This is the flip side, more or less, to my last post, about how safe it is for an authoritarian government like China’s to encourage classical music. The repertoire from the past — all those great masterpieces — seems very safe today. There’s not much in it that could challenge anything the Chinese government wants its people to believe. And classical music has worldwide prestige, so China seems greatly cultured by encouraging it.
But today there’s a stunning piece in the New York Times, by their classical music reporter, Dan Wakin, that shows how exactly these traits of classical music can have the opposite effect. Dan writes about classical music in Palestine, about what he calls “a rising tide of interest in Western classical music” among young Palestinians.
And why is this happening? Well, for a start, it’s an escape from the ugly realities of Palestinian life. Which dovetails precisely with something I’ve noticed many times in my own far more peaceful (what an understatement!) country. People often say they like classical music because it’s calm, or because it provides a refuge from the jangles of contemporary life. To me, that sounds very much like escapism, or nostalgia, and — if this is really what classical music means in our culture — calls into question classical music’s standing as serious art. Art ought to do far more than comfort people.
But in Palestine, who could blame anyone for needing an escape? By spending your time playing the flute, as one teenager described in Dan’s piece does, you’re affirming your humanity. You don’t turn your back on the harsh realities of your life. The flute player Dan writes about said, as Dan writes, “that she felt ‘in prison’ because of travel restrictions. ‘Every time we look at this wall, we feel suffocated,’ she added.” But she makes space for something else.
And she and others can do this precisely because classical music doesn’t have any embattled content. Because it stands apart from everyday life, you make a large statement, as a Palestinian, by spending time with it. You’re saying that you’re more than the horrors you’re part of. And so are your people. You’re saying that you stand for something higher and better, something that could eventually be a larger part of your life.
Which then ties into the worldwide prestige of classical music. As a Palestinian, playing Bach and Mozart, you’ve tied into something more or less universally viewed as lofty, high-minded, ethical, inspiring. And other people in the world can see you doing that. No surprise, then (quoting Dan again), that
many Palestinians see the study of Western classical music — part of a
broader cultural revival in the West Bank — as a source of hope, a way
to connect to the outer world from a hemmed-in and controlled
existence, particularly at a time when hope for a Palestinian state
seems ever more distant.
Classical music thus takes on a political meaning, precisely — what a paradox — because otherwise it wouldn’t have any. You rise above any stereotypes others might have of you (or at least in principle you could) , and take your place in a worldwide enterprise in which those stereotypes no longer make any sense.
That’s the idealistic view, of course. As Dan makes clear, some Palestinians think that playing classical music means selling out to Israel. And there are other cultural problems, too. One music school was set on fire by Palestinians who disapproved of it. Nor does Israel, on the whole, support classical music in Palestine, or even know about it. “We cannot perceive them as people who have their own cultural lives,” an Israeli music critic says. (Daniel Barenboim, with his work to bring young Israelis and Palestinians together through music, is of course an exception.)
But the paradox is clear. Classical music develops an overt political meaning in Palestine precisely because it doesn’t have one elsewhere. Or, to go a little deeper, its implicit political meaning elsewhere in the world, which is quite conservative, in Palestine starts to seem radical, because Palestinians have been excluded from the cultural life, conservative as it might be, that classical music represents.
(On musical life in China, see a comment posted to my previous post, about someone’s experience playing metal in China. The government watched every concert, censored every lyric.)
Michael Monroe says
There’s a lot that I disagree with here and in your last post, but let me start with this. What’s your support for the following statement? “Art ought to do far more than comfort people.” (especially given that we’re obviously talking about a pretty sophisticated and layered kind of comfort – I hope you don’t mean that learning/performing classical music is akin to drinking cocoa by a fire.)
I think it’s bizarre and backwards to suggest that this kind of intimate connection to musical beauty only acquires useful social value when it provides hope in the midst of oppression. I know we’ve disagreed on this before, but I’m honestly curious about how you’ve come to decide that artistic worth is chiefly defined by how an artwork confronts society. Isn’t “affirming humanity” a pretty useful thing in any context?
Michael Monroe says
By the way, Greg, having just delivered a couple of negative comments, I want to affirm that I think there’s a lot that’s good about the way you challenge conventional thinking. It’s not my point to say that there’s nothing wrong with the current classical music culture; reading this blog has really helped me to think more critically about “the way things are.” I think my biggest problem with this post is how quickly you take this story about escape from oppression and attach the very loaded term “escapism” to the experience of those who love Western classical music.
By the way, you write a lot about how much you enjoy escaping to the country. Do you think of that as “escapism?” Does the artistry inherent in nature lack something because it doesn’t overtly challenge? And, just to clarify, I’m not denying that artworks can do much more than just provide escape and an opportunity to delight in beauty – even without being layered with overt social commentary, artworks can give us insight into emotion, relationships, etc. And, yes, they can challenge us to think about external issues too? I just don’t see the latter as essential to the artistic experience.
Michael Monroe says
Here’s a quote from the Wakin article:
For me, that (however feebly expressed) is the most important part of the artistic/aesthetic experience, and it’s an experience that I suspect is shared by students from China, Venezuela, etc who have chosen to invest enormous amounts of disciplined, sacrificial time with music of the Western classical tradition – to explore that “feeling of flying.” It’s not the only thing we get from music, not by a long shot, but I tire of the notion that thinking about music this way “calls into question classical music’s standing as serious art.”
Whether or not other kinds of music provide an equally compelling experience is a separate (though important) question, and you’re right to challenge the classical music world on its tendency towards elitist dismissal of pop/rock/etc.
[By the way, I have no idea what spam-based entity resubmitted part of my second comment as a new comment. Hopefully you can delete that.]
Zecharia Plavin says
Dear Mr. Sandow,
I think Mr. Wakin’s article is heartbreaking, because it really shows the meaning of classical concert music, and also because it shows modest – and true – heroism of pure artistic souls. Music indeed is a harbinger of freedom, of human dignity. The conservative pirouettes of Baroque era are still perceived as utterings of free and dignified human being by all who still are literate in this cultural language. Listen what that flutist girl says. So are sounds of the best music of other composers. Music is full of meaning, from the joyful fragrance of a spring morning, to the anguished love song, and to the defiant hero’s struggle (and so forth…), and only indifferent people, perhaps saturated with lust for immediate gratification, or those who have lost cultural literacy, do not feel it acutely.
I am afraid, in view of the following (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1089753.html) that the loud-mouthed accentuation of Palestinian classical-music activity might attract additional unhealthy interest of punishing forces. The Palestinian musicians (as much as we, Israeli musicians) would gladly have richer embrace of the liberal music-doers world-wide, for the sake of music and for the sake of human’s dignified life. This embrace would involve attention to compositions created by Palestinian and Israeli musicians (Mr. Barenboim is mainly preoccupied with performing of world chefs-d’oeu•vre and tends to overlook the humanistic support that a dignified performance of Israeli and Palestinian works would give to the peace-loving people here around).
ClassicalMusicGal says
HI Greg,
This is such a complex issue. Current events have always been a key influence on classical music, and yet ironically, one of the first things questioned by the event makers themselves.
I agree with those above that the sentiment expressed far surpasses any political undertones the music may contain.
Bravo for handling such a weighted subject!
Michael Monroe says
Hi Greg,
I only just noticed these responses – I hadn’t checked back for several days. Actually, I was cued to come check back again by your Twittering about the coyotes – I wondered if my “escape to nature” thing had triggered something! I’m still gonna guess that the quiet, calm, and beauty are big attractions for your visits to the country, but maybe I’m wrong. Do you sleep outside with the coyotes or do you depend on walls to protect you?
I also think there’s a good analogy in how people can find a visit to symphony mostly calming and relaxing, even if the music is full of violent tensions. One of my favorite BSO programs from last year included Beethoven 7 and The Rite of Spring. My experience there might be something like your visit to the country. I’m not really putting myself face-to-face with a pagan sacrifice (how many pagan sacrifices involve a stage full of conservatory-trained musicians in concert dress?) or whatever primitive dance instincts Beethoven is tapping into, but there’s something enriching and pleasurable about being confronted with them, while also keeping a certain distance from them. (That’s not an attempt to define the entire listening experience – just to compare it with your comments about the country. There are many differences as well.)
Anyway, thanks as always for being so generous with your feedback; not sure when I’ll be able to get back to all this. Let me begin by saying that I agree with you about the emptiness of much classical music talk. I sat through several speeches that preceded the awarding of the Van Cliburn medals last night, and they all rattled on endlessly about the oh-so-serious importance of “classical music,” with very clarity about what they meant. Drove me crazy.
For the record, the phrase “affirming humanity” is yours, from the post above where you wrote: “By spending your time playing the flute, as one teenager described in Dan’s piece does, you’re affirming your humanity.” I don’t think it’s a bad little phrase, though. An important aspect of listening to or performing music is tapping into a shared culture of ideas about how to put sounds together, about what’s beautiful, and about what’s worth our time; that’s true of all music, not just classical, of course (and of cooking, sports, etc.). In this case, you’re writing about a Palestinian girl who finds that connection in Western classical music, but I think “affirming humanity” is a useful shorthand for what’s she’s getting out of her experience.
But yeah, I think we need those beers to get this all sorted out! (I’ll admit that many of your questions are not easily answered. Generally speaking, I think there’s a tendency (perhaps academy-driven) to overstate the importance of the arts; I think we can learn a lot from them, but I don’t think they solve (or even elucidate) as many problems as artists like to assume, which may be one reason I’m less bothered by art which does little more than stimulate a sort of Kantian “free play of the imagination.”)
Rueben Esnard says
I can speak only for myself. But part of brand loyalty is because of the plethora of apps that exist on the iPhone. I have invested alot of money in apps that I bought for the iPhone. Why would I go to the Andriod or Palm where I would have to re-invest in the same or similar software.Don’t be mistaken. This is an important part of brand loyalty. I think that Blackberry has a major issue with lack of apps. First, since there is little investment (buy-in) by the users of Storm and Storm 2, it is easy to migrate to another platform.Second, by having a lack of apps or crappy ones, this also pushes customers to other platforms.I can’t wait for iPhone 4.0!!