Class Love and the Unfinished Transformation of Social Hierarchy in Nepali Communist Songs

Nepal's twentieth-century tradition of leftist music, known as pragatisil git or progressive song, developed musically during the 1960s and 1970s along with state-sponsored nationalist genres meant to serve as musical representations of Nepali identity. The differences were primarily in the lyrics: pragatisil git's leftist themes were deemed too incendiary for a regime that forbade political organization. Composers writing songs for the national radio were encouraged to produce love songs, deemed apolitical and therefore safe. At first glance, communist pragatisil git avoids themes of love, in stark contrast to mainstream folk and popular music. Yet, while themes of romance are indeed absent from most Nepali communist music, a closer look demonstrates a strong concern with other forms of love and sentiment. This chapter focuses upon the theme of class love, examining how it is imagined to be socially transformative, and how it has changed through different communist parties' imaginings.

Key Questions of Antagonist Music-Making

From the early 1960s through to the mid-1970s, a widespread desire on the Italian left to resist the ‘schematization of everyday life’, triggered by the pressures of politics and mass media, led to a politicization across different musical genres. The discourse of intellectuals and artists was significantly influenced by the writings of the founder of the Italian Communist Party Antonio Gramsci, and in turn led the PCI of the early 1970s to an unambiguous commitment to resist ‘any impulse to identify with any specific “poetics” or “tendency”,...to ignore the great variety of creative experiences’ (Giorgio Napolitano), whilst affirming a faith in innovation and renewal as the vehicle for oppositional sentiment. This chapter examines this complex cultural network as it manifested itself in the distinct musical terrains of folk music, rock, jazz, and free improvisation, and avant-garde music theatre.

‘Music Left and Right’

What kinds of music have been considered to exemplify left-wing thought in non-communist countries at different times and places? This chapter chooses an intentionally simplistic model of two basic categories — Populist and Modernist — denoting music that is accessible to the masses on the one hand, and music that uses an advanced idiom in order to resist being co-opted by the commercial sphere or being used as a symbol of state power on the other. It proposes these categories as the articulation of two ideal types. The historiography of twentieth-century music in the United States understands Marxist music as intrinsically populist, whereas the modernist strain is almost completely unknown. In European historiography it is practically the reverse. So it is useful to outline these two perspectives for historiographical reasons alone. These models are illustrated and complicated through discussion of examples by Eisler, Copland, Schoenberg, and Nono.

Towards Political and Musical Renewal

Giacomo Manzoni is one of Italy's most renowned composers and also a sought-after composition teacher. From 1958 to 1967 he was the music critic of the daily newspaper of the Italian Communist Party (PCI) L'Unità. This chapter recounts the appeal exerted by communism in the immediate aftermath of World War Two, the emergence in Italy of a view that the conquest of new territory in art was entirely consistent with socialist ideas, and the initiatives taken by the PCI to bring culturally marginalised communities into contact with all kinds of music. It concludes with critical comments about the path taken by the PCI following the fall of the Soviet Union, and the consequent demise of the prospects for realising a free and humane communism in Italy.

Rocking Against Racism

Rock Against Racism was one of the most dynamic and innovative British social movements of the 1970s, bringing together music fans and left-wing activists in the struggle against the far-right National Front. This surprising alliance was forged by members of the Trotskyist International Socialists/Socialist Workers Party who had a long-standing interest in popular culture and championed punk as a form of working-class revolt. This attitude contrasted sharply with that of the significantly larger Communist Party of Great Britain, which tended to view mass culture as a development of American capitalism. Seeking to adopt the dominant social and cultural norms of the labour movement, communists were unable to relate to the subversive irreverence of punk. Rock Against Racism disappeared in the very early 1980s but acted as a template for future attempts to link music and politics.

New ‘Old Leftist’ Aesthetics in the West German Contemporary Music Scene

This chapter investigates the socio-political background and music of the cantata Streik bei Mannesmann (1973) that was initiated by Wolfgang Florey and written by various young musicians such as Niels Frederic Hoffmann and Thomas Jahn, as well as the then-established composer Hans Werner Henze. It demonstrates that the creation of the collectively composed cantata must be traced back to the so-called ‘proletarian turn’: the turn, around 1970, from the New Left to the Old Left that affected not only the New Leftist activists, but also politicized musicians including those involved in the Mannesmann cantata. In light of the opposed objectives of the New Left and the new Old Left — the former fought for improving the living and working conditions of workers; the latter aimed at developing an anti-hierarchical youth culture and new lifestyles — the music reveals a remarkable stylistic split that reflects the ideological split between both Leftist camps.

Music, the Fête de l’Humanité, and Demographic Change in Post-War France

This chapter examines music's role in the Fête de l'Humanité, an annual festival organized by L'Humanité, the French Communist Party's principal organ. Beyond generating revenue and mobilizing support for the Party, the Fête has long served an important ritual function, fostering a sense of camaraderie among participants. Music has proven particularly effective in this regard, offering a medium through which one's membership in an imagined (communist) community could be experienced. The chapter focuses on the Fête's transformation during the 1960s and 1970s, a period that saw the Party struggle to broaden its electoral appeal beyond its working-class base. By expanding the range of musics featured at the event, its organizers sought to address an increasingly diverse electorate. Yet the Party's reliance on the Fête as an instrument of public outreach proved problematic, given that the image of inclusiveness it projected masked rather than resolved the Party's long-term demographic difficulties.

The Black Panther Party

This chapter examines the ways in which the Black Panther Party (BPP) used popular music as a means to represent its ideology and politics to potential supporters during the peak of its activism in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Following an initial discussion of the ways in which the traditions of the U.S. left and popular music impacted upon the BPP, it explores the idea of black nationalism as understood and represented by the Panthers, its relationship to the traditions of Marxism, and the ways in which this relationship informed the cultural practice of the BPP. Finally, there is an examination of the ‘three moments’ alluded to in the title, a series of musical performances and recordings sponsored by the party.

Music, the Political Score, and Communism in Australia: 1945–1968

Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, and into the 1960s decade of rebellion, the Communist Party of Australia (CPA) developed significant relationships with cultural and artistic movements. The youth wing of the CPA, The Eureka Youth League (EYL), played a particularly important role in the attempt to forge an alliance between musicians and communism. First through jazz, and then through two folk music revivals, the EYL sought to use music to recruit members and to foster its ideological and political struggles. In the end, the EYL's and CPA's relationship with both jazz and folk was tenuous. Yet along the way, the music itself flourished. This, then, is a story of tensions between and paradoxes surrounding the Party and musicians sympathetic to it. Yet it is also a story about how the cultural life of Australia was greatly enriched by the EYL's attempt to use music as a political tool.

The Multiple Politics of Henry Cow

Chris Cutler is a percussionist, composer, lyricist, and writer. He was a member of avant-rock group Henry Cow between 1971 and 1978, after which he co-founded international groups including Art Bears, News from Babel, Cassiber, and The Science Group. He founded and runs the independent label and distribution service ReR/Recommended. This chapter recounts the evolution of political concerns within Henry Cow, as manifested in (amongst other things) the group's relationship to the record industry, its attitude to the different musical genres on which it drew, and its aspiration to collective forms of organisation and musical practice. The band's experience of playing for events organised by leftist groups (including the Italian Communist Party) are described, as are the alternative performance circuits established by Cutler in the later 1970s.