From: roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: government and the arts
Originator: news@ernie.Princeton.EDU
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Mon, 13 Apr 1992 03:44:34 GMT

In article <fyvjd4p.vlad@netcom.com> vlad@netcom.com
 (Vladimir Kuznetsov) writes:
>In article <1992Apr12.010721.20787@Princeton.EDU> 
roger@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig) writes:
>>Just look at what government support did to the arts in Medicean
>>Florence and Papal Rome and Absolutist Paris and Georgian England and
>>Ducal Saxony and Royal Prussia and Imperial Germany and Weimar Germany
>>and Federal Germany.  
>>

>You did not answer my question about Nazi Germany and USSR. 
>Before changing direction of the conversation I'd like to
>know what you think about it.

Well, first of all, I think you deleted it.  8-)

Second, I think it's not germane to the discussion we were having; after
all, nobody was proposing a totalitarian government for the purpose of
artistic values.  

Third, in a general discussion of government and the arts, I think it's
not a very useful comment, given that almot all states that have had
highly developed art have had government support for it.  And that
includes many of the greatest artistic cultures of all time (see my
partial list above).

>>Can you name an opera house on earth that is not government supported?

>Here, in San Francisco.

You sure about that?  Are they a for=profit company receiving no grants
from the State of California or from the NEA?  

>>For that matter, despite all his trials, Shostakovich drew his salary
>>from the state for 50 years.  Prokof'ev, too, for a while.  And I do

>Read his biography, may be you will reconsider your views about this
>matter. You don't know how much of junky music Shostakovich 
>was forced tov write for this salary and how mush humilation
>he had to swallow for the privilege of being court composer. 

I've read several biographies of him, thank you, and even written a
little about him.  Yes, he had to write this awful stuff -- so did
Beethoven, on occasion.  And he did it voluntarily!  But note also that
Shostakovich HAD his career, and DID write those quartets and concerti
and sonatas.  

>Prokofiev was not happy either.

Prokof'ev was *never* happy, it seems. (THough he looks to be having a
good time during the making of Aleksander N'evsky, if the photos are a
guide...)

>>recall a few decent instrumentalists coming out of the SU: Richter,
>>Gilels, Oistrakh, Rostropovich, Berman, etc.

>Did you learn this way of reasoning from soviet propaganda machine?

No, from listening to records when I was little.  

>They also were first in space, their sportsmen had many
>sport records, they were turning rivers, etc. etc. You 
>don't want to know (I suspect, intentionally) what price was paid
>for these achivements ( in art, too). 

Thank you, I do know about that, and deplore it.  But it nonetheless
stands in contradiction to the (conveniently -- there, see?  I can use
innuendo, too!) deleted statement you made above: that Soviet rule devastated
art.  It did not, though it certainly stifled expression and stopped
development of many artistic media.  There WERE good conservatories and
good orchestras and good musicians and good teachers in the USSR, and
denying this, however politically convenient, is hardly a way of serving
the truth.  The price paid for all this was high, to be sure; and it
should not be paid.

But that has nothing to do with our discussion, which was about support
for the arts in a society such as ours here in the US.

>Do you know how many talented performers and artists were shut down by 
>party machine to give the way to "a few decent instrumentalists"? 

Many, I'm sure. But all those defecting artists had to come from
SOMEWHERE!  8-)  And there were many of them.         

>Just open your eyes and read what is available.

I have.  Note that nothing I said contradicts what you said, except in
matters of degree.  The SU did turn out a lot of good performers over
the years, by any standard.  And many were not in great favor with the
government, either.

>For example, an autobiography of Galina Vishnevskaja (the 
>Rostropovich's wife).

On my shelf.  What about it?  Does it make the case that government
support for the arts is wrong?

>>> In both cases it was a complete devastation and riuning
>>>of he culture and cultivating of pseudo-art.

>It was!

>>Funny, this very year New York will be host to *two* opera companies
>>from Russia.  And they weren't constituted in the last 12 months,
>>either.

>Go there, listen to them and let me know your opinion about these
>companies. I bet they cannot be compared with good opera companies
>here, in US.

Sorry, too broke for tickets.  Reviews say that at least a few of the
singers were world-class, this after the first (and lesser) company.
Recent budget cuts have indeed hurt the companies.

Oh, and for a generation Soviet ballet toured the world and was
acclaimed as superb.  Compared with good companies in the US.

>>Devotees of Italian opera might disagree.  Not to mention readers of,
>>say, Dickens.

>I'm rather sceptical about most of Italian operas, but I
>must confess here that my listening experience of Italian opera is
>very limited. 

>Do you want to talk about Wagner?

Now, THERE was a man with a subsidy!  

>It is simply unfair to all people who lived under these regimes
>and were fed with erzatz of the culture for the most of their lives.

Look, my father grew up in Nazi Germany.  I'm not *quite* a stranger to
this.

>In general, dictatorial regimes are the best suited for 
>support of arts and democracies will always have difficulties with it.

Yeah, this art stuff is bad news.

Roger

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