Description
Book SynopsisTyranny and Music is an edited collection of essays that explore how musical artists respond to cruel or oppressive governments and ruling regimes. Its primary strength and unique quality lies in its diversity, presenting a postmodern collage of scholarship that reaches across the divides of classical, popular and traditional musics just as it connects musical resistance of the past with the present and the near (Western) with the far (non-Western). Contemporary topics include Chosan's analysis of blood diamonds in the Sierra Leonean Civil War, and collective memory in the Persian Gulf War songs. Historical topics include the image of John Wilkes Booth in the popular imagination, censorship in the Soviet Union, Victor Ullman's song setting at Terezín, artistic restrictions in Maoist China, anti-inquisition propaganda in the outbreak of the Dutch revolt, Revolutionary Era Anthems in the United States and much more. These essays, while remarkable in their scholarly erudition, also prov
Table of ContentsIntroduction 1.Resisting Tyranny with Song: Hanns Eisler’s “Nightmare” James Parsons 2.Memory as Resistance: Viktor Ullmann’s Terezin Settings of Friedrich Hölderlin Brent Wetters 3.“The Desert Ain’t Vietnam”: Collective Memory in Persian Gulf War Songs Jessica Loranger 4.Anti-Inquisition Propaganda at the Outbreak of the Dutch Revolt: Noé Faignient’s Chansons, madrigals et motetz Sienna M. Wood 5.Scriptural Exegesis in the Music of William Billings: The Politics of the Anthem Molly Williams 6.Vilification or Problematization? John Wilkes Booth in Popular Songs and Musicals Thomas J. Kernan 7. “I Am the Wife of Mao Tse-Tung” an Analysis of the Representation of Tyranny in John Adam’s Nixon in China (Act II, Scene 2) Max Noubel 8.Battling the Typhoon – Weathering Political Storms in Maoist China Mei Han 9.Memories Don’t Burn: Soviet Censorship and the Turkic Bard Anna Oldfield 10.Minhibbuk ya Batta – Musical References to Bashar al-Asad on Syrian Radio during the Civil War Beau Bothwell 11.Heavy Metal as Global Resistance Daniel Guberman 12.“You Can Take Our Diamonds, But You Can Never Take Our Spirit”: Chosan’s Analysis of Blood Diamonds and the Sierra Leonean Civil War” Abimbola Cole Kai-Lewis 13.Popular Music and the Impending Tyranny of Donald Trump Joseph E. Morgan
