Music

Music

An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. I think that is true of painters, sculptors, poets, musicians. How can you be an artist and not reflect the times? That to me is the definition of an artist.

Nina Simone

Wednesday, 28 September 2016 14:19

Music and Marxism: Part Two

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in Music
Mark Abel continues his analysis of how Marxists should appreciate and evaluate music. In the first part of this article, I argued that critique was at the heart of any application of Marxist theory, and that therefore a Marxist musicology must be a critical, rather than a disinterested (or complacent)…
K2_PUBLISHED_ON Saturday, 19 March 2016 20:00

Cold old fire

in Music
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'Cold Old Fire' by Lynched, a Dublin-based folk group, was written after the financial crisis in Ireland that would end up sending 80,000 people a year overseas. 'The Button Factory' refers to the main Dublin dole office. See also Poets, Presidents and Politics. We always sing, even when were losing'Cos…
Hector Berlioz
Wednesday, 09 March 2016 21:01

The Music of Imperialism: Berlioz's The Trojans

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in Music
Haydn Greenway analyses the hidden meanings of Berlioz's great opera,'The Trojans'. Classical music can arouse extreme emotional responses. It also requires an intellectual engagement in order to decipher the language hidden within the complexity of sonic patterns. This can require repeated listenings, say, of a Beethoven symphony, to fully understand…
Sunday, 06 March 2016 18:17

Wearing their politics on their sleeves: Civil Rights and the art of the jazz album cover

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in Music
The cultural struggle takes many forms, says Phil Brett, and shows us the aesthetically beautiful and politically challenging art to be found on the sleeves of albums made by black jazz musicians.. A journalist from the New Yorker, who was writing a piece on Duke Ellington, heard a white New…
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