Music as propaganda : art to persuade, art to control / Arnold Perris.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Perris, Arnold.

Series:

Contributions to the study of music and dance 0193-9041 ; no. 8.

Contributions to the study of music and dance. 0193-9041 ; no. 8

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Music--Psychological aspects.

Music.

Propaganda.

Persuasion (Psychology).

Control (Psychology).

Music and state.

Music--Social aspects.

Physical Description:

x, 247 pages ; 22 cm.

Place of Publication:

Westport, Conn. : Greenwood Press, [1985]

Summary:

Perris examines the past and present uses of music as a means for political and social change, overt or disguised. He presents evidence of music as propaganda ranging from Broadway to the official compositions of the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany, Soviet Russia, and Communist China, as well as from concert halls to the protest movements of the 1960s. Familiar classics are analyzed, as well as operas of nineteenth-century nationalist composers. Shostakovich, Henze, and Penderecki, as well as Bob Dylan and many rock and roll bands are shown as composers who were adversaries of the state, while others, consciously or not, reinforced the status quo of their particular era. The sensuous encroachment of music in Western religious services is compared and contrasted with the status and use of music in Eastern religions.

Contents:

1 Messages in the Music 3

2 People without Power: Musical Nationalism in Europe, 1830-1920 24

3 Wagner, Hitler and the German "Race" 45

4 Music for the Totalitarian State: Marx, Lenin and Soviet Russia 67

5 More Totalitarian Music: Confucius, Marx and Mao Zedong 93

6 Sacred or Profane: Music in Religion 123

7 The Hidden Rostrum of Opera and the Broadway Musical 164

8 The Decade of Protests: Popular Music in the 1960s 181

9 The Contemporary Composer as Social Critic 206.

Notes:

Includes index.

Bibliography: pages 227-242.

ISBN:

0313245053

OCLC:

11531625