As we think about recent times, an unexpected episode illustrates how the intersection between classical music and the outside world again captured the nation’s attention and raised the music’s profile in a way not seen for many years. In December 2007, the New York Philharmonic announced, as part of an Asian tour, that it would visit North Korea the following February for two days. This twenty-first century confluence of art and politics, a result of the North Korean government’s invitation to the orchestra, placed classical music back in the national spotlight. According to the Philharmonic’s president, the ensemble hoped “to help open the country,” even though he noted, however contradictorily, that they only played “great music” and gave no thought to politics.53
What made this brief adventure striking, aside from the extraordinary notion that an esteemed American ensemble would perform Wagner, Dvořák, Gershwin, and “The Star-Spangled Banner” in distant Pyongyang, was that classical music, if only fleetingly, again occupied a central place in the political conversation. As before, one heard a multiplicity of voices: a conductor, Lorin Maazel, with intriguing things to say about art and politics; symphonic musicians expressing a range of heartfelt emotions; orchestra administrators discussing music’s salutary qualities; government officials pondering the diplomatic possibilities; and journalists and pundits opining on music and the wider world. As was once commonplace, debates ensued about the relationship between music and politics; about confronting the threat posed by a tyrannical regime; and, most significantly, about America’s role in the world. A US diplomat suggested that the trip seemed to signal that North Korea was “beginning to come out of its shell,” and expressed hope that the visit might help bring an isolated nation “back into the world.”54 Yet again, America’s diplomatic instruments would be deployed to advance critical overseas objectives.
While the setting was more remote than in the past, there was nothing novel about the journey to North Korea, even if many seemed to think it marked the first time classical music had intersected with foreign concerns. Over several decades, in fact, the music had been every bit as enmeshed in world politics as it was during that brief moment in February 2008, when classical music again occupied an important place in the nation’s consciousness. During those few days when a surge of interest erupted over the New Yorkers’ excursion, a handful of people might have recalled a time when classical music and the wider world converged. They might have remembered when the melodies of Beethoven, Wagner, Strauss, Copland, and Shostakovich, along with the work of the esteemed artists and institutions that performed such extraordinary music, were entwined with developments beyond America. However difficult to imagine, across those eventful decades, countless people embraced the idea that what happened in the concert hall and the opera house was inseparable from the destiny of the United States and the well-being of the American people.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
It has been said more than once that writing a work of history is a collective enterprise. In that sense, this volume is no exception, as many individuals and a number of institutions have helped me in a variety of ways during the years I have spent researching and writing this book. It is a great pleasure to thank them here.
I must first acknowledge the archivists and librarians who were extraordinarily helpful in assisting me over a number of years. The archivists for several symphony orchestras and one opera company could not have been more generous with their time, and I am grateful for their willingness to answer my countless questions and to locate the material I needed as I worked on this volume. With that in mind, let me thank the following people for their superb assistance: Bridget Carr and Barbara Perkel (Boston Symphony Orchestra); Barbara Haws, Gabryel Smith, and Richard Wandel (New York Philharmonic); Frank Villella (Chicago Symphony Orchestra); Deborah Hefling and Andria Hoy (Cleveland Orchestra); John Pennino, John Tomasicchio, and the late Robert Tuggle (Metropolitan Opera Company); Joseph Evans and Adrienne Harling (San Francisco Symphony); and Steven Lacoste (Los Angeles Philharmonic). Beyond the realm of symphony and opera archives, at the New York Public Library, Bob Kosovsky in the Music Division of the Performing Arts Library and Paul Friedman in the General Research Division, were enormously helpful. Ve˘ra Ekechukwu in the Special Collections Department at the University of Arkansas was extremely generous with her time in locating important material. Leslie Armbruster at the Ford Motor Company Archives was altogether helpful in finding relevant sources, as was M’Lissa Y. Kesterman at the Cincinnati Historical Society Library. Richard Griscom at the University of Pennsylvania’s Fisher Fine Arts Library graciously provided information on the Philadelphia Orchestra’s 1973 trip to China.
As this book has taken shape, I have given talks to scholars, students, and general audiences in a variety of settings. While I cannot thank each questioner or listener individually, of course, I want to acknowledge how constructive it has been to share my work with the people who came to hear what I had to say. The intellectual exchange that took place at these events was genuinely thought provoking, and I was repeatedly reminded of how rewarding it is to spend time in a stimulating environment discussing one’s work with committed scholars and students, and interested listeners. I was particularly enlightened by the discussion and comments I encountered when I presented my work in the following venues: a Cold War conference at the Aleksanteri Institute at the University of Helsinki; a gathering at Amerika Haus in Vienna on cultural and scholarly internationalism; a music and diplomacy conference at Tufts University; the New Diplomatic History Conference at Leiden University, and at the Roosevelt Institute, Middelburg (the Netherlands); the symposium on music history at the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki; a conference on culture and international history at the Free University of Berlin; and a Cold War conference at the University of Jyväskalä (Finland). I also spoke to Jessica Gienow-Hecht’s stimulating and impressive graduate international history seminar at the University of Cologne, and I discussed my work in Rebekah Ahrendt’s superb music history seminars at Yale University. Houssine Alloul invited me to speak at the University of Antwerp, and Giles Scott-Smith asked me to speak at the Roosevelt Institute of American Studies in Middelburg (the Netherlands). Both of those visits were illuminating. Finally, Barbara Haws asked me to participate at events in New York City, where I discussed different parts of this project. Those programs, attended by lovers of classical music, were stimulating and constructive.
A number of people in various fields generously read all or part of this work over the last few years. Their observations, insights, and criticisms have been extraordinarily helpful. This gifted group includes musicologists, music historians, music writers, historians of the United States and Europe, a composer, and one person who teaches art and is devoted to classical music. I offer my deepest thanks to each of them for taking time away from their own work to discuss and comment on mine: Rebekah Ahrendt, Houssine Alloul, Jessica Gienow-Hecht, Michael Griffel, Donna Haverty-Stacke, Benjamin Hett, Akira Iriye, Zachary Karabell, James Keller, Jessica Krash, Michael Luther, Dániel Margócsy, Damien Mahiet, Frank Ninkovich, Andrea Olmstead, Michael Pfeifer, Neal Rosendorf, Harvey Sachs, Giles Scott-Smith, Michael Steger, and Barbara Welter. In addition, over the past several years, I have had enlightening discussions about classical music with many people. I especially wish to thank Meri Herrala, Joseph Horowitz, Elina Viljanen, and Jonathan Yaeger, who shared their knowledge and their work with me.
For many years, I have been a member of the History Department at Hunter College–CUNY, where a gifted, dedicated, and congenial group of scholars has made academic life both stimulating and enjoyable. The department, which Mary Roldán chairs with great skill and enormous energy, has been a terrific place to work. Let me also express my appreciation for the funding I received for research and conference presentations through Hunter’s Presidential Travel Grant program. As I worked on this project, those grants enabled me to accomplish a variety of crucial tasks. I also received funding from the Roosevelt House Pu
blic Policy Institute at Hunter College, which was most helpful as I worked on this volume.
My research assistants have been invaluable, and I have been incredibly fortunate to have had their help. I offer my warmest thanks to Andy Battle, John Kunicki, David Sax, Eugenia Wolowich, and Bart Rosenzweig. Bart continues to help me in all sorts of ways, not least by reminding me that science is every bit as interesting as history.
The team at W. W. Norton has been an absolute pleasure to work with. Amy Cherry has been a superb editor in every way: insightful, meticulous, and wise. Zarina Patwa has graciously provided essential help during the production process, and Marne Evans has been a marvel of care and precision.
I want to acknowledge two figures who helped me navigate the transition from the world of music to the world of teaching, research, and writing. The first, the late Fred Holborn of Johns Hopkins SAIS, was profoundly knowledgeable about classical music and about US history and politics. My long conversations with Fred about those subjects many years ago helped smooth the transition from a life in music to a life in academia. Robert W. Tucker, a scholar of US foreign relations and now an emeritus professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, introduced me to the complexities of the nation’s foreign policy and helped me realize that I wanted to pursue an academic career. His extraordinary intellect continues to inspire me.
I am pleased to acknowledge the help of friends. Some I met in music school, others in graduate school, and a few are more recent connections. Over the years, they have listened to me talk about this book—more often than not with considerable patience. We have also discussed many other things, which was almost certainly more enjoyable for them. This group has supplied support and advice as I worked on this volume, along with the healthy and crucial diversion from work that friendship provides. What connects them is that they have enhanced my life in many ways. I am pleased to thank Stewart Hoffman, Christopher Hurd, John Perkel, Neal Rosendorf, Jill Rosenthal, and Jeff Venho. I must also thank my agent Jeff Shreve, who has been an unending source of support and guidance. His wisdom and positive energy have been absolutely essential, and I look forward to working with him in the years ahead.
I wish I could have given my parents a copy of this book. My mother loved classical music and introduced me to it through recordings and radio broadcasts when I was a boy, though at first I was not interested in listening to such things. Later, she encouraged me (sometimes sternly) to practice, and along with my father, she always attended my performances. She enjoyed those musical evenings immensely, whether she was attending local school concerts or events in grander venues. In later years, some of my fondest memories include taking my mother to hear superb orchestral concerts, which she always responded to with great joy. My father was a folk-music lover, but he played a crucial role in my musical development. For years, on Saturday mornings, he drove me to my music lesson, which not only got me there, but also gave us time to talk about all sorts of things. Eventually, he accompanied me on the trip from our house in the suburbs into New York City (the first few times, anyway), when I began working with a renowned teacher. I think my parents would have appreciated this book.
Finally, let me thank Jane, James, and Isobel. For several years, they lived with this book through every stage of its development. Far too often—on weekends and holidays, in the summertime, and even while on vacation—it kept me from focusing on family life as fully as I should have done. It is not possible to thank them sufficiently for all the love and support they have provided over many years. But I hope they know how much that love and support have meant to me. This book is for them.
NOTES
For additional primary and secondary source material, readers can consult the online resource linked to this book. Go to hunter.cuny.edu/history/DangerousMelodies.
Introduction
1. “City Cheers for Cliburn in Parade,” New York Herald Tribune, May 21, 1958. Sources upon which these opening paragraphs are based are cited fully in chapter eight.
2. “The Neighbors,” Chicago Tribune, June 17, 1958.
3. “Wonder Boy Wins Through,” New York World Telegram, May 20, 1958.
4. On the challenges Shostakovich faced in Leningrad, see Laurel E. Fay, Shostakovich: A Life (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 123–33.
5. The notion that a piece of music might simply be about music is suggested in an interview with composer Philip Glass. When asked if a recent composition reflected the “political turmoil” of the “current moment,” Glass responded, “Symphony No. 11 doesn’t have any of that: It’s just about music.” See “80 Candles, 11 Symphonies and Wishes for Many More,” New York Times, January 28, 2017.
6. For studies that consider the popularity and impact of classical music in nineteenth-century America, see website.
7. On Beethoven, see Michael Broyles, Beethoven in America (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2011); on the German symphonic repertoire, see Jessica C. E. Gienow-Hecht, Sound Diplomacy: Music and Emotions in Transatlantic Relations, 1850–1920 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009). My discussion of Maria Garćia is based on Richard Crawford, America’s Musical Life: A History (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001), 180–85. For the discussion of Elizabeth Austin, including the quotation, see Crawford, 185.
8. On Lind, see Crawford, 186–90.
9. On Lind, including the quotation, see Ibid.
10. Ibid.
11. The quotations are from John Dizikes, Opera in America: A Cultural History (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1993), 138, 130–31.
12. On Patti, see Dizikes, 223–30.
13. See Crawford, 181. On San Francisco, see Crawford, 193–94; and Dizikes, 109–19, 281–84.
14. On touring, see Dizikes, chs. 24–25. On Gilded-Age New York, see Joseph Horowitz, Wagner Nights: An American History (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994). More broadly, in assessing the impact of classical music in late nineteenth-century America, Horowitz writes that it was “held to be morally instructive.” See his Moral Fire: Musical Portraits from America’s Fin de Siècle (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012), 59.
15. See Gienow-Hecht, passim.
16. On the orchestra’s founding, see Crawford, 304–5.
17. On the German orchestras, see Crawford, 282–85; on the Germania Musical Society, see Nancy Newman, Good Music for a Free People: The Germania Musical Society in Nineteenth-Century America (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2010), passim.
18. On Thomas’s career, including the quotations, see Crawford, 305–12. For a splendid discussion of Thomas, see Joseph Horowitz, Understanding Toscanini: A Social History of American Concert Life (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), 27–33. See also Charles Hamm, Music in the New World (New York: W. W. Norton, 1983), 312–17.
19. On the developments of American orchestras, see American Orchestras in the Nineteenth Century, John Spitzer, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2012).
20. On the musical spectacles, see Hamm, 309–11.
21. Ibid.
22. The assessment is Richard Crawford’s, 497.
23. Lawrence W. Levine, Highbrow Lowbrow: The Emergence of Cultural Hierarchy in America (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 240.
24. Edward Said, Musical Elaborations (New York: Columbia University Press, 1991), 97.
25. Nicholas Cook, Music: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 97.
26. Jessica Gienow-Hecht has written with great insight about musical nationalism and musical internationalism, particularly in the context of nineteenth-century German-American relations. See Gienow-Hecht, 45–50, 223. Informed by Gienow-Hecht’s work, my consideration of the ideas and policy prescriptions embraced by the musical nationalists and the musical universalists in twentieth-century America relates to the years since World War I, when their highly public debates reflected how each group, comprising a multitude of listeners and performers, understood the nature of classical music an
d imagined how it might influence American engagement with the world. In the context of painting during the Cold War, the American arts community believed in the power of art to enhance global cooperation, while government officials believed art could advance the national interest of the United States, a story Michael Krenn tells most compellingly in Fall-Out Shelters for the Human Spirit: American Art and the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2005).
Dangerous Melodies Page 45