![]() Beginning with a cursory examination of definitions of protest music and politically engaged music that foregrounds the role of song text in determining the political meaning of music, I then move on to consider ways in which supposedly ‘apolitical’ music can be considered political when it is used in a political context. ![]() However, whilst all of these notions of ‘political music’ need to be addressed early on in this chapter, a further important issue is raised as a result: what about musics that do not easily fit into any of these categories, but which nevertheless came to be regarded as ‘political’ or politically provocative and critical in their implications, even though not obviously or directly political in their content or their function? The purpose of this chapter is therefore not only to explore the problematic notions of ‘protest music,’ ‘politically engaged’ music, and the political use of music as propaganda, but also to discuss the ‘politically mediated’ character of so-called autonomous music in order to clarify concepts that are fundamental to the rest of this dissertation. ![]() In addition to these, there is the association of music-both art music and popular music-with political propaganda, especially in the Second World War and in the Cold War that followed. In the case of art music, however, the idea of a specifically ‘political music’ is usually understood as politically committed or politically engaged music, in the way often associated with composers like Hanns Eisler in the period from the 1920s to the 1950s, and in the 1950s and 1960s with composers like Luigi Nono. In the context of popular music and folk music, the term is most usually associated with what became known in the 1950s and 1960s as ‘protest music’, particularly as protest songs in relation to the protest movements of the time. The idea of ‘political music’ is problematic and calls for clarification from the outset.
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