I don’t know, Mike. You’re a composer , and you actually know how musicians and the bookers of orchestras think. So I take your point, when you swat down young Santiago Ramos for his defense of the New York Philharmonic’s February trip to North Korea. Beautiful music can be put to the service of evil—the Nazis and the Soviets had some reasonably good orchestras, didn’t they?—and something beautiful taking money to serve up its beauty for the delectation of evil men, well, that’s pretty much the definition of prostitution, isn’t it?
And yet, Mike, there’s a small defense of art that I’m unwilling to let go entirely. Music is the most contentless of the arts—as I remember, that was just about the only claim I made back in “The Soundtracking of America” that didn’t induce violent thoughts in you—and thus the beauty of music can reach even dictators preternaturally sensitive to rebellious thoughts. And with that connection to beauty, there is at least some drawing of the self out to the real world.
The potential gain of the Philharmonic in North Korea is small, I know. But the cost is low: I don’t see any “diplomatic victory” in the visit; everybody knows Kim Jong-il is a murderous dictator who is destroying his country, and no visit from an orchestra is going to change that. So why not try drawing him out with a little music?
The answer, I suppose, is that it can be read as disrespect for the man’s many victims. But must it be read that way?
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