Soda - Keeping Curious

Were revolutionaries of old just a cut above the ones we have today? I ask this question because listening to Radio 3 (the serious classical one)on the way to work this morning, I learnt that Beethoven’s overture ‘Egremont’ was the leitmotif for the 1956 Hungarian Uprising. Played excessively and insistently by Hungarian radio, it became the rallying anthem of the popularist moment, inspiring students to take to the streets, with a spirit of renewed nationalism, to defend their country and their rights against the Soviet ‘invasion’.

In the course of absorbing this fact, and no doubt inspired by the Beethoven piece being played, I wondered why modern nationalist movements (scary concept) no longer call upon the emotional and intellectual input of a Smetena or a Sibelius or a Dvorak to provide themes to stir the heart and unite the people. (Perhaps because a lot of contemporary serious music doesn’t concern itself with all that melodious, romantic, heart-stirring stuff).

As much confined to history as the nationalist movements they supported, these musical ‘revolutionaries’ found inspiration in their country’s past and its attachment to its physical geography. Folksongs were religiously collected, long-forgotten nationalist heroes revived and the long-discarded landscape rediscovered. Akin to a brand that’s lost its way going back to basics, many a late nineteenth and early twentieth composer dug deep into their nation’s psyche to conjured-up past achievements to inspire people to a better future.

With reference to my post yesterday, if your next project could benefit from having a soundtrack, then why not raid the music store and pick-up a few stellar examples that ram home the point that there’s nothing quite like a good bit of music to inspire humans to achieve greater things. Come to think of it, why doesn’t music feature more in corporate life, especially in those visioning and positioning exercises so beloved by marketing directors? Think of Smetena, Sibelius and Dvorak as supreme examples of repositioning gurus, (there’s a new thought) who used the medium of abstract sounds to convey brand essence. Now that sounds like the basis of a good idea to me, when you’re next lost for words to decribe what you’re all about. Why not try music instead. Shostakovich, for some unexplicable reason, works for me.