini; with a different
text-an Albanian text-it was sung as a song of the partisans. After
Albania was free and also became a so-called socialist land, this parti-
san song became the official hymn of Albania. What happens then
when an Albanian governmental delegation comes to Bucharest and
one is forced to play the Albanian hymn-the melody of which is

This content downloaded from

199.111.227.26 on Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:18:43 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms
24 PERSPECTIVES OF NEW MUSIC

forbidden in Rumania-at the airport? (But this

tervening remark.) My goal in telling the story is
such is neither royalist nor fascist; it is not comm
the side of the partisans. However, it can become
custom. In the Rumanian kingdom, a corrupt stat
and social injustice, this melody was included w
used toward these ends.

And now I think I'm coming to the essential thing which I wanted
to say about the political relevance of music. Music, a totally-defined
ordering of acoustic event, can through use actually become something
repressive. I refer to the Rumanian royal hymn or to the Soviet hymn,
which is likewise a component of repression. But to become this, music
needs the addition of something semantic and conceptual, for the text
and even the program belong to music as well. In the interior of music,
however, it is only a very definite structure of tones which is of con-
cern. I'm not an aesthetician; I do not know what the aesthetic criteria
of music are, but I want to come back to this point: to bring politics
into this structure is akin to bringing politics into mathematics. Mathe-
matics can-indirectly-be a political tool. For example, through cer-
tain mathematical methods an agency of espionage or defense might
build an apparatus to be used for the purpose of oppression. But
mathematics itself does not oppress. And it is equally true that music
in itself does not oppress; neither is it democratic nor anti-democratic.
To be sure, certain definite injustices are subject to political criticism
in their relation to musical society. But please leave music itself out of
it! Don't confuse musical structure with social and economic concerns
which are on a different plane!

This content downloaded from

199.111.227.26 on Mon, 26 Apr 2021 19:18:43 UTC
All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms