Paper Abstracts

Christoph Flamm

The Sound of Dictatorships. The Problem of a Distinct Type of “Despised” Music

Music historians today have excluded from their research music that was not underrated during the dictatorships of the 20th century (namely in Italy, Germany, and the Soviet Union), but was promoted or accepted under those regimes. No one makes the effort to comprehend merely the existence of works by official composers and their followers, works that were projected as masterpieces in the regimes’ press . A serious problem and a still more serious danger stem therein: the effort to deepen in those matters leads to an investigation either in politics or in the aesthetic relation between music and politics.

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