Classical Music and Cancel Culture: a Discussion
Carlo Gesualdo murdered his wife and her lover. Beethoven was arrested for prowling and vagrancy. Richard Wagner was anti-semitic. Composers too numerous to list cheated on their wives, were drunks or drug addicts. Few women were allowed into a boy’s club that excluded nearly all people of color. And, as has been written about for the past few years, the classical establishment has continued the tradition of “closing ranks” on anyone who isn’t a white male of European descent. Predictably, in today’s society where so many are reckoning with issues of inequality and inclusion, classical music has joined many other art forms in the crosshairs of what we now refer to as “cancel culture.”
A recent article in The Chicago Tribune Love the Art, Hate the Artist, delves into the controversy from a subtle and nuanced perspective. Focusing on a class by the same name being offered by author and professor Eileen Favorite at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, journalist Christopher Borrelli observes,
“Any history of culture, you might say, is partly a history of jerks, of selfishness and worse often defended in the service of masterpieces, of great artists held above all else. Which is not an original idea, of course. The old math goes like: Great art makes the world better, therefore the cost of a great artist’s lousy behavior — neglected families, steamrolled subjects, plagiarism, abuse — is never too steep. Great works are valued more than the unhappiness of a handful. But naturally, nothing is so simple…. Our new calculus is more like: Purging the problematic artist is a small price in the service of doing the morally correct thing, which then allows room for the art of the steamrolled. Except, again, nothing is so simple. Despite what you’ve heard about cancel culture, there is no zero-sum outcome.”
Where do we draw the line? And who gets to decide what lines are drawn? Do we cancel composers and musicians because of their behavior or beliefs, or do we keep the masterpiece and accept the ambiguity of the creator’s less-than-savory life? Can we ever truly separate the music from the musician? There are no easy answers, which is why I wish we had more of the sorts of discussions in classical music that Eileen Favorite introduces in her classes. As she stated in the Chicago Tribune article,
“I’m not really interested in (the students) being right or wrong about an artist. I’m interested in having them think for themselves and wrestle with their conclusions. The more they unpack, the more they often realize just how ambivalent they are. A lot of them really end up with very idiosyncratic reasons for how they decide if an artist is worthy or not.”
Outrage makes headline clickbait. Social media rants amplify issues to the point of the absurd. And, as we ask how we can welcome all races and genders to the classical music world, we’re tasked with the responsibility to think deeply about these issues. Deep thinking is slow thinking. It requires us to examine ourselves and to challenge our own assumptions and prejudices. It can—and should!—be uncomfortable. Yet it is vital that we open our minds so that we can have the space to hear others’ perspectives. And, as always, this task starts with ourselves. Here are 3 questions I’m asking myself:
Am I willing to let people change and evolve?
I’ve held many ill-informed opinions and made loads of stupid decisions; thankfully, because I came of age before the advent of social media, I’m not on trial for these things today. When I look at the lives of “problematic” composers or musicians, am I willing to grant these individuals the same leniency I hope my friends and family have granted me? I daresay that most of us would fail if everything we’ve said or done was placed under history’s microscope.
Can I accept that society changes and evolves?
100 years ago in the US, it was legal to beat children and to put them to work in factories, Jim Crow laws were in place, homosexuality was illegal, and women barely had the right to vote. For all the setbacks and mistakes, society is evolving and growing. Many things we find abhorrent today were integral parts of everyday life for most citizens a century ago. Am I judging composers or musicians of the past through the lens of the present? What if, (100 years from now) I’m condemned for having owned a car or worn leather shoes? Would it be better, perhaps, to judge worthiness on whether or not the artist was a decent human being within the framework of his or her era?
Am I willing to embrace ambiguity?
When I was 13 years old, I had a very strong sense of what was right and wrong. Since then, I’ve learned that very few situations in life are unambiguously either/or. Part of being a grownup is accepting that suspending judgment is a sign of wisdom, not a lack of moral fiber or conviction. This is deeply uncomfortable for me because I crave certainty, and I tend to react before I think. Accepting ambiguity is an act of humility; it requires me to acknowledge that I am not so wise, and I don’t always know what is true in every situation.
As these issues continue to be addressed in classical music, we’ve got to create space to talk about them. When different perspectives and opinions are shot down (or humiliated in the court of public opinion), people are cowed, not into agreement, but to resentful silence. No one learns anything and nothing really changes because we can’t fix what we’re not allowed to talk about. Maybe these conversations won’t happen in public or in print, but as uncomfortable as they are, they need to take place. I’m starting the discussion with this article (which may or may not get me “cancelled” by one group or another), and I hope you’ll consider doing the same in your own way. Perhaps, by listening to each other, we can find a way past anger to constructive understanding.