If this seriously good series has escaped your attention then rush to the iplayer now. Suzi Klein tells the story of how music and politics were entwined in the twentieth century. The first episode focuses on revolution in Soviet Russia and Weimar Germany: we have some great sequences about Weimar cabaret and avant-garde Soviet music (a symphony for factory sirens), culminating in a chilling sequence about the Horst Wessel song. The second covers Strauss’s seduction by the Nazis, and some equally scary footage on the exhibition of degenerate music in thirties Berlin. The tightrope composers walked in Soviet Russia is also set out. Klein is very knowledgeable and every ten minutes features some footage or incident you’ve never heard before. Essential viewing. Music docs of the year for me, even if you’ll never be able to enjoy Carmine Burana in quite the same way again.
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moseleymoles says
She is excellent on the complex relationship between the politics of the composers and their music, asking us the question of whether we can enjoy music independent of the views of their composers.
Blue Boy says
Agreed. Really enjoyed this. It suffered with the occasional bit of TV gimmickry like Klein smashing up an old piano, but got better with each episode. It was certainly powerful to see her singing a satirical cabaret song about the Jews, and deciding whether or not she could bring herself to sing the Horst Wessel song.
Enjoyed the Shostakovich material – unlike Stravinsky and Prokofiev he never left the Soviet Union, and the way he walked the line of (just) staying on the right side of Stalin and the authorities and kept composing is endlessly fascinating. The only pity is that they couldn’t extend it to more episodes – there’s lots more material that could be covered. Hopefully there might be a follow up.
moseleymoles says
I thought the fates of Strauss and Prokofiev and Strauss’ final work very moving. And I was completely innocent about Peter as a Young Pioneer and the Wolf as a capitalist saboteur.
Blue Boy says
Yes the Peter and the Wolf thing was new to me, as was Carmina Burana. I thought she was very fair and balanced about Strauss. As she said, most of us living under a regime like that wouldn’t be brave enough to stand up to it; we’d just try to make our way through it and keep ourselves and our families safe.
Moose the Mooche says
I think Carmina Burana is fucking boss. Do you get a song sung by a bird being roasted alive in West Side Story? You don’t. Oh no.
JQW says
Not got round to watching it yet.
There was an excellent edition of Radio 3’s Composer Of The Week a few years ago, which was dedicated to Shostakovich and his contemporaries during the 1930s. Over five hour long episodes DSCH’s struggles were covered, together with those of others. Gavril Popov’s 1st Symphony was a revelation – I tried to track down a CD of it at the time, to nought.
Moose the Mooche says
Shostakovich… the definitive example of an artist displaying double/triple/quadruplethink in fully and totally believing in Bolshevism, Stalinism, resistance to both AND “Mother Russia” and ironically commentating on all of these… while fooling Stalin into believing he was an establishment pussycat.
Bless him. Dmitri will never die.
bricameron says
Link me up,babe.
moseleymoles says
Warning may not work in Canada,
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b097f5vs
bricameron says
Bummeroonie!
rotherhithe hack says
I thought it was excellent from beginning to end. And had never heard that Vera Lynn’s radio show was pulled off during WW2 because Churchill thought it was too gloomy.