Do music and politics mix? “Oh yes, definitely,” says Frank Abbinanti with a forcefulness that belies his mild-mannered demeanor. “Incorporating political consciousness into music is extremely important. A composer should illuminate the problems of the world–otherwise he or she would just be a mere entertainer. And we have plenty of those nowadays.” For most of the past decade the Chicago native has practiced what he preached in his sizable body of work. In Europe, where political music is part of the mainstream, he’s regarded as an experimenter with something to say. In this country, he feels he’s almost a minority of one.
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By and large musicians are not political animals, Abbinanti admits. Before the Age of Enlightenment, most members of the profession served either the church or the nobility; the music they wrote and played was meant to delight their patrons or to uplift the soul (or both). Around the time of the French Revolution some composers started to put their politics into their music. Mozart obliquely touched on class conflicts in his operas. Beethoven, by first endorsing then bitterly denouncing Napoleon, came to stand for the artist as democrat. Rising nationalism in the 19th century made a hero of Verdi, who zealously called for the unification of Italy. Wagner in his Ring cycle, Abbinanti points out, “responded to the events of 1848 [in France], to the emergence of ideology and class consciousness.” The rival aesthetics of Schoenberg and Stravinsky were interpreted as the progressives versus the bourgeoisie. And Shostakovich made his mark as both an apologist for and a victim of Soviet politics. But the exceptions are few, says Abbinanti. “A lot of composers, especially younger ones in this country, prefer to deal with psychological fantasies and academic mind games. They have no sense of history–they don’t write out of necessity.”
Soon after, he began composing again. His Liberation Music for piano solo, a partly improvisational piece that is both a personal and a political statement built on the Italian workers’ anthem “La bandiera rossa,” was presented at the 1983 New Music America festival. Since then he’s been active on the local new-music scene, acting as codirector of the InterArts Ministry and arranging concerts for European musicans.
