No sooner has the classical music world stopped arguing about Cate Blanchett’s savage portrayal of a fictional conductor in the movie Tár than along comes another Hollywood epic about a conductor – this time a real one. As someone who interviewed Leonard Bernstein a few times, I was astonished by how accurately Bradley Cooper portrays his mannerisms, voice, conducting gestures, crazy and fickle private life and, most of all, his charisma in this new film Maestro. And there are some brilliant music scenes. The 1973 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony in Ely Cathedral is so perfectly evoked that you feel as if you have been whisked backwards in a time-machine.
In one respect, though, the film doesn’t do justice to Bernstein’s multifaceted life and protean energy. Away from music, it’s nearly all about his marriage and its disintegration. Fair enough – that’s what interests the director. But the millions of people learning about Bernstein for the first time through this film will glean nothing about one crucial facet of his life. He was not just a prominent cultural icon of post-war America; he was also a tremendously political figure. In word and deed, he was forever championing causes boldly and bravely.
When the new-born Israel was fighting for its life in 1948, he went into the Sinai Desert to play Mozart in the open air for thousands of soldiers. In the 1960s he got into hot water for supporting American civil rights and attending a reception organised by his wife for the radical Black Panthers. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, he was the one marking its demise with a triumphant performance of Beethoven’s Ninth. And so on.
None of this is in the movie. And that’s a pity because we could really do with more top musicians bold enough to speak out in public about injustices. It’s not so much that they would, by themselves, bring about change. It’s more that if leading conductors and soloists can be seen contributing to mainstream debates about political, social and of course cultural matters, that’s good for classical music generally.
Where are the fearless musicians of today, speaking about wrongs that need addressing?
Great political figures from classial music history
Dame Ethel Smyth
It undoubtedly takes courage to speak out against violence or injustice. Nevertheless, I can immediately think of five notable examples from the classical music world. Dame Ethel Smyth ended up in Holloway Prison, conducting her March of the Women with her toothbrush, because she hurled a stone through the front window of a Cabinet minister’s house during a suffragette protest.
Michael Tippett
A later English composer, Michael Tippett, also went to prison because he refused to compromise on his pacifism during World War II.
Arturo Toscanini
The great Italian conductor Arturo Toscanini was beaten up by Blackshirt thugs because he refused to conduct the fascist anthem at a concert in Mussolini’s Italy.
Mstislav Rostropovich
The Russian cellist Mstislav Rostropovich, before he defected to the West, invited the ostracised Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to live in his dacha, and also fired off a letter to Pravda to denounce the harassment of the scientist Andrei Sakharov – acts of unbelievably reckless bravery in the Soviet Union.
Daniel Barenboim
And more recently Daniel Barenboim incurred the wrath of many fellow Jews, particularly in Israel, by leading his West-Eastern Divan Orchestra of young Arabs and Jews in a concert in the Palestinian city of Ramallah and taking out joint Israeli-Palestinian citizenship, all to affirm his belief that Israelis and Palestinians must learn to live together in peace.
Where are the political figures in music today?
Clearly, none of these acts of individual defiance changed the course of events. But they did have an impact. You can’t help noticing, however, that they were all initiated by musicians who (with the exception of the 81-year-old Barenboim) are no longer with us. Where are the fearless conductors and soloists of today, speaking out about wrongs that need addressing? Are they all so worried about jeopardising their organisations’ sponsorship that they judge discretion to be the better part of valour? Or is the world so perfect now that nobody needs to complain?
Well, you judge. Either way, the result is that whereas visual artists, authors and actors are often in the headlines opining about this or that, classical music’s leading lights rarely are. They should be. It would help to counter the (still prevalent) idea that classical musicians are a breed apart, living in a bubble that is of little relevance to the ‘real world’. We know that’s not the case. But we need to prove it.
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