Composing the Party Line , livre ebook

Composing the Party Line
Music and Politics in Early Cold War Poland and East Germany
Central European Studies
Charles W. Ingrao, senior editor
Gary B. Cohen, editor
Franz Szabo, editor
Daniel L. Unowsky, editor
Composing the Party Line
Music and Politics in Early Cold War Poland and East Germany
David G. Tompkins
Purdue University Press West Lafayette, Indiana
Copyright 2013 by Purdue University. All rights reserved.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tompkins, David G.
Composing the Party Line: Music and Politics in Early Cold War Poland and East Germany / David G. Tompkins.
pages cm. -- (Central European Studies series)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-55753-647-1 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-289-6 (epdf) -- ISBN 978-1-61249-290-2 (epub) 1. Music--Political aspects--Poland--History--20th century. 2. Music--Political aspects--Germany (East)--History--20th century. 3. Music and state--Poland--History--20th century. 4. Music and state-Germany (East)--History--20th century. I. Title.
ML3916.T67 2013
780.943'109045--dc23
2013013467
Cover image: A student choir and folk music ensemble perform in Leipzig. The slogan reads: “Art can accomplish much in educating people about true patriotism and the spirit of peace, democracy, and progress” (SLUB Dresden / Abt. Deutsche Fotothek, Roger & Renate Rössing, 25 January 1952).
Contents
Foreword
Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Introduction
Chapter One
The Rise and Decline of Socialist Realism in Music
Chapter Two
The Composers’ Unions between Party Aims and Professional Autonomy
Chapter Three
The Struggle over Commissions
Chapter Four
The Music Festival as Pedagogical Experience
Chapter Five
The Concert Landscape
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
Publisher’s Note
A list of links to some of the music that is mentioned in this book can be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.5703/1288284315191
Foreword
With the passage of nearly a quarter century since the end of communist rule in Central and East-Central Europe, scholars are developing fascinating new perspectives on the realities of governance, economies, societies, and culture in the various stages of communist development. We are learning that, just as the modalities and speed of establishing communist rule after World War II varied significantly from one country to the next, there also was no common blueprint for the implementation of the communist projects for transforming economic production, social relations, and the cultural sphere. Even in the high Stalinist era from 1948/49 through 1953, communist authorities in the various countries used differing tactics, proceeded at differing speeds, and had to negotiate with representatives of many established institutions and interests. Comparative studies of those processes are challenging for researchers, but John Connelly’s pioneering study of higher education in East Germany, the Czech lands, and Poland, Captive University: The Sovietization of East German, Czech, and Polish Higher Education, 1945-1956 (Chapel Hill, 2000), demonstrated convincingly their great value for understanding the dynamics of communist transformations.
David Tompkins’s research charts in revealing terms how communist authorities in East Germany and Poland attempted during their first decade of rule to reshape the composition and public presentation of new concert music in the name of “socialist realism.” The study rests on a great body of research in original documents of party officials, government ministries, and other administrative bodies in the two countries as well as memoirs, periodicals, and much relevant scholarship. Tompkins demonstrates that the relationships between government authorities and composers and performers in the two countries proved to be complex and dynamic. Both governments called for new music to draw on popular national traditions and to communicate to the public in easily accessible ways, and they pointedly criticized “formalism” and abstruse harmonic experimentation. Tompkins shows, however, that in practice cultural authorities in both countries made compromises in their policies. For their part many composers found ways to live with the communist policies and to take advantage of government sponsorship, and more proved willing during the high Stalinist period to compose in the genres and styles which the authorities wanted than many would admit later. The stronger position of the ruling Socialist Unity Party (SED) in East German society and among East German artistic and intellectual elites than was the case for the Polish United Workers’ Party (PZPR) in Poland resulted in greater and more lasting government influence on East German composers than was the case for their Polish counterparts. Indeed, Tompkins finds that efforts to induce Polish composers to produce socialist realist works largely ceased after 1955/56.
There have been previous studies of individual composers, musical life in general, and general cultural policies under the East German and Polish communist governments, but this is the first archivally based examination of the efforts to develop socialist realism in music in the two countries and the first serious comparative study of the actual impact of communist rule on musical composition in any two Soviet bloc countries during the early Cold War era. With the access to archives in Central and East-Central Europe which scholars now enjoy and models such as David Tompkins’s work, one can hope for even more detailed, analytic research in the future on the relationship between government authority and cultural and intellectual life during Central and East-Central Europe’s communist era.
Gary B. Cohen
Series editor
Acknowledgments
Although of course the core responsibility is mine, the commitments in time and energy associated with this book project make it a joint one, helped along by the input and advice of so many kind and insightful people. It is a real pleasure to thank them here.
This project got its start at Columbia University, and was most profoundly influenced by Volker Berghahn, who provided scholarly criticism as well as much encouragement. Brad Abrams gave of his time on occasions too many to count, and Mark von Hagen has been a real friend as well as a crucial critical presence. The suggestions of Boris Gasparov, Walter Frisch, and István Deák were much appreciated.
Over the years, many other colleagues have read various chapter and article drafts or helped in various key ways, and although I can’t mention everyone, I’d especially like to thank Eliza Ablovatski, Jan Behrends, John Bohstedt, Beata Bolesławska, Joy Haslam Calico, John Connelly, Winson Chu, Philip Ewell, Anna Fishzon, Eagle Glassheim, Gundula Kreuzer, Molly Wilkinson Johnson, Vejas Liulevicius, Dan Magilow, Ben Martin, Ryan Minor, Denise Phillips, Gilya Schmidt, Christian Schmidt-Rost, Adrian Thomas, Max Vögler, Kimberly Elman Zarecor, and Lisa Zwicker. Celia Applegate’s close reading of the manuscript has made it much stronger. More broadly, I thank all my colleagues at the University of Tennessee and Carleton College for the intangible and stimulating atmosphere that strengthens a book like this. And I’d especially like to acknowledge Ari Sammartino, who more than anyone else has been there with helpful criticism and friendly support from the beginning to the end.
In Central Europe, I’d like to thank Christoph Kleßmann and the Zentrum für Zeithistorische Forschung for welcoming me to the Berlin area and offering advice. Barbara Murach at the German Music Archive in Berlin was always a smiling presence while listening to the best that socialist-realist music has to offer. The staffs at the Archiwum Akt Nowych in Warsaw and the Bundesarchiv in Berlin were of course indispensable. Dariusz Jarosz aided me in navigating both Polish archives as well as the early stages of this project. Krystyna Kersten also helped me to crystallize my initial ideas, as did Jan Lencznarowicz. The staff at the archive of the Polish Composers’ Union, especially Izabela Zymer, unfailingly brought me the correct dusty protocol as well as a warm cup of tea. For essential nonacademic support while abroad, I’d like to thank Krystyna Gott, Rafał Taranowski, the Bielowicz family, and the Simon family.
This project has been made possible by the generous support of a number of organizations, including the American Council of Learned Societies, the Fulbright Foundation, the German Academic Exchange Service, Carleton College, the Germanistic Society of America, the Harriman Institute, the International Research and Exchanges Board, the Kosciuszko Foundation, the National Security Education Program, the Social Science Research Council’s Berlin Program for Advanced Studies, and the University of Tennessee. In the early stages of this project, I had the pleasure of taking part in the Woodrow Wilson Center’s Junior Scholars Training Seminar as well as the German Historical Institute’s Transatlantic Doctoral Seminar, and I offer my thanks to the participants for their comments.
Some passages in this book appeared previously in other venues, and I appreciate the permission of those presses to use revised portions of those publications. Parts of chapter 5 appeared as “Orchestrating Identity: Concerts for the Masses and the Shaping of East Germany Society” in German History 30, no. 3 (2012): 412–28. Some of the material on Andrzej Panunfik appeared as “Composing for and with the Party: Andrzej Panufnik and Stalinist Poland” in The Polish Review 54, no. 3 (2009): 271–88. Parts of chapters 4 and 5 appeared as “Sound and a Socialist Identity: Negotiating the Music Soundscape in the Stalinist GDR” in Germany in the Loud Twentieth Century: An Introduction , edited by Florence Feiereisen and Alexandra Merley Hill, 111–23 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011) and “Instrumentalizing Entertainment and Education: Early Cold