The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1934-03-05
For Revolutionary
Music Criticism
In Our Press
By CARL SANDS

L tionary press must be a revolution
airy criticism. It must revolt against
the music-critical system that is now
supported BY the capitalist press. It
must not only seek to destroy but also
to supplant this system, for it will in
itself constitute an opposed system,
different in many ways, with diff
ferent task to perform-a task which
must Of necessity involve a different
method, viewpoint, scope and aim.
This task will be two-fold: first, to
re-value the music of the past with
view to determining what of 1t may
further ana what retard the revolu-
tionary movement; second, to aid in
the growth of a new musical style
that will express and further the rev.
dictionary movement.
First of all, as to methOd-a thing
that bourgeois musical criticism never
had, rarely sought and usually fed
from: it will employ the method of
dialectic materialism Since this is
the method of the other art criticisms
in the revolutionary movement and
of the revolutionary movement itself,
a revolutionary music criticism will
be an integral part of the movement
as a whole. AS is the case in these
other criticisms, there will be some
problems peculiar to the music crit
ical field. 1t will be the task of the
music critic, however, to link I'D the
problems of his field with the prob
lens OF the other special fields and
with those of the whole collection of
fields. These units will not be re-
garded as static things-as has been
the tendency in bourgeois musical
criticism-but as regions in which
movement occurs-through which
movement, in fact, the region as such
Is defined. Music criticism, and hence
music too, will be regarded primarily
in their aspect as moving, changing
evolving things. Both will be regarded
primarily as social functions. and
hence as integral parts Of social de-
Velopment as a whole. The funda-
mental characteristics Of both will be
regarded as determined by the same
means as those that determine social
development as a whole. Bourgeois
musical criticism has sometimes given
hp-service to this formulation but has
invariably and promptly forgotten it
and lost itself in biographical detail,
thus giving undue importance to the
great man" theory of history and to
the inspiration" theory of musical
work. A MARKHAM presentation of mus
ical history will deal less in person.
alities than in the larger processes of
art development and in the inter
relation of these with history as a
whole. A MARKHAM presentation of the
nature of musical work will rely upon
mystical shortcuts such as "inspira-
ton" and genius" and more upon
the study Of physiological dispositions.
training, class origins and class-con-
seriousness.
TILE viewpoint Of revolutionary
music-criticism will be that of the
proletariat in the class struggle.
Bourgeois musical criticism was con-
versant with the various geographical
patriotic and chauvinistic conflicts.
but steadfastly ignored the class
struggle and its economic and poIit-
1cal basis, in spite of vague and con-
Trajectory idealization of the folk and
its music. 1t viii be necessary to
show clearly the economic background
and class motivation of the lives and
works of the great composers of the
past, and of musical styles and prac-
tlces generally-not only as they are
presented to us by history but also
as they are manifest in our own dav.
Here again will be marked diver
gence from conventional practices.
The bourgeois musical critic has not,
In our day, ever been able to live
in the present. To him, the present
musical situation is chaos" So he
seeks a refuge in history where, it
appears, absolute, pure, transcendent
beauty was produced by god given
geniuses. Musical values become static
things: they existed in the past. But
he finds himself living in a time when
musical values are evidently chang
ing. So he finds the time chaotic and
not SO nice as the old times surely
must have been. To proletarian
music-criticism there is no chaos. A
crisis, yes: q crisis developing ever
more intensely as an integral element
in the general crisis Of capitalist So
ciety. But the musical path is clear:
a new musical style is in the max
ing. History shows it is forming: rev.
dictionary practice demands it. 1t Is
the music of the proletariat.
TOMORROW: THE Scope of Rev
OItJti0naT-v Music T!r-iticisy,1