Dudamel, Gergiev: Should they leave politics to the experts?

Though I typically love Washington Post music critic Anne Midgettes reasoning and writing, her March 14 column on whether classical musicians should take political stands forcefully argued and written is deeply disturbing from the first sentence.

Midgette thoughtfully examines the public roles of musicians, asking if they have a duty to speak up for human rights, particularly when the countries that nurtured them are in significant turmoil. For Los Angeles Philharmonic music director Gustavo Dudamel, its the uprising against the current regime in Venezuela. With conductor Valery Gergiev, its Russia.

Her piece begins as follows:

Theres a myth, in the popular imagination, that classical music is higher, better and more exalted than much of the rest of life.

Myth?

Having lived and worked in Washington, D.C., I know that those who champion the fine arts there are always under the shadow of the anti-elitism police we all know we they are and thus tend to head them off at the pass, so to speak, with self-deprecating lip service.

If the value of classical music is a myth, why do we fund it with ticket sales, foundation grants and, most of all, with our hearts despite its flagrant lack of practicality? Broadway shows can barely muster much semblance of a pit orchestra. But Mahler symphonies, say, are played by a group of 100 or more. Surely, there must be some justification for that. And there is. It is higher, better and more exalted than much of the rest of life. If thats not true, then many intelligent people have been utter fools for a very long time.

The argument over whether classical music makes us better human beings is the way of madness.Even the greatest people, whether involved with music or not, have feet of clay. Its our nature. And who is anybody to chart another human beings self-improvement at the hands of any artform?

As for the musicians themselves, Midgette tends to discuss them collectively, even though they occupy hugely different places on the chess board.

Those who create art are most notable for their inner lives, which intersect with their outer selves but exist in a distinctly different place. One has to hunt far and deeply to find expression of Wagners bigotry in his music, mainly in the finale of Die Meistersinger (when Hans Sachs warns against outside influences polluting their art) and the implications of ethnic cleansing under the surface of Parsifal. I believe that Wagners bigotry wouldnt be nearly the issue that it is now had his music not been co-opted by Nazi Germany. And thats not his fault though he was rather foolish to throw his anti-Semitic opinions about in public to begin with. A composers primary responsibility is to his or her inner (and inevitably private) self.

Excerpt from:
Dudamel, Gergiev: Should they leave politics to the experts?