Review of Naomi Waltham-Smith, Music and Belonging Between Revolution and Restoration, and Daniel K. L. Chua, Beethoven and Freedom

Abstract

With prominent exceptions including Theodor Adorno, musicology and leftist discourse have only rarely combined in scholarly writing or criticism. Art history and literary theory have not experienced the same remoteness from leftist or Marxist critical traditions, and what there has been in music studies has tended towards Ethnomusicology and Popular Music scholarship. The two books under review here register something of a shift in this respect while at the same time highlighting the difficulties involved in relating left-theoretical hermeneutics to the musical canon. Musicologists Naomi Waltham-Smith and Daniel Chua both engage with theoretical and philosophical discourses which may be defined as broadly influenced by Marx or, more accurately, conceived in critical response to Marxism: Waltham-Smith’s study finds paradigms of biopolitical logic and deconstruction in the works of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, while Chua’s book on Beethoven engages with Adorno’s unfinished monograph on the composer. This review will focus on left-theoretical issues rather than musical analysis or musicological scholarship. For the latter, I recommend a recent review by Craig Comen (2018). Following considerations of each of these books separately, I shall conclude with a brief comparison of the two.