There has been no shortage of juicy classical music news recently, starting with the death of German composer and space cadet Karlheinz Stockhausen. I was planning to use that event as a springboard to comment on the ongoing and welcome demise of the European Post-War avant-garde: its hypocrisy, institutional rigidity, and its hopeless failure to capture the minds and hearts of audiences the world over. But we already know that, and it strikes me that the above sentence is about as much as Stockhausen and his crew deserve. Happily, an even more inspiring subject presented itself for consideration: the New York Philharmonic announced, with the evident blessing of the U.S. State Department, that it was accepting the “honor” to be the first American orchestra to play in North Korea.
It goes without saying that the Philharmonic is treating this as a public relations victory, another feather in its cap as “America’s First Orchestra.” You see, it isn’t news when an orchestra does what it’s supposed to do: play music for its own local community. The news comes from the “where” and “how,” hence today’s compulsive need to schlep the whole band, at appalling expense, to the far corners of the globe in order to garner international attention. If they could give a private concert for the three or four astronauts on the international space station, believe me, they would go–just to be able to say that they did it first. But the proposed trip to North Korea asks some very disturbing questions about what on earth the New York Phil thinks that it’s doing.
Anticipating these issues, the Philharmonic’s official press release cites General Manager Zarin Mehta as considering the following weighty matters in coming to his decision to undertake the trip:
- Would our government wish us to pursue this invitation?
- Could a New York Philharmonic concert in Pyongyang contribute, in some way, to the growing success of the multi-nation talks?
- If so, what conditions would we face in Pyongyang?
The answer to the first question was, obviously, “yes.” As to the second question, Mr. Mehta, perhaps wisely and for obvious reasons, mentions it no further. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least say: “You can’t possibly be serious.” Finally, Mr. Mehta answered the last question elsewhere, in an interview for NY1 News, stating:
“I was there in Pyongyang for four days. What kind of personal opinion could I have? We were extremely well-treated, I liked the food, my bed was comfortable, it was clean.”
Well there you have it. All problems neatly solved. However, perhaps suspecting that the answers to the above questions might not be universally satisfying, the press release goes on to note the following facts:
- It was the government of North Korea that issued the initial invitation in the name of “cultural exchange between our two countries” (in other words, “It wasn’t our idea, but it would be rude to turn down such a nice, friendly invitation, so we will reluctantly grace you with our presence. But to show how even-handed we are we are also giving a ‘separate but equal’ concert in South Korea immediately afterwards. So there!”).
- The cost of the trip is being “underwritten” by private donations and public institutions.
- The Philharmonic insisted on being accompanied by an international press corps, and on having the right to interact with normal North Korean music students.
I’m sorry guys, but the above apologia, for that is what it is, rings very, very hollow.
First of all, the fact that one receives an invitation does not mean that one has to accept. The New York Philharmonic wants to go because it believes that it benefits the orchestra’s reputation to go. Period. And this is more important than the truth that the orchestra will be playing to an audience of hand-picked collaborators supporting perhaps the most psychotic totalitarian regime currently on the planet. Let’s not pretend otherwise. The buzzwords “cultural exchange” are also singularly inapplicable in this context. There is no “exchange” on the North Korean side at all, and they could just as easily get all they want of Western culture by letting their own citizens watch South Korean news and television, inviting a South Korean orchestra to visit, or simply by doing it themselves with local forces. Nothing is preventing them.
In any case, this is all very different from, say, America’s engagement with the Soviet Union during the Cold War. That was true cultural exchange. Why? Because the essence of the exercise rested in the fact that the two countries shared a musical idiom and history much older than the politics of the 20th century. It was a genuine point of contact. Moreover, Russian artists and composers touring the West were being used by the regime as propaganda tools, making reciprocity on the part of the United States a desirable and legitimate response. Events such as Van Cliburn’s winning of the Tchaikovsky Competition in Moscow had both political and artistic implications on both sides, not least because the Russian reverence, even in Soviet times, for objective standards of technical excellence led them (perhaps partly out of arrogance) not to rig the results.
Obviously this fact pattern does not apply in the case of North Korea. We want nothing of that country’s culture, and it exports nothing of value in that sphere. American curiosity about Korean art and music can be more than satisfied by its neighbor, South Korea, through normal channels of trade and commerce, as indeed happens every day. In short, this visit has nothing whatsoever to do with “culture,” and everything to do with politics, which in North Korea means gratifying the quixotic whims of the country’s indisputably insane and wholly malevolent dictator, Kim Jong Il.
It’s always difficult to fathom the mind of a madman, but let us nevertheless indulge in a bit of momentary speculation. Perhaps the real reason that the New York Philharmonic was invited to visit Pyongyang stems from the fact that Kim Jong Il fancies himself a connoisseur of the fine arts, music in particular. Indeed, he’s written a book on the subject, Kim Jong Il On the Art of Opera. It would probably be fair to state that this noble treatise gives a pretty good idea of the “culture” that the New York Philharmonic will be stepping into. For example, in the chapter “Opera Songs Must Be Idiomatic,” Kim sagely notes the following:
“When creating the revolutionary opera The Sea of Blood, it was considered that the original song in the scene in which the guerrilla operative meets the mother, the heroine, and persuades her to work for the revolution posed no problem in carrying out its portrayal task because its text was good and the melody was smooth. But it had no artistic appeal for the listeners because of the absence of emotional timbre peculiar to the song. That was because the composer paid attention only to the technical aspects of the task of depiction without exploring the political operative’s thoughts and emotions on meeting for the first time the mother who, bereaved of her husband, was gradually being awakened to revolutionary consciousness while undergoing every manner of hardship.”
Or how about this, from the section entitled “Orchestral Music Must Be Based on Stanzaic Songs:”
“If opera is to be an art to serve the people, the orchestral music of the conventional opera, which is difficult and complicated, must be discarded and a new one which appeals to the feelings and aesthetic tastes of the people created. The correct way of creating new orchestral music for opera is to develop it on the basis of stanzaic songs.
From the point of view of musical development this is the age of stanzaic song. Our people today require stanzaic songs that have been created and refined by the popular masses. Regarding this trend as ‘simplicity’ is the way of thinking of the exploiting class who despise the people. It is the aesthetic view of the bourgeoisie. It is the popular masses who create and enjoy true art. The art loved by the masses is the noblest and truest of arts. At the same time as introducing stanzaic songs into opera, we must develop new orchestral music for opera of our own style which is based on these songs.”
These thoughts on the achievement of the North Korean operatic Gesamtkunstwerk are not merely theoretical. The book was the outcome of a series of lectures delivered to the Creative Workers in the Field of Art and Literature in September, 1974. It has been official cultural policy ever since. I can’t help but wonder if awareness of this fact has gone into the New York Philharmonic’s choice of program: Gershwin’s An American in Paris, and Dvorák’s “New World” Symphony, plus (thrill of thrills) the national anthems of both countries. Music based on “stanzaic songs” indeed! One might argue that the very presence of the Philharmonic could signal a change of heart on the part of the regime regarding the range of permissible musical art, but I wouldn’t count on it.
The Philharmonic, in any event, has lost an opportunity to test that hypothesis by choosing such an innocuous pair of feature works as its calling card. If it truly wanted to “make a difference,” and to display something of the true subversive power of classical music, it might have chosen, say, Shostakovich’s Thirteenth Symphony “Babi Yar,” sung in Korean by a locally trained chorus. There’s plenty of time to prepare before the February 26th concert date. Or how about a concert performance of Beethoven’s Fidelio? Or Britten’s War Requiem? I know, the very thought is silly given time and logistics, but you get the point. Is the Philharmonic’s decision to “sugar the pill” Western condescension, or flat-out appeasement? You be the judge, for it’s surely one or the other (or both).
The next topic in the Philharmonic’s apologia concerns money. The press release is very careful to explain that the costs of this particular leg of the trip have been paid for by generous contributions by a wealthy patron of the orchestra, the airline in question, and a Korean broadcasting company. The reason for this is obvious: North Korea is a famously impoverished country in which the ruling class lives in luxury on the backs of its malnourished and starving citizens. To take a penny from such people would be a crime. But again, let’s cut the nonsense and dwell in reality. Of course North Korea is paying for this trip. It is paying with accommodations, with resources, with personnel, and with the provision of (presumably) first class plant and facilities built to the exacting aesthetic specifications of Kim Jong Il himself. The basic costs of transportation and logistics are only the tip of the financial iceberg, and that iceberg is made out of the blood of North Korea’s benighted masses.
Beyond this obvious and shameful fact, we must question the New York Philharmonic’s priorities. What gives our symphony orchestras the right to take upon themselves the role of cultural ambassadors to pariah nations, particularly when there’s so much of real value to be done at home? Thriving on the advantage of being a not-for-profit corporation, which means of course that the Philharmonic is subsidized by the American taxpayer, does going to North Korea fulfill any normal person’s mandate of what the orchestra ought to be doing with its time and resources? When was the last time the New York Philharmonic toured New York?
It would be lovely if the orchestra took the time to play, say, Binghamton, or Utica, or perhaps visited some of the major upstate universities and gave free, individualized instruction to music students there. But then, that wouldn’t garner the kind of press and prestige an institution such as the Philharmonic craves. It’s simply the right thing to do for the people whose largess allows the players to enjoy their six-figure salaries in the first place. A couple of free concerts in Central Park every summer doesn’t begin to address either the debt that the Philharmonic owes the people of New York, or the amount of good it could be doing by giving them much more time and attention than has been the case hitherto.
Mind you, I have no problem with the very occasional foreign tour once a decade or so, but if the New York Philharmonic and its sister institutions across the country wish to survive at public expense, then as a condition of their enjoying tax-exempt status, they should do far more to serve the communities in which they operate than making a few halfhearted attempts at “outreach” before jetting off to whatever godforsaken dump halfway around the globe issues an invitation. After all, there’s no question that there are plenty of godforsaken dumps right here at home that could benefit far more directly and compellingly from having a major orchestra swing by every now and then.
The planned trip to North Korea thus focuses our attention on the signal failure of some of our most illustrious performing arts institutions to acknowledge the basic reality that what they do is not the result of a timely gift by a rich patron, but at a more fundamental level the result of a tacit compact with the people of their own communities. Needless to say, these paragons of culture do not like to be reminded of this fact. In the Philharmonic’s press release announcing its upcoming trip to North Korea, the people of New York are not among the parties graciously acknowledged and fulsomely thanked for their generosity in making the visit possible. The omission speaks volumes.
As consumers of culture we tend, I’d like to think perhaps out of a healthy respect for artistic independence, to be very leery of raising this delicate issue, of demanding value for money. Or perhaps, to put an even more cynical face on it, we really don’t care that the Philharmonic ill-serves the people of New York because we accept that we should support cultural institutions as long as we don’t have to pay any particular attention to them. They are shielded by their own irrelevance, at least until something preposterous comes up, like a proposed trip to North Korea. Then, to my way of thinking, it’s perfectly reasonable to ask if such conduct offers a fair return on our communal investment.
Finally, as to the last item in the Philharmonic’s three-point apologia, I do hope that no one takes seriously the implication that the presence of an international press corps on the trip strikes a blow for freedom and openness against an oppressive regime. It’s obviously a benefit to the Philharmonic, but potentially to the North Korean government as well (unless something terrible happens, like a member of the orchestra mistakenly says something honest and truthful within hearing of either the North Korean masses or a hotel room listening device). Mostly, though, it’s a sop to the Philharmonic. Nothing could be more indicative of the hypocrisy at the heart of this whole sorry affair than the unspoken quid pro quo: “Unless we have the chance to wring every last drop of press attention from this inconvenient side-trip to your miserable nation, you can bloody well forget about it!”
That same press corps, obviously, is hardly going to be permitted free access to the rest of the country, the right to speak to whomever it chooses, and the chance to pay an unannounced visit to North Korea’s nuclear power and missile facilities. Rather, insistence on the “right” to tell the world how fabulously the New York Philharmonic’s concert went, how nice everything seems to be going these days in Pyongyang, and how wonderfully the whole minutely preplanned, exactly 48-hour long (according to the press release) visit is going, may just be the most cynical aspect of this whole lamentable exercise. Nor am I impressed with the opportunities afforded Philharmonic musicians–in their copious free time over the whole two days–to interact with real North Korean music students and assist them in honing their skills to create even more effective operas along the lines defined by Kim Jong Il in his book.
Congressman Tom Lantos of California is quoted in the Philharmonic’s press release as expressing enthusiastic support for this trip. I suspect that the congressman would have been among the first to condemn, and rightly so, celebrated German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler’s toadying to the Nazi regime, best embodied in his notorious performance of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony for Hitler’s birthday in the early 1940s. What, I ask, is the difference between that act of cravenness masquerading as belief in higher cultural values, and the current example? At least Furtwängler didn’t have to go out of his way to kowtow to Hitler. He was simply doing his everyday job, with his own orchestra, in his own country. His crime was in allowing himself to be used as the icon of Nazi cultural legitimacy.
How then are we to view the Philharmonic’s enthusiastic willingness to travel all the way to North Korea, press corps in tow, in order to bestow its own patina of legitimacy on the government of Kim Jong Il? I am not impressed by the fact that the State Department approved the trip. If the visit really had the potential to make any sort of difference politically, consent would not have been forthcoming so readily, you can be sure of that. The attitude of the U.S. government has more an air of, “If you guys want to give a concert to a wacko tyrant and his sycophantic pals, then go knock yourselves out.” The real question is why the management and directors of the New York Philharmonic are so delighted to have been given this opportunity. Evidently, Kim Jong Il won’t be the only delusional attendee at this particular party. The only thing missing from the program of the concert itself is an appropriate curtain-raiser. How about the overture to the opera The Sea of Blood?
David Hurwitz
