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California Studies in 20th-Century Music
Music Divided: Bartók’s Legacy in Cold War Culture
Music Divided explores how political pressures affected musical life on both sides of the iron curtain during the early years of the cold war. In this groundbreaking study, Danielle Fosler-Lussier illuminates the pervasive political anxieties of the day through particular attention to artistic, music-theoretical, and propagandistic responses to the music of Hungary’s most renowned twentieth-century composer, Béla Bartók. She shows how a tense period of political transition plagued Bartók’s music and imperiled those who took a stand on its aesthetic value in the emerging socialist state. Her fascinating investigation of Bartók’s reception outside of Hungary demonstrates that Western composers, too, formulated their ideas about musical style under the influence of ever-escalating cold war tensions.
Music Divided surveys Bartók’s role in provoking negative reactions to “accessible” music from Pierre Boulez, Hermann Scherchen, and Theodor Adorno. It considers Bartók’s influence on the youthful compositions and thinking of Bruno Maderna and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and it outlines Bartók’s legacy in the music of the Hungarian composers András Mihály, Ferenc Szabó, and Endre Szervánszky. These details reveal the impact of local and international politics on the selection of music for concert and radio programs, on composers’ choices about musical style, on government radio propaganda about music, on the development of socialist realism, and on the use of modernism as an instrument of political action.
Music Divided surveys Bartók’s role in provoking negative reactions to “accessible” music from Pierre Boulez, Hermann Scherchen, and Theodor Adorno. It considers Bartók’s influence on the youthful compositions and thinking of Bruno Maderna and Karlheinz Stockhausen, and it outlines Bartók’s legacy in the music of the Hungarian composers András Mihály, Ferenc Szabó, and Endre Szervánszky. These details reveal the impact of local and international politics on the selection of music for concert and radio programs, on composers’ choices about musical style, on government radio propaganda about music, on the development of socialist realism, and on the use of modernism as an instrument of political action.
- GenresMusic
252 pages, Hardcover
Published May 24, 2007
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December 2, 2016
While Béla Bartók died in some level of ignominy and poverty in exile in the USA in 1945, he had nonetheless become established as a great European composer even during his lifetime, with posthumous performances of the Concerto for Orchestra and Piano Concerto No.3 only cementing that reputation. However, the immediate postwar era saw two new trends in classical music on both sides of the Cold War divide, and this book by Danielle Fosler-Lussier deals with Bartók’s legacy in East and West.
In Hungary, the imposition of socialist realism on the newly Communist country by its Soviet masters meant that Bartók’s legacy had to be treated delicately. His love of folk music was seemingly congruent with the spirit of the new "people’s republic", and he could still be celebrated as a great composer. However, his chromaticism and modernist spirit was unacceptable, and while still "great", he was nevertheless decried as a mistaken artists. Many of his works were banned, and there was a struggle within state-controlled Hungarian arts circles on whether Bartók was an appropriate model for later composers. The author gives a poignant portrait of several Hungarian composers of this time, such as Endre Szervánszky, András Mihaly, and Endre Székely. Mihály was forced to engage in “self-criticism”, stating his emulation of the great master was mistaken, but he nonetheless gave many subtle (and not so subtle) hints on his true affiliations in his Cello Concerto of this time. Fosler-Lussier shows how restrictions on Bartók were the result of external, Soviet pressure, not simply Hungarian communism in itself.
The other scene that grappled with Bartók’s legacy was the Central European avant-garde associated. While the Darmstadt had no problem at all with Bartók’s modernism and admired him for it, there was a feeling that the avant-garde had moved on to new, more advanced musics like serialism. Consequently Bartók was as if placed into a museum, and while praised, few thought it legitimate to continue what he was doing. This part of the book feels comparatively slighter, and it is clear that Fosler-Lussier was most fascinated by digging through the Hungarian archives for the Eastern Bloc side of the book.
Fosler-Lussier offers two epilogues. In the first, she notes how Stalin’s death and then the more relaxed Communism that followed the failed 1956 uprising allowed all of Bartók’s music to be performed. András Mihály, who was once so browbeaten by state arts commissars, ultimately got the upper hand of sorts by using state arts funding to disseminate Bartók’s work, as well as new avant-garde music from the West. The other epilogue uses George Rochberg and his String Quartet No. 3 to show how the more diverse avant-garde scene of the 1970s led some composers to begin taking Bartók as a model again.
Music Divided comes to only about 170 pages (the rest is endnotes and index) and, as I said, can feel slight in terms of its coverage of the scene in the West. Still, the story of Bartók’s ambiguous legacy in Stalinist Hungary is a fascinating one, and Fosler-Lussier’s writing is engaging and accessible. Two of György Kurtág’s mentors play a big part in this book, and now I have a slightly better understanding of what Hungarian music was like when Kurtág (and György Ligeti) were beginning their careers).
In Hungary, the imposition of socialist realism on the newly Communist country by its Soviet masters meant that Bartók’s legacy had to be treated delicately. His love of folk music was seemingly congruent with the spirit of the new "people’s republic", and he could still be celebrated as a great composer. However, his chromaticism and modernist spirit was unacceptable, and while still "great", he was nevertheless decried as a mistaken artists. Many of his works were banned, and there was a struggle within state-controlled Hungarian arts circles on whether Bartók was an appropriate model for later composers. The author gives a poignant portrait of several Hungarian composers of this time, such as Endre Szervánszky, András Mihaly, and Endre Székely. Mihály was forced to engage in “self-criticism”, stating his emulation of the great master was mistaken, but he nonetheless gave many subtle (and not so subtle) hints on his true affiliations in his Cello Concerto of this time. Fosler-Lussier shows how restrictions on Bartók were the result of external, Soviet pressure, not simply Hungarian communism in itself.
The other scene that grappled with Bartók’s legacy was the Central European avant-garde associated. While the Darmstadt had no problem at all with Bartók’s modernism and admired him for it, there was a feeling that the avant-garde had moved on to new, more advanced musics like serialism. Consequently Bartók was as if placed into a museum, and while praised, few thought it legitimate to continue what he was doing. This part of the book feels comparatively slighter, and it is clear that Fosler-Lussier was most fascinated by digging through the Hungarian archives for the Eastern Bloc side of the book.
Fosler-Lussier offers two epilogues. In the first, she notes how Stalin’s death and then the more relaxed Communism that followed the failed 1956 uprising allowed all of Bartók’s music to be performed. András Mihály, who was once so browbeaten by state arts commissars, ultimately got the upper hand of sorts by using state arts funding to disseminate Bartók’s work, as well as new avant-garde music from the West. The other epilogue uses George Rochberg and his String Quartet No. 3 to show how the more diverse avant-garde scene of the 1970s led some composers to begin taking Bartók as a model again.
Music Divided comes to only about 170 pages (the rest is endnotes and index) and, as I said, can feel slight in terms of its coverage of the scene in the West. Still, the story of Bartók’s ambiguous legacy in Stalinist Hungary is a fascinating one, and Fosler-Lussier’s writing is engaging and accessible. Two of György Kurtág’s mentors play a big part in this book, and now I have a slightly better understanding of what Hungarian music was like when Kurtág (and György Ligeti) were beginning their careers).
Displaying 1 of 1 review