Armando Bayolo

I’ve been thinking about music and politics a lot the last few days. This should hardly be surprising to anybody who knows me and/or my work, but it’s the first time in a little bit. (The privilege to not have to think about politics in art is, to paraphrase the political philosopher, Rick James, “a hell of a drug.”) This has mostly been inspired by my teaching a course on music since World War II, which covers a lot of political art not just in the minimalism and post-minimalism portions but, really, from the very start (Darmdstadt, after all, was funded by the CIA).

Mao Tsetung, in his Talks at the Yenan Forum on Literature and Art, writes that “(t)here is no such thing as Art for Art’s Sake, art that stands above classes, art that is detached from or independent from politics.”[1] I’m normally not a big fan of Mao’s as he is far from the sympathetic figure he cuts in John Adams’ and Alice Goodman’s Nixon in China. But he makes a point with which I agree…to a point.

All art is political. To be an artist, especially in a society that does not value art beyond its ability to be monetized and exploited, is itself a political act. To attempt to write the most abstract of “absolute” musics is as political an act as Cornelius Cardew writing The Great Learning with the Scratch Orchestra (and negates the very idea of “absolute music” as a concept). 

But can art—and specifically music—change the world? Can it change minds? 

Louis Andriessen, whose music we’ve been looking at in my course this week, certainly thought so…until he didn’t. His early repetitive work was born from a radical leftist politics that set itself up against the traditional musical and capitalist establishment in The Netherlands in the 1970s (which included direct action, not just musical composition and performance). Pieces like De Volharding (1972) and, especially, Workers Union (1975) take as their inspiration, if not their reason for being, as manifestations of collective identity and action. 

In a program note for a 1983 performance of Workers Union, Andriessen writes,

“The title refers to labor movements, where the members have common interests and want to reach their goal in a persistent, hard-headed but difficult matter. The intention is to reach agreement about the road to follow, but in this long process there are often dissenting opinions and some loose the track altogether. With might and main however (sic) the majority brings the dissenters back in line with the rest.”[2]

Maja Trochimczyk, the music theorist in whose book I found this quote, comments that, “(t)he political dimensions of Workers Union would not endear this piece to any inhabitants of the Eastern block living in a society shaped by the results of a “post-Leninist” interpretation of Marxism that had as totalitarian a character as Andriessen’s work,”[3] and Richard Taruskin, writing about De Staat (1977) in The Oxford History of Western Music, justifiably brings up the inconvenient fact that 

"(t)he supposedly subversive cantata was awarded two prestigious prizes in 1977, including one from the Dutch government; and its first recording was issued by the Composers’ Voice label, a noncommercial enterprise underwritten by the same government that has awarded the composer prizes and pays his salary (as faculty at the Royal Conservatory in The Hague). The indulgent treatment Andriessen has received (and accepted) from the state his music ostensibly challenges has cast his musicopolitical agenda in an equivocal light: is it genuine activism, or is it just another show of radical chic?”[4]

They have a point. And Louis certainly seems to have known this as far back as 1978, when he said

"Music always has, if not a political, a social function. But there are politicians, also radical left ones (emphasis mine), that think a certain sort of music is right or left, good or bad for the people. That you can read in a score, from the notes, what is socially progressive and what is not. Totalitarian thinkers have made this mistake, they think they understand everything. The Greek philosopher Plato had very high opinions of music, so he found that in the ideal state certain tones shouldn’t be used anymore, because they were bad for morals, bad for soldiers, don’t even consider women. 

(…) 

Plato was mistaken. Later Hitler, Franco and other fascists, but also so-called left leaders make the same mistake. My anger about this stupidity, because that is what it is, is what you hear in De Staat when you listen to Plato’s text that I cite. My anger is also two-fold: I am also angry because I perhaps regret that Plato is wrong. If only it were true that musical renewing is dangerous to the state as Plato state in the closing chorus of De Staat. If only music had the power that Plato assigned to it. Music is very beautiful but rejecting a dictatorship is not within its reach." [5]

It is personally disappointing that Taruskin never mentions this sentiment of Louis’ (who was not only a favorite composer and influence of mine, but a collaborator and friend from 2010 on) which he could have easily found. It is clear this is something that Andriessen did seriously consider and it affected the trajectory of his work throughout the 1980s and beyond. [6] It’s disingenuous, fallacious, and withholds evidence from the reader.

But Trochimczyk’s point, born from personal experience, stands. It is a point I can empathize with, being the son of Cuban exiles who emigrated to Puerto Rico fleeing a totalitarian leftist regime. 

But I am not neoliberal. I consider myself politically leftist. I agree with many, many values in the Anarchist-Marxist continuum. But dictatorship of the proletariat is still a dictatorship! My maternal grandfather almost died working towards his family’s exit visa in one of Che Guevara’s labor camps.

 I wrote an OPERA about Che Guevara! [7]

For fifteen years I ran an ensemble, Great Noise Ensemble, which was built on values of community and egalitarianism and the programming reflected some very left-of-center values. 

But conservative (it meant something else then) voices were also welcome. And much of our activities were built around a hope, if not a belief, that music could affect change. But the commercial realities of running any kind of artistic organization often (if not always) butt heads with the political ideals of a bunch of “guerrilla new music” makers. 

Which brings me to one of the other discussions that triggered these thoughts. 

The American composer and conductor, Kevin Scott, had a lively debate going on his Facebook page (as he very often does. It’s fabulous!) in response to another composer, Ahmed Al Abaca’s response to the question of why, say, Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is programmed so often by American orchestras and, especially, to the response from music directors that “it puts butts in seats.”

Al Abaca and Scott make a great point about the “inferiority complex” Americans have “when it comes to our own composers.”[8] That we neglect them at our cultural peril. While there is something about that point that I find a little out of date (national identity in a globally interconnected world isn’t what it once was), it’s the “butts in seats” argument that got me thinking. 

The orchestra is a dinosaur. And while dinosaurs are cool, until we free non-pop music from the terrifying grip orchestras have on Western culture, contemporary composers (and so-called classical music culture) will be stuck constantly looking to the past without engaging in our present moment and culture. 

The orchestra is essentially classist. It projects a narrative of “high class” (I can’t even avoid repeating words in this argument!) that is attached to our musical culture like a malignant tumor. Its prevalence at the center of so-called classical musical activity infects everything. The orchestra itself is frozen in amber (Michael Crichton’s mosquito rather than )the dinosaurs in Jurassic Park) and few composers can escape it. Hell, even Andriessen, who repudiated it to the point of being an important catalyst in the development of Dutch “ensemble culture” yielded to its thrall at the end of his career! How could he not? They have the money and resources! 

And that’s why I find myself not unlike how Andriessen found himself in 1978: questioning this notion of the political in art. How can one engage in radically transformative action when the vast majority of the potential audience doesn’t even realize you exist? How can one even make any sort of impact when not only the audience but the very means of artistic reception are fragmented while at the same time the executives whose job is to disseminate it have trained the audience to focus on the minutiae of something as unimportant and irrelevant as “genre.” (Preach, Cowboy Carter!) How can a guy who built his career on the politically inspired “ensemble culture” of De Volharding and Askö-Schönberg by way of Alarm Will Sound and Bang on a Can keep living his ideals when he has to put food on the table and keep the rain off his head? And what role can this weird ass music I and others like me love help speak to our present moment? 

I don’t know. And I’ll probably never know. But I do take solace in knowing that others, much more committed and intelligent than me, also wrestled with this. Hell, even old Ludwig van might be horrified at what he’s become!

All art is about communication. 

The act of composing is born from a desire to reach out to others, to find like-minded people with whom to share your experience. These need not be artists themselves. If we're lucky, we find non-professionals who are attracted to our music whom we find we reach at various levels. If we're lucky. And if we're even luckier, we might hear about it. 

Music is no exception. Often, the question of how music is able to communicate anything is boiled down to the old contest between music meant to be enjoyed for its own sake ("absolute music") and music that tells a story ("program music").  

I recently, read a post on Reddit asking why so much contemporary music is “programmatic.” The poster pointing out how much new music has seemingly endless program notes about what the piece is about, etc. Program notes used to include a lot of often technical language explaining how a piece is put together. This goes back to the days not that long ago when most of our audiences were fellow professionals. But towards the turn of the century composers started reconnecting with a more general audience, and program notes got began to focus more on the piece's story.

Story, however, is not necessarily the same as narrative.

Music cannot really tell a story. Not without words. Music, after all, is not a language (in the words of the Dread Pirate Roberts, “anyone who tells you otherwise is lying or trying to sell you something”). It often behaves like one, but it lacks a common syntax and grammar that can be understood among individuals, let alone cultures. What composers have done since at least the Renaissance is to create a series of similes: symbols that suggest a certain gesture, mood, or character. Like when Back sets the text, “my God, how long! How long!” in a cantata:

The “exclamatio” here is what theorists in Bach's day would have called that leap. It's literally an exclamation. 

Or this delicious passage from Monteverdi's “The Nymph's Lament” from his 8th book of Madrigals:

The last word is “pain,” and Monteverdi sets it with a clashing dissonance that literally hurts. 

And, in the same piece, he invents this gem:

This little figure became so tied up with the idea of sadness, of lamenting, that it became literally known as the lament bass. It goes from this piece all the way up to “Hit the Road, Jack” and “Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You.” Alex Ross did a write-up about this that's very cool, if you want to dig deeper.

But what about atonal music? 

Writing music like this is itself an act of communication. It may not set out a narrative, but it tells a story. Pierre Boulez, who wrote this piece, embraced this style out of a need to get rid of “expressivity," which was part of an aesthetic that he and other artists his age thought led to the world wars that ravaged the first half of the 20th century. Pierre Boulez grew up during WWII. He grew up under occupation, around bombed out, ruined cities and the constant threat of destruction while studying in Paris. That kind of thing gets to a guy! And this is not just a communicative act but also a political one. All art, it turns out, is also political (more on that some other time). 

My point is: motivation isn't as important as results. And the result is a story. We all have a story, and music is no different. How we tell it really doesn't matter so much as long as we tell it…and tell it well.

I'm very late to the blogging party, I know. 

Because for the longest time, I've never really thought that I had much to say. Okay, that's not true. I know I have a lot to say. My friends and anyone who follows me on social media (or has figured out my Reddit identity) can tell you that I'm very opinionanted. But I've never thought anyone else cared about what I had to say. 

But three years into a new academic career and many more years of friends telling me otherwise has, I think, finally sunk in. So I'm setting up this space for sharing my thoughts and ideas on music, musicians, the state of our field, the occasional geekdom…whatever. 

I don't have any concrete plans on what to cover in this space. For now, I will simply make the invitation and welcome you to follow along as I set things down from time to time to encourage your own musings and insights. 

Welcome to my mind.