Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Bartók in Liberal Italy, 1911–1925
- 2 Heroism and Silence: Bartók in Mussoliniâs Italy, 1925–1938
- 3 Resistance and Dictatorship, 1939–1942
- 4 Resistance and Democracy, 1943–1947
- 5 Bartókâs Legacy in a Divided World, 1948–1956
- 6 Bartókâs Influence on Italian Composers
- Conclusion: Bartók and the Memory of the Twentieth Century
- Bibliography
- Appendix: Performances of Bartókâs Works in Italy between 1911 and 1950
- Index
- Music in Society and Culture
3 - Resistance and Dictatorship, 1939–1942
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 January 2024
- Frontmatter
- Dedication
- Contents
- List of Illustrations
- List of Music Examples
- Acknowledgements
- List of Abbreviations
- Introduction
- 1 Bartók in Liberal Italy, 1911–1925
- 2 Heroism and Silence: Bartók in Mussoliniâs Italy, 1925–1938
- 3 Resistance and Dictatorship, 1939–1942
- 4 Resistance and Democracy, 1943–1947
- 5 Bartókâs Legacy in a Divided World, 1948–1956
- 6 Bartókâs Influence on Italian Composers
- Conclusion: Bartók and the Memory of the Twentieth Century
- Bibliography
- Appendix: Performances of Bartókâs Works in Italy between 1911 and 1950
- Index
- Music in Society and Culture
Summary
Between the end of the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s, the Kingdom of Italy experienced one of the darkest periods of its history. After the promulgation of the infamous racial laws in 1938, Mussolini tightened the bonds between Italy and Germany and plunged the country into the war (10 June 1940). As explained by the historian Jonathan Dunnage, âthe majority of Italians were not enthusiastic about another conflict, after the strain which the Ethiopian war of 1935–6, the Spanish Civil War of 1936–9 and the Albanian conquest of 1939 had placed on their daily lives.â However, diehard fascists and, to a lesser extent, conservative forces saw the war as an opportunity to fulfil Italyâs imperial destiny and recover fascist revolutionary power. These dreams of military glory, however, dissolved into a nightmare. During the Second World War, Italy soon revealed the lack of readiness of its military forces and, as a result, its position âwithin the new Fascist European orderâ became âincreasingly subordinateâ to that of its stronger ally. Amid this gloomy outlook, the fascist regime waged a final cultural battle. As the Italian military effort stalled and Nazi political supremacy over the Italians became clear, culture provided an opportunity for the fascists to claim a fleeting independence within the Axis and offered a critical arena in which young intellectuals could challenge the governmentâs ideology. At the apex of their military alliance, the cultural policies pursued by the two fascist regimes began to compete with each other. This phenomenon was particularly evident in relation to the funding and government patronage of avant-garde films, the performing arts and modernist music. This process reached its highpoint in the autumn of 1942, when the Italian Ministry of Popular Culture sponsored an exceptional season of contemporary stage works featuring Bergâs Wozzeck in Rome and Bartókâs The Miraculous Mandarin at La Scala.
This chapter, organised in two sections, outlines the trajectory of Bartókâs reception between 1939 and 1942, when he came to represent one of the symbols of anti-Nazi cultural resistance. In the first section, I analyse Bartókâs divergent attitudes towards Italy and Germany and examine how his music was received under the fascist regimes at the turn of the 1940s.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Béla Bartók in ItalyThe Politics of Myth-Making, pp. 86 - 115Publisher: Boydell & BrewerPrint publication year: 2021