the sounds of war
The social cohesion induced both by music and sound, the interest in public ritual and its mutations and the effects of technological development on our sense of perception, are the subjects we refer to again and again during the course of this endless seminar. The insistence on the analysis of these debates and their updating within the context of the “Peace Treaty” which on the occasion of the bicentenary of the Donostia-San Sebastián fire is taking place in several locations, during this year’s Hirugarren Belarria we deal with the military issue in all its complexity and sonorous violence.
Although the occasion is nothing would seem further from violence than the fondness of musical refinement, it is clear that the mystique of war has been and is inseparable from the proclamations, hymns and acclamations intended to fill those that fight with passion. Music affects bodies, incites them to march and in some way simulates the action of war itself. It is no wonder therefore that in many military academies music was a part of the syllabus alongside subjects such as fencing or horsemanship.
It is this subordination of the body to the function that made Simone Weil so angry in her criticism of revolutionary war. In a text written in 1933, just a few years after leaving to fight in the Columna Durruti in Aragon, Weil came to consider war as a prolongation of industrial production systems, being incapable, therefore, of generating or sustaining any beneficial revolutionary process for the popular classes due to the blind obedience that it involved. To summarise, let us say that this conductive capacity of music (the one Gilles Deleuze defined as its fascist potentiality) is nothing more than its genius to subject the body to an order that seeks to cause certain effects; irrespective of its ideological nature and of the gymnastics that this requires (marching in file, manifestation, flashmob or athletic exercises).
Whichever way one looks at it, it is difficult to separate the imagery of listening and war. The emotional identification with different musical styles that the modern spirit has developed (folk, pop, rock…), seems to be inspired by a certain belonging to different “sides”. Let us not forget that for the European nationalisms configured in the 19th century, strongly influenced by romantic ideas, music embodied the national sentiment more than any other art form. At the same time, in the popular classes, these developments were taking new forms. Modern traditions transmitted via songbooks in printed editions, but also orally, were sung in bars, in the street and cafes. Thus, the arrival of modernity increased the tensions between music as a representation of Power and music as popular feeling.
In July 1813, Beethoven began the score entitled Battle Symphony on Wellington’s victory in Vitoria, a key composition to understand his music in the context of that time and to assess its effects. The first part of this symphony imitates the battle by contrasting the popular songs of the two opposing forces. But we must not forget that in this work, Beethoven collaborated closely with a peculiar individual called Johann Nepomuk Maezel, an Austrian engineer who is attributed with inventions such as the metronome, hearing aids and the Panarmonicon, a kind of mechanical keyboard capable of reproducing the sounds of an entire military orchestra, including cannon fire and shots. Here, the history of sound design establishes another one of its cornerstones: synthesisers and special effects which the entertainment industry has taken such great pains to develop and as a result of the infinity of sound applications used on the battlefield since the Second World War (the long-range acoustic devices (LARDs) or aggressive loudspeakers used to frighten the masses, as well as the contemporary and no less noisy Drones).
To defend listening and a sonorous form of knowledge, to think that through them we can sharpen our critical analysis, requires a partial attenuation of auditory innocence. The proliferation of reproductive technologies has created a new sound landscape which has left us deaf and dumb in more than one sense, without the ability to understand the ideological artifices to which our ears are subjected and which we have to deal with on a daily basis – hence the importance of understanding the games, rhythms and accents of music and language. Only from that place therefore will we be able to listen successfully to that invisible thing that flows above and below them.
