> On 2006-01-25, at 10:29, LGS-Europe wrote: > >>> Dear David, >>> I beg your pardon, please, but you mean by ''Eastern Europe-like >>> 'classical' music''? >> >> I had no idea I had to be politically correct on this forum. >> You gave only a partial quote, as I wrote "_former_ Eastern >> Europe-like 'classical' music". What I heard was a choir singing >> bombastic >> music glorifying the regime. Propaganda, not music. Composed and >> conducted >> by friends of the regime. As might have been composed and performed in >> any >> country with a totalitarian regime, like the Eastern-Europe countries >> in the >> time of communism. > I don't think you have to be politically correct on this forum - but > wouldn't be out of place to be historically correct here. Of course and > foremost I can speak of Poland, but that may in part apply to other > former Easter (or Central) European countries as well. The so-called "dark times" of the last century have produced most of what we value in that century, musically speaking. Besides the obvious Shostakovich, Prokofiev, Khachaturian, Boris Chaykovsky (no relation to P.), there were Schnittke, Pårt, Vasks, Silvestrov, Eisler, Dessau, Lutoslawski, Pendererecki, Martinu and more. In fact, "EasternBlock" produced the vast majority of 20th century classical music.
> > I am not young, alas, but I've never heared of ''singing bombastic > music glorifying the regime'' over here, in a way the words ''Louis, > Louis...'' were sung for 20 minutes in all Prologues to operas by Lully > and his contemporaries - Never!, this is an absurd, and, I am sorry, > you must be a victim of some kind of Western propaganda. > > There was over here a period or style called _socrealizm_, basicly > present in literature and arts, perhaps in social relations as well, > you can name several popular songs of that kind, may be there are some > precedents in art music as well, but any notion it was some sort of our > ''classical music'' is a pure fiction. It was definitly a black period > in our history (for outside, English language commentators see Norman > Davies, Richard M. Watt, or others), but rarely for musicians, indeed. Indeed, the music flourished under the red yoke. RT To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
