2007/06/05 by Marcello Sorce Keller · 1 voice · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · #Diverse Musicological Studies #Music History and Culture #Musicology and Musical Analysis
paper · doi:10.1080/01411890701361086
openalex publication_date 2007/06/05 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
That music (even “absolute music”) aptly and effectively conveys ideological attitudes is proven by how often it was, and still is, the frequent object of censorship. The question of why it, possibly more than other arts, has the ability to be ideological has seldom been addressed directly. Nonetheless, work done during more than a century in the social sciences does, at least in part, shed some light on where to look for the mysterious power music has to reflect or challenge social order or, even when not intended to do so, to collect symbolic meaning and functions that easily escape the intentions of its makers. Music as a form of social activity, like other kinds of activity, more or less visibly seeks to include some people and exclude, or even antagonize, others. The interplay of these two levels of symbolic import probably accounts for the incredible variety of ideological meanings that different musics have acquired in the course of time.