Copland in Utopia

Re: our previous post on one aspect of the culture wars. Should you doubt what we're talking about here, check out the Washington Times' take on a recent musico-political sleight of hand that occurred recently at a University of Maryland music festival. One event was dedicated, essentially, to blaming Joe McCarthy for derailing the beloved Copland of "Appalachian Spring" and sending him back to the modernism and atonalism that began and ended his career:

In the program's second half, faculty members reading from transcripts re-enacted Mr. Copland's evasive testimony at the McCarthy hearings. The skit's intention was clear: to illustrate how Aaron Copland, political innocent, had been unjustly persecuted by the great Satan of the left.

The truth is that Mr. Copland, like many in his circle, was an artful dodger, and his obvious non-answers prove it. We know now that he had been deeply involved with communist and popular-front organizations whose first allegiance was to Moscow -- something glossed over or trivialized by this presentation.

Read the rest here.

Like Pete Seeger, Peter Paul and Mary, Woody and Arlo Guthrie, and many, many others, Copland was up to his eyeballs in leftist politics, protestations of innocence notwithstanding. Attempts like this one to obscure that fact are part of an effort dating back to the origins of the Popular Front in 1935 and continuing today. Again, the idea is to wrap passive and active advocates of the destruction of America with the red, white, and blue of patriotism while concealing their true allegiance to a proposed world order of socialism.

One can recognize the originality and musicianship of such artists. Their musical talents are undeniable. But portraying them as American patriots was, is, and always will be an absolute falsehood.