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INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 1/83

Germany
Paul Hamburger
Marxist musicians
Hanns Eisler and Hans Werner Henze

With its non-verbal vocabulary and gram- of his craftsmanship lie skin-deep under a proved stultifying, resulting in an obstinate
mar, music doesn't give much of a handle to layer of 'social realism'. emptiness. But in other works, Eisler's
the political censor. At most, it can be found Of course, had Shostakovich and narrowness of purpose, allied to his vast
'guilty by association'; that is, culpable of Prokofiev been radical innovators, they gifts as a composer, liberated latent powers
consorting with unwelcome. texts, or of would have wilted away under censorship and helped him to achieve a rude, crude
sheltering behind a wall of advanced tech- (imagine a Schoenberg in Moscow). But as greatness not given to those who are 'social
niques impenetrable, but suspect to the it was, their style thrived (though it is heart- realists' in the first place, and composers in
censorious ear. less to say so) under state oppression, just as the second.
It is not these techniques in themselves Mozart's style thrived under the pressure of Naturally, all this was swept away by the
that annoy the censor, but the air of exclu- the market place, forcing him to use the Nazis. Their censorship of music, based on
siveness they exude, the purported removal lingua franca of his age as the long-distance racial as well as on socio-aesthetic criteria
of music's message from the people. In other carrier upon which to load the well-wrapped (if this isn't too grand a word) was the most
words, the masses are deemed ineducable in tokens of his genius. For an artist to prosper senseless suppression of all times, rivalled
areas that do not seem vital to the interest of under oppression, certain conditions must only by the ban on Wagner in present-day
the state — in those deemed vital, they'd obtain: a) the oppressor, if a bureaucrat, Israel.
better be educable! must be stupid enough; b) if a consumer, As an emigrant in New York and Holly-
This kind of censorship, taking immediate must be snobbish enough to swallow certain wood during the Second World War, Eisler
appeal as its sole yardstick, operates both unintelligible manifestations of greatness; experienced the 'democratic' form of cen-
in the East and West; here through the con- c) the creator must be a genius of a special sorship: neglect of both his advanced and
voluted but deadly channels of commercial- kind adept at dissimulation and not ashamed . populist music, except for some commissions
ism, there through the acuter dictates of of compromises which, though they may by leftist film-makers, and eventually depor-
state control. To be sure, nowadays a pro- look pragmatic, are in reality artistic con- tation from the USA after being investigated
gressive Soviet composer like Alfred quests. by the House Committee on Un-American
Schnittke can get by; his works are published, Although, to his own good, the complete Activities. Yet during his days in exile,
and the interest they arouse in the West may self-knowledge of a Mozart was denied to Eisler wrote what is perhaps his greatest
be construed as a not unwelcome acknowl- him, Hanns Eisler was in fact such an music, the Hollywood Elegies and other
edgement of Soviet culture. And in Poland artistic personality. Throughout his life cycles to words by Brecht, and his settings
and Hungary, no obstacles are put in the he was torn between the intellectually satis- of Holderlin and Anacreon. Homelessness
way of avant-garde composers like Penderecki fying twelve-note technique he had learned concentrated Eisler's mind wonderfully,
and Kurtag, performed on either side of the as one of the most self-willed, though none serving as a shield against both exploitation
Iron Curtain. the less favoured students of Schoenberg, and contempt.
State censorship in the late forties and and a sense of obligation towards the musical Choosing, in 1950, to live in East
early fifties, when Andrei Zhdanov laid weal of the proletariat laid upon him by his Germany, Eisler continued to pour out
down the law as spokesman of the Central generous heart. music which, as he said in a lecture, 'address-
Committee of the Communist Party, was In his excellent (and well translated) book es itself above all to the workers'. With more
certainly t o u g h e r . Prokofiev and on the composer, Albrecht Betz quotes from optimism than realism, he continues: 'For
Shostakovich, accused of 'formalism' (ie an article Eisler wrote in 1927 for the Berlin the workers are not naive, and they learn
decent composing in up-to-date techniques) paper Rote Fahne, at a time when he was quickly ... they are eager for innovation;
recanted, or pretended to recant. But how much preoccupied with Marxist theory: they have learnt how necessary are change,
much did their later, would-be-conformist 'The most significant thing about modern transformation, multiplicity of methods and
works actually lose through state censor- music is this: in the years following the war, mobility'. However, with the consolidation
ship? The decrees just taught them to culti- in nearly all the arts, a number of revolution- of East Germany as part of the communist
vate a populist veneer beneath which, by ary artists have appeared who in their work block, Zhdanov's decrees caught up with
way of a newly discovered compositional have drawn genuinely revolutionary conclu- Eisler. His own libretto for a planned Faust
technique, their individuality survived, and sions from the social situation. In music opera was condemned by the Academy of
sometimes even flourished. One could this has not happened and is not happening... Arts as 'negative and formalist', and the
argue, with somewhat cynical disregard Among musicians the only thing to have opera banned before any music had been
for personal suffering, that the late works spread has been a slushily petty-bourgeois written. Eisler's last years were spent in
of these composers gained in substance attitude or else worldly-wise nihilism ... An Vienna, and then again in Berlin, after a par-
under the mask of dissimulation they were art which loses its sense of community there- tial reconciliation with the authorities.
forced to wear. Shostakovich, in particular, by loses itself.'
was a man of brooding melancholy, shot Eisler's response as a composer brought Hanns Eisler — Political Musician by
through with irony. In his late-period works, forth a series of workers'songs and choruses, Albrecht Betz, transl. Bill Hopkins.
the greatness of his soul and the perfection and incidental music to plays by Brecht. In Cambridge University Press, pp 362. £25
some of this music, the self-denial or 'self- Music and Politics — Collected Writings
Paul Hamburger is a professional pianist and censorship' this former purveyor of hyper- 1953-81 by Hans Werner Henze, transl.
music critic sensitive 'bourgeois' art imposed on himself Peter Labanyi. Faber andFaber, pp 286. £15
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INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 1/83

Germany Marxist musicians

Hans Werner Henze liberal school-fellows found ways of circum- Hanns Eisler
venting the Nazi censorship of whole tracts
Eisler's polemical mind, as revealed in his of the fine arts, and in secret filled in the gaps arbiter of what's right in contemporary
writings and in the versatility of his musical left in their education. In an autobiographical music (ie Webern, almost exclusively).
methods, needed politics both as an inspira- sketch, Henze says: 'You could still get hold Henze is very amusing on the censorship
tion and as an impediment, producing the of Hindemith's works under the counter; exercised by the 'guardian angels' of the
friction that makes the sparks fly. The you could order them from Schott's, for musical world:
various kinds of censorship under which he they published Hindemith right tip to the 'Everyone needs them. They need us. It is
'suffered' were a necessary cog in his creative outbreak of war, until postal services to the all a question of personal connections. You
mechanism. United States were stopped.' Or, during his must be noticed, you must please, be sym-
The ways of the Muse are mysterious. military service: 'Occasionally, if I was on pathetic, amenable, and must justify hopes.
Francis Poulenc, an exact contemporary duty as a wireless operator, I could listen to Being "nice" is everything; you may be
(Poulenc:/1899-1963, Eisler: 1898-1962) was music by Stravinsky, Berg and Schoenberg,. scheming, but not impertinent. A good
a non-dialectic, a-political bourgeois com- even though this was forbidden by military listener, one who gratefully takes up hints
poser of about the same stature. What he law.' And again: 'In 1940 a classmate in (woe betide those who don't!); modesty is in
needed was some youthful anti-romanticism, Bielefeld, son of the town's chief librarian, order; the angels (later also playing the roles
a dash of cabaret, a middle-aged I'art-pour- regularly used to smuggle out of the public of functionaries, managers, impresarios, de-
I'art refinement, and an old-age French- library banned books which had been re- partmental directors and presidents) are
traditional ' Catholicism. With neither of moved from the shelves. So we read paternalistic friends, who know what you
these diametrically opposed composers does Wedekind, Hofmannsthal, Werfel, Trakl, ought to do. Generously they distribute
biography, of life or mind, furnish a yard- Mann, Heym, and Brecht too . . . and were their gifts in the form of contracts . . . Occa-
stick of artistic achievement. fascinated by these works, which were about sionally it becomes difficult to find your way
Hans Werner Henze, born in 1926, is a human beings and not monsters . . . A time around: does what you do still belong to
fairly close example of a socially committed of learning and contraband culture.' you, or is it already what the entrepreneurs
composer of the generation after Eisler. Like After the war, Henze studied feverishly to want?'
Eisler, he is also a fluent writer and polemi- become a composer, and all Germany did Rebelling against institutional thinking,
cist, and his essays, in some cases based on likewise to make up for lost ground. At against the banishment of the composer into
programme-notes to performances of his first, there reigned a spirit of relief, open- an ivory tower, but also against the re-
music, have now been collected in one mindedness, helpfulness; but soon a new militarisation of West Germany, Henze in,
volume, in a very readable translation from 'orthodoxy' established itself, as exemplified 1955 moved to Italy, where he has lived
the original German. by the modern-music sections of German since, in Ischia, Naples and Rome, and
Growing up in Brunswick during the radio stations, broadcasting esoteric music lately as director of the Montepulciano
war — he was actually taken prisoner by the late at night, and by the Darmstadt Summer Festival, a unique mixture of professional
British in 1945 — Henze and his like-minded School which soon turned itself into a rigid and amateur music-making.

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INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 1/83

Marxist musicians Germany


human discord as his point of departure, discordant sounds ... It is a leftist
Bugbears Mr Lebrecht has risked ignoring some bedlam instead of human music. The
and enemies great musical figures untouched by
controversy. 'Controversies are the very
inspiring quality of good music is
sacrificed in favour of petty-bourgeois
In Retreats, Routs and Retrenchments — life's blood of classical music,' he writes, formalist cerebration, with pretence at
one of a dozen chapters that make up Mr 'without them, it would soon be as dead originality by cheap clowning. This
Lebrecht's book Discord — we observe as the daguerreotype, the music hall and game may end badly.
the testy inventor of the 12-tone system of the iambic pentameter.' One is tempted to And for thousands it did. The Pravda
musical composition, Arnold Schoenberg, say that books about classical music might article, entitled Chaos Instead of Music,
protesting against Thomas Mann's be, but the music itself seems to have a became the cornerstone of the bizarre v
acknowledgement of him: lot of life left in it. excesses of zhdanovshchina, the
He calls me 'a (a!) contemporary After the serious opening the amusing reverberations of which are felt to this
composer and theoretician'. Of course, part soon gets under way, but there is no day, exemplified by defections of
in two or three decades one will know doubting Mr Lebrecht's serious intent, as distinguished artists from Russia as those
which of the two was the other's for instance when we reach the first hint of Shostakovich's conductor son Maxim
contemporary. of the odiousness so well known to us in and pianist grandson Dmitri.
To which the dignified author of Doctor the twentieth century, transcending the Mr Lebrecht has a fine sense of the
Faustus, the great hovel whose fictional relatively benign personal quarrels and paradoxical, as when he describes side by
12-tone composer Leverkuhn was the intrigues that form the bulk of the book. side Toscanini's implacable opposition to
original cause of the row, replied at the This is the notorious Judaism in Music contemporary tyrants and his own
time: article by Wagner, first published under a tyrannical ways as a conductor: Toscanini
You are attacking a bugbear of your pseudonym in 1850. Mr Lebrecht 'was, in campaigns against suspected
imagination and I am not it, so there poignantly asks 'why Wagner elected at collaborators with an evil regime, as
is no desire for revenge. If you want to this crisis in his life (his political exile unremitting as in his pursuit of orchestral
be my enemy completely — you will following the collapse of the 1848 perfection. He valued moral integrity as
not succeed in making me your enemy. uprising) to attack, not his numerous highly as tonal purity ... Enemy of
At the very beginning of the book Mr opponents, but the Jews, who numbered dictators, he was a tyrant to his
Lebrecht complains that 'the role of social several of his few adherents', and adds, 'it orchestras; sworn opponent of
discord in the development of music has was also an opportunity to slander on persecution, he hounded his enemies
been minimised by the majority of ethnic grounds individual adversaries with mercilessly'.
musical historians . . . they have tended to whom no specifically musical fault could The book testifies to Mr Lebrecht's
shy away from the more human aspects be found'. amazingly wide and detailed reading. One
of a composer's activities . . . To overlook Nearly a century later the same blind can at times take issue with his verdicts
them is to distort any understanding of prejudice backed by almost unlimited on some minor, often esoteric, points,
both the music and the man; to power signalled the excesses that were to such as whether the 'Divine Bohemian'
fictionalise them (as for instance in films befall, among others, the composer of Myslivecek had VD or not — opinions
like Lisztomania or plays like Peter Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk: when on a cold differ while Myslivecek himself, possibly
Shaffer's Amadeus) is to risk January day in 1936 Shostakovich, on with good reason, maintained he had
sensationalism'. Mr Lebrecht sets out to returning from an official visit abroad to broken his nose in an accident; either way
redress the balance and 'by using original promote Soviet music, wandered down to he lost his nose to a quack surgeon.
documents and first-hand accounts . . . the newsagent at the railway station at Coupled with an extensive bibliography
avoid the latter trap'. His aim is to Archangelsk he found Pravda attacking and an index, Mr Lebrecht's book is not
'broaden the appreciation of the vibrant his opera: only a 'good read', but also a mine of
humanity that has expressed itself in Officious music critics have praised the information — a reference book with a
music'. Fair enough, although doubts opera (Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk) to most pleasing difference. Karel Janovicky
linger: some of us prefer the music to the the skies . . . but audiences were (Discord by Norman Lebrecht is published
man behind it. Moreover, by taking bewildered by a stream of deliberately by Andre Deutsch. 252 pages £12.95)

But flight brought no lasting relief. To the support of Marxist composers such as then his Italian style — or rather, array of
quote from an article on 'Art and Revolu- Paul Dessau and Luigi Nono, Henze styles — and his creative egotism suggested
tion': 'In Italy I built up a world of my own, 'learned to see contexts and to see myself the abandonment of privacy, jealousy,,
around myself and my work . . . I did not within these contexts'. In consequence of ambition at just the right moment. In con-
notice that I was obviously isolating myself, this new-found 'solidarity with the oppress- sequence, the new Henze of the_works writ-
that my music was becoming more and more ed' Henze was able to 'dismantle a whole ten for Cuba and East Germany is just as
private, that its motivations were private series of mechanisms to which I had hitherto good as any of the several old ones. Ration-
ones, that it contained private communica- been helplessly exposed. I no longer know alisations are the protective shield of the
tions, that it addressed itself to individuals, the feeling of jealousy; I am no longer per- artist, and mental rituals the leading-reins
to private beings . . . Eventually I became ill. sonally ambitious. I no longer write music to of his Pegasus — whether it be the woman-
That was something! could not get round... please myself and a few friends, but to help ising of a Liszt, the teutonising of a Wagner,
and that was perhaps the beginning of the socialism'. or the prayer-cataloguing of a Bruckner.
development of a new consciousness, or for Yet the artistic dynamism of Henze's Admittedly, Henze's Marxism is a nobler
the need of one. In autumn 1967 I went to conversion lies precisely in the need to open and more realistic ritual than many another.
Berlin to meet Rudi Dutschke, the leading up new realms of musical thought and feel- His music may actually, though marginally,
spokesman of the new German left.' ing. This prodigiously gifted, prolific, many- have eased the lot of the proletariat of Cuba,
So with the help of the student leader, and sided composer had outgrown his German, West and East Berlin. But as with Eisler, it is

29
INDEX ON CENSORSHIP 1/83

Czechoslovakia
also the middle-class listener, both of the
hidebound and the enlightened type, whose
Vratislav Brabenec, Ivan Jirous
horizons are widened by Henze's intellec-
tual and musical transmutations. For that,
you have to be good at writing scores, not
only tracts.
Banned in Bohemia
Censorship troubles there are none for The story of The Plastic People, a rock band which is seen as a threat
Henze, excepting the inscrutable attitude by the Czech authorities
of the Soviet Union. But then, Henze is not
of the orthodox faith. He is a Euro- 'Why should music be censorable?' asks months, this time on account of a speech he
Communist, for whom East Germany may Yehudi Menuhin on another page. Elsewhere gave at the opening of an unofficial art
stretch a point, and who remains a highly in this issue the reader will see that in some exhibition in which he spoke of the
interesting 'suspect' in the so-called free parts of the world even certain musical unbridgeable differences between the
world. His symphonies, concertos, operas instruments can be declared taboo by this or unofficial, and official culture.
and chamber-works are performed in that military dictatorship. In Czechoslovakia In November 1981 he was once again
London, Rome, New York, Chicago, since the early seventies it has been chiefly picked up by the police and accused of helping
Munich, Frankfurt, as well as in Leipzig and rock music that arouses the ire of the to edit an unofficial cultural magazine,
Havana. Perhaps there lies hope for us all in authorities - and those who insist on playing it Vokno C"Window'). On 9 July 1982 he was
the fact that with a composer of such truly find themselves not just banned but sentenced to three and a half years'
universal mind, censorship is reduced to imprisoned. imprisonment, to be followed by two years of
local, laughable gestures, such as the razz- Ah, but of course, one might say: if you set 'protective surveillance' when he will have to
matazz at the 1968 Hamburg premiere out to be a protest singer in a society ruled by a report daily to the police. While acknowledging
of the oratorio 'The Raft of the Medusa'. one-party dictatorship, what do you expect? authorship of some of the articles in Vokno,
Here is Henze, setting the record straight: The trouble with that line of argument is that he denied that he had played any part in its
'At the start of the concert in the Hamburg The Plastic People of the Universe and the editing, and told the court he had not given
Radio there was a "go-in" with slogans other rock groups with similarly strange permission for his articles to be published in
against consumer culture; the audience names were not protest singers at all. 'We the magazine. Although the police planted two
was bombarded with thousands of leaflets. never liked singing protest songs,' says their packets of cannabis in his home, it seems that
All this was organised by three different former saxophonist, Vratislav Brabenec, in the court did not pronounce on the drugs
groups: the Berlin SDS (Sozialistischer the interview thatfollows. All they wanted was possession charge (Article 187 of the
Deutscher Studentenbund) 'Culture and to 'do their own thing', to have 'absolute Czechoslovak Penal Code), simply sentencing
Revolution' team, members of the Hamburg musicalfreedom'. And that is the problem. In Jirous under Article 202 (Disturbing the
College of Music, and of the Hamburg SDS. a country whose regime insists on strict Party Peace) for editing Vokno. Nevertheless, in the
Then there was a poster of Che Guevara orthodoxy in every aspect of everyday life, mass media Jirous has repeatedly been
which had been attached to the podium, and any deviation from the norm is seen as a described as a 'drug addict' for propaganda
which the programme director of the Radio potential threat and must be dealt with in the purposes.
tore up out of hand. Thus the real protag- only way a police state knows. Below, we publish an interview with the
onist was this enraged radio station boss who, It is the unyielding nonconformismofThe recently exiled saxophonist, Vratislav
although he knew that the work had been Plastic People and others that has led to their Brabenec, who last year spoke in Vienna to
written in honour of Che, was unable to constant harassment, persecution and, in Paul Wilson, a former member of The Plastic
tolerate his picture hanging there. Students many cases, imprisonment. Unable to give People now back in his native Canada. The
had put the poster up. I had done nothing at public performances, they played in private interview is followed by an edited version of an
all, and hadn't planned anything of the sort; and, as often as not, were raided by the police. article written by Ivan Jirous in 1975, in which
all I wanted to do was to conduct. But that's When even the Czech security forces found it he describes the beginnings, aims and
how it turned out. Then other comrades put difficult to 'pin' a charge on a musician — as activities of the rock band whose persecution
up a red flag instead of the Che poster. I was in the latest instance of Ivan Jirous, The was to have suchfar-reaching consequences: it
now called upon by the Radio's legal adviser Plastics' artistic director and one of the few was the arrest and imprisonment of The
to have the flag removed, or else be respon- leading musicians of his generation still in Plastics in 1976 which provided the main
sible for the consequences. Thereupon I said Czechoslovakia — they simplyframed him for impetus for the birth of the Charter 77 human
I couldn't care less about the consequences, 'possessing marijuana'. rights movement the following year.
because I was not prepared to submit to First arrested in 1973, Jirous was sentenced
such blackmail. The rest was as reported in
the press — part of the choir refused to sing
to 10 months in jail. An art history graduate of
the Charles University in Prague, he then had
Vratislav Brabenec
in the presence of a red flag (!) and walked
off. While negotiations were still going on,
to take a job as a bricklayer in an agricultural
co-operative, but in 1976 was detained once
Heroes or madmen?
heavily armed riot police came in and began more, this time with the majority of The PAUL WILSON: How was the Plastics'
to beat up and arrest students . . . ' Plastic People band, and sent to prisonfor one situation when you left Czechoslovakia?
. Compared with the machinations of and a half years. At his trial, Jirous was VRATiSLAy BRABENEC: I hope you
power politics, this incident is, by and large, referred to by the prosecution as the chief understand if my answers" are somewhat
a refreshingly wholesome 'exchange of organiser of all unofficial cultural activities in cautious. I only left Czechoslovakia a month
views'. But the villain of the piece is that the country.. These were soon to develop into ago, and I have to bear in mind that
dolt of a radio boss who commissioned a what is now known as the Cultural whatever I say can be used against my
leftist parable before knowing his own Underground Movement, whose leader and friends at home. I will not be able to go into
mind. Censorship/o/Zow/flg upon encourage- foremost theoretician Ivan Jirous became. as much detail as either you or I would like.
ment: does it prefigure the end of civilisa- He was re-arrested within a few weeks of First I must stress that my emigration
tion? • his release in 1977 and again jailed for 18 does not necessarily mean the end of the
30

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