Question I would like for you to discuss Russian composers. I guess, in terms of the major eras after Peter the Great, Alexander II. And really, I'm curious about composers in the 20th Century. And what was different then, that shaped their attitude in the face of the political situation, that they had then. Thank you.

LaRouche: Hmm! Okay, this is a sticky wicket!

As most of you probably know, in early 1946, I had returned from Burma after the close of the war, and was stationed briefly in a replacement depot camp outside of Calcutta, called Cantrapara [ph]. And, I was coming out of the jungle. And I was starving for music, and I found a couple of co-conspirators, and we dug up everything that represented music, in terms of musical scores, pianos, whatnot--everything. And, we would have a regular session, daily, among us--just getting back to civilization, out of the jungle.

In this process, one of the things I dug out, or we dug out-- but I was so transfixed by it, that I didn't pay much attention, for the moment, to the people around me, until they afterward had agreed that they had been impressed, too. One was an HMV, that is, the British Victor company, pressing of a performance of a Tchaikowsky symphony, conducted by Furtwaengler. Furtwaengler was a conductor I knew by name, but not by experience at that point. And I tell you, I was frozen in my seat. Because this was Tchaikowsky, who is not my favorite composer--he's rather sloppy in terms of the kind of music he produced; well-meaning, sentimental guy, who was persecuted for his work.

But, what happened is, that Furtwaengler, as typical of him, went to the core of the score; did not perform the score. Idiots perform the score of their music. Competent people perform the music, instead of the scores. That doesn't mean they violate the notes, but they don't play the notes. Because, if music could be the notes, you wouldn't have to have musicians: You would just look at the score, and you would radiate into your mind. So, the point is, a score is a code. It's a code, like a written language.

Now, written language, which can be dealt with in terms-- [barking in the background] Rosco! Leave those trousers, alone! [laughter] He tears trousers, I understand.

It's like a language: If a language can be interpreted by dictionary method, the method of the idiot, Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court Justice ([parenthetical remark inaud] otherwise known), then there wouldn't be human beings. Because there would be no ideas communicated, because a language, in a literal sense, can not contain an idea. The way I just defined the ideas, in terms of the previous question. And idea like between the cracks of sense-certainty. And idea is an principle, which you can not touch, you can not see--eh? You can not smell (preferably), and so forth. It is something, which is conveyed to you, by a paradox, a contradiction. Just as a principle of the physical universe is communicated.

So therefore, when ideas are communicated, by means of language, they're communicated by irony or metaphor. That's why people who graduate from universities today, are so stupid, when it comes to poetry. Even people of your parents' generation, generally--even if they're so-called "well-educated, can not recite an English poem competently. Just can't do it. And, this is also with some German-speakers, reciting German poetry, who can recite it in a literate fashion, but the ideas don't come across. Because, the irony is not there.

The same problem arises in music: It's irony!

Now, what happened is, Tchaikowsky came into a period, in which you had had a person called "that bastard," "that criminal," Carl Czerny, had brought a young fellow called Franz Liszt, a pupil of Czerny, to Beethoven, for an audit. And, at that point, Beethoven was asked what he thought about the work of young Liszt at the keyboard, and he said, "He's a very talented boy, but under the influence of that criminal Czerny, it's going to be terrible."

And, what happened is, with the rise of the Romantic movement in Europe, especially after the Battle at Jena-Auerstadt, that a great wave of cultural pessimism spread throughout Germany, in the form of Romanticism. Goethe, for a time, became a raving Romantic for a while, just admiring this great man Napoleon. Hegel, of course, became a fascist, after the battle, because he made a theory of the state based on his sexual fascination with Napoleon Bonaparte. The Nazi theory of the state is based on Hegel, derived from Hegel; derived from Hegel's crony, Savigny, who was Marx's law teacher; and derived, later, from Carl Schmitt, in Germany, who was a follower of this school of law.

So, the Romantics would try to imitate Classical composition. Classical composition means, essentially, Johann Sebastian Bach. It generally means, for the student, someone who can actually-- unlike some people--can actually perform the preludes and fugues of the Well-Tempered Clavier. And, very few people who perform it publicly can do. We have one fellow, who does a very good job, who is Andras Schiff [ph]. I heard his performance of the Goldberg Variations, on a piano keyboard--it's a two-manual harpsichord composition, and he manages to do the thing brilliantly, on a keyboard. I was absolutely astonished.

But, someone who actually understands the principles of counterpoint, of Bach. And who understands how Bach's principles of counterpoint shaped the way, in which, indirectly at first, Haydn was influenced; the way Mozart was directly influenced, from 1782 on; the way Beethoven was trained; the way Schubert was affect; the way Felix Mendelssohn worked, in his worked; the way Schumann worked, the way Brahms worked--this is a total, different proposition.

Now, Tchaikowsky was strongly influenced by the Romantics. And therefore, his compositions were tailored to the Romantic. But, what Furtwaengler did--which is why I say it's a stick question--what Furtwaengler did, was took this composition, this symphony of Tchaikowsky, which is usually performed in the usual sentimental slop form, and he made this a highly disciplined, precise Bachian reading of it. So, what Furtwaengler did was not to misrepresent Tchaikowsky. But, to go in, and look at the composition, and find an intent within the composition, which was a valid musical idea, to conduct the composition in such form, that, instead of the Romantic slop, which most conductors find richly deployed in the score, pulled it away from the Romantic slop.

And, this is the kind of thing you get, for example: You have elements of Shostakovich, which show a struggle with the same kind of strain of idea. So, there's no simple thing, as Russian composers. Russia, because of the condition of the Czarist oligarchy, and other things, had great difficulty in developing many Mendeleyevs, in music, or elsewhere. Or many Vernadskys, in music or elsewhere. Because the state was a backward form of state, which Alexander II and so forth, had tried--rather effectively, with the help of Mendeleyev--to transform. And then, the "Troubles" came in.

So, it was not the optimal condition. You will find, in terms of song, that the forms of song-settings of poetry, Classical form, are generally restricted in Europe, to the Italian and German model. You find that other language groups do not produce the same effect. Because, as recently, in an interview--probably some years ago, but recently published, of Dietrich Fischer- Dieskau: He made a comment, that the development of the German Lied is closely intertwined with peculiarities of the German language, the Classical use of the German language. You find the same thing in the Italian. The German Lied and the best Italian model, like Verdi, are all derived from the concept of the Florentine school of bel canto. As we did in one manual, on this subject, there are certain differences between the German and the Italian, in terms of bel canto, how it's handled. But, the principle is the same. And so, the competent Classical Italian singer or German singer, is trained in the Florentine bel canto, either in the Italian version or the German version--or both.

And therefore, the irony, the principle of irony, which is shown, in a very essential way, by Bach's conception of well- tempered counterpoint, contains an inherent irony, which generates an idea. So that the composer, in composing a work, composes a whole work, before writing a single note down. It's all in the mind! It's one idea!

The question, as any Classical composition, any serious scientific composition: The person, who writes the composition, knows exactly what he's going to write, before he puts the first word on paper; and knows it from beginning to end. Because he knows his intention, of the idea he's going to put across. And therefore, he's going to write it in a way, which puts in the contradictions in the right place, to try to move the reader, from one point to the other, to the idea: So that, the beginning and the ending, come precisely at the right point. Not an extra note is added, nor one subtracted. Everything there is essential, because he's written this thing, under the influence of an idea.

Now, sometimes, he'll make changes, improvements in his score later, but they'll always be consistent with the intent. He says, "I didn't express my intention adequately. I have to make this change." Which Beethoven did a number of times. For example, the most famous case, is in his third movement of the Hammerklavier Sonata, the Opus 106, in which he added two chords, at the beginning of the movement, which he added afterward. Which actually, you read it, and you say, "It's obvious, why he did it." It did make the expression of the idea much more effective, especially when you look at the composition as a whole.

So, that's the difference. Music has to be based on the ideas. It has to enjoy a culture, in which ideas are communicated among the people. The person, who is a great artist in a culture, always is in conflict with the culture. Take the case of Brunelleschi, which I've cited before: In the cupola of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, he had a conception of how to build that cupola, which was otherwise impossible! According to the accepted doctrine of the time. He had a clear concept of the solution, and people would say, "Well, what's the form?" As if there was a form that would stably hold together, once you'd put it up. He did start that way. He said, "How can you build this thing, so that, at each stage of the construction, it won't fall apart?" And, he used the famous "hanging chain" principle, which he used explicitly.

So therefore, he had a conception, of how to complete the cupola, which took a number of years to do: Before the first stone was moved, he knew exactly what the finished composition was going to be. And, this is the same thing that is true, in all science and all art.

And the problem was, in Russia, this, in terms of Classical artistic development, this did not develop. What you will see, as in the case of this Tchaikowsky case I mentioned, by Furtwaengler's conducting, that you can see that all competent Russian composers were very responsive to what they saw accomplished by the Bach tradition in Central Europe. [applause]

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