Or: Dead people don’t change their minds
“Our Dad, Leonard Bernstein, would want his music played at the Kennedy Center” – this is what the composer’s three children tell the world today in an opinion piece in The New York Times. The immediate occasion is a gala concert on Saturday which includes a few Bernstein pieces.
The article is their defence for not doing something – for not exercising their authority as copyright holders to boycott the institution, that since February has been under the presidency of Donald Trump. Unlike many musicians, and despite being urged to do so “by many friends and associates”.
Bernstein’s heirs emphasize their father’s long and close connection with the KC. Precisely for that reason a boycott would have been a strong statement.
But their main reason is that they know “in their hearts” that it is not what “Dad” would have done. But dead people are notoriously incapable of changing their minds or adapting to unprecedented circumstances.
The heirs believe that their father’s music contains a message, and that it will be “an audible rebuke to Mr. Trump’s ugly policies”. That argument relies on a sentimental, naïve aesthetics of music, the belief “in music’s power […] to raise listeners to a higher level of discourse where beauty would outshine violence and hate.” It was their father’s belief, and it is as tenacious as it is false.
Music may have a strong emotional impact. It has a great demagogic potential (for better or, more often, for worse). And some music has profound qualities, for those who are appropriately disposed. For most listeners, music is simply a source of pleasure or a nuisance.
I don’t think anybody will seriously believe that serving Donald J. Trump a programme of Bach, Mahler and Bernstein could make him a better person. And yet, the belief that music has a power to “uplift” us and unite humanity persists. In some 40.000 years, music has failed to fulfil this mission. It failed to do so during the Nazi regime, which cultivated a flourishing (albeit censored) musical life. How do we judge musicians today who actively or passively collaborated with the Nazi regime? – It is easy to judge with hindsight, but with some historical awareness, hindsight becomes foresight.
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