Today’s musicians shouldn’t be afraid to take on political causes
No sooner has the classical music world stopped arguing about Cate Blanchett’s savage portrayal of a fictional conductor in the movie Tár than along comes another Hollywood epic about a conductor – this time a real one. As someone who interviewed Leonard Bernstein a few times, I was astonished by how accurately Bradley Cooper portrays his mannerisms, voice, conducting gestures, crazy and fickle private life and, most of all, his charisma in this new film Maestro (to be profiled in the Jan 2024 issue). And there are some brilliant music scenes. The 1973 performance of Mahler’s Second Symphony in Ely Cathedral is so perfectly evoked that you feel as if you have been whisked backwards in a time-machine.
In one respect, though, the film doesn’t do justice to Bernstein’s multifaceted life and protean energy. Away from music, it’s nearly all about his marriage and its disintegration. Fair enough – that’s what interests the director. But the millions of people learning about Bernstein for the first time through this film will glean nothing about one crucial facet of his life. He was not just a prominent cultural icon of post-war America; he was also a tremendously political figure. In word and deed, he was forever championing causes boldly and bravely.
In 1948, for instance, when the newborn Israel was fighting for its life, he went into the Sinai Desert to play Mozart in the open air for thousands of soldiers. In the 1960s he got into hot water for supporting American civil rights and attending a reception organised by his wife for the radical Black Panthers. When the Berlin Wall came down in 1989, he was the one marking its demise with a triumphant performance of Beethoven’s Ninth (see p14). And so on.
None of this is in the movie. And that’s a pity because we could really do with more top musicians bold enough to speak out in public about injustices. It’s not so much that they would, by themselves, bring about change. It’s more that if leading conductors and soloists can be seen contributing to mainstream debates about political, social and of course cultural matters, that’s good for classical music generally.
It undoubtedly takes courage to speak out against violence or injustice. Nevertheless, I can immediately think of five notable examples from the classical music world. Dame Ethel Smyth ended up in Holloway Prison, conducting her March of the Women with her toothbrush, because she hurled a stone through the front window of a Cabinet minis
