Between Party and People(s)—Where Music Sounds

Berlin, Christmas 1989: The renowned conductor Leonard Bernstein visited the capital to give two concerts in the West Berlin Philharmonie and the East Berlin Schauspielhaus. Only weeks before, the Berlin Wall had fallen. During his interpretation of Ludwig van Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in the Schauspielhaus, Bernstein decided to surprise his audience. When the choir finally raised its voice to intone Schiller's "Ode an die Freude," the singers proclaimed "Freiheit, schöner Götterfunken" (Freedom, o wondrous spark divine) instead of the original "Freude, schöner Götterfunken" (Joy, o wondrous spark divine). Some criticized Bernstein for his naughty reinterpretation of the iconic work, but the media praised the concert as a symbol for the ongoing global change that ultimately led to the dissolution of the Soviet Union.¹ The case of Bernstein's concert is exemplary for music's place in the political and social history of the Cold War.

Music matters. Often marginalized in historical cultural studies, music constitutes a specific way to construe and perceive reality that is of vital importance in different societies. Hearing music is not like reading a book or gazing at a picture. Musicologists emphasize the nonverbal, unconscious, and immediate nature of sound, which (can) lead to extreme reactions by the audience.² It is this irrational moment, however, that for a long time made historians skeptical of using music as a source. They distrusted the complex nature of sound and favored written sources, which were more clearly linked to social and political problems. Over the last few years, things have changed. Although music appears to be interpretable in very different ways, it has become a fruitful source for historical studies. Music history evolved from cultural studies and sociological musicology and has become a well-respected field in historiography in recent years. Studies have shown how music intermingled with authoritarian dictatorships,³ shaped societies,⁴ and established emotional regimes.⁵ Understood as such, music is an important art form to connect individuals with their (social) environment.

Considering the predominant role of classical music in socialist countries, it is no wonder that music attracts historians of Soviet history. In 1933, the Communist Party established the doctrine of Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union. It launched a well-known attack on Shostakovich in 1936, followed by an extensive campaign against composers after the war in 1948.⁶ The imposition of Sovietization resulted in similar activities in the Eastern Bloc. Socialist regimes claimed to control the musical world.⁷ Simply following the slogans and directives of the communist parties, many historians tended to overemphasize the scope of political control over music. They thereby failed to appreciate the complex arenas of negotiation, rapprochements, and denial that constituted the musical world in the Soviet Union as well as in Poland and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). The books under review, by Kirill Tomoff and David G. Tompkins, shed further light on these arenas. Neither author is interested in music production itself but rather in the various ways of making music and debating musical-aesthetic problems, which for them constituted a cultural practice. These practices in turn helped shape social groups and society as a whole and became part and parcel of both modernities, East and West. Both books are short but smart and run to around 200 pages.

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Tomoff focuses on the international arena and the competition between U.S.-and USSR-based conceptions of modernity. Both countries exploited musical competitions, virtuosi, and conductors to demonstrate their own cultural superiority. Tomoff's main interest lies in the Soviet Union's specific role in this arena. By adopting the Western heritage of the Classical and Romantic repertoire and promoting its own composers such as Dmitrii Shostakovich, the Soviet...