Classical Music as Protest Music

Focusing on Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, this chapter discusses the potential of classical music of the Western canon to signify a protest against an authoritarian power. It explores two contradictory beliefs: one that ties the political meaning of a music work to the context of its performance, the other that postulates an intrinsic political meaning of the music. After acknowledging that classical music in its standard, autonomous form is not likely to be heard as protest music, it makes a case for a tradition of exceptions where it does afford such meaning. Besides Beethoven in Nazi Germany, the examples discussed include Stravinsky and Mahler in the context of the Cold War, the Maoist regime, and the Argentine dictatorship.