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Sunday 5 July 2009

How the West was won

Alexander Stoddart unravels the relationship between art and politics

The great British philosopher Brian Magee, writing about Richard Wagner’s political life, points out that it is wrong to think of the Sage of Bayreuth moving to the Right in his later life. Magee’s proposal is compelling; Wagner leaves left-wing politics precisely as men who are maturing leave politics generally. They drift in middle age towards the static wasteland of metaphysics, and this is observed by those still remaining in politics as a move towards the Opposition, since they still cannot think of anything outside the political sphere. It appears that the ageing man ‘goes Tory’. In reality, however, there is every chance that he has simply glimpsed his first sight of the ‘other side’. In the parallel musical experience of the common man today, he has left the North Africa Campaign of Radio One, passed through the demob camp of Terry Wogan, and finally arrived home in the leafy suburban shades of Classic FM. Relax...

In a groundbreaking article published recently by The Spectator, the composer James MacMillan made a public renunciation of his long-standing leftism. He also, bravely, declared that modern art is a field absolutely dominated by political leftism. A certain exhibition in Germany, during the century of Hell, made certain that anyone observing the more vigorous manifestations of Modernism would at least have the sense to keep mum about, not to inquire about, not even notice, its...what they used to call Bolshevism. You don’t want entirely to ruin your chances. It is by no means to deny MacMillan’s immensity as an artist to suppose that a history of residing on the correct side of the political fence was a mighty assistance to his career. After all, from what we could tell from the music alone he could have been a Tory all along. Or is that exactly the case? My long experience in an art inferior to the super-art of music, sculpture, leads me to believe that certain forms do indeed conform to political ideas. This is to say, some shapes belong to the Left, while others belong to another world. By this I mean that certain forms are counter-political. This goes for sounds too. Such forms are sometimes called ‘reactionary’.

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