I'll give you the classical works La Valse (Ravel), Le Sacre (Stravinsky), showing how messed up the world was, and Sibelius' Fourth Symphony for exposing how messed up the world was in the previous 3T was; Elgar's cello concerto expresses the post-WWII recognition of tragic, pointless losses of human life... and Gershwin's Concerto for Piano and Hindemith's Kleine Kammermusik as examples of how brash the same time could be.
In the last completed 4T, Shostakovich's brutal fourth symphony expresses the horror of totalitarianism (I can interpret it as readily antifascist as hostile to Stalinism); his Fifth shows the idea that after a great struggle the world can achieve a glorious new future (in view of where he composed it, the Marxist ideal of Communism), and his Seventh is titled the "Leningrad" symphony... for a good reason. For extreme optimism near the end of WWII I offer Prokofiev's Fifth symphony, Copland's Appalachian Spring ballet score, and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and third piano concerto (paradoxically he was dying of leukemia, but he still had his hope). Classical composers could no longer write like that after the Holocaust and the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nearly eighty years later we still live under that shadow, and Classical composers could no longer write with such optimism.
Maybe our reticence about a ferocious 4T reflects memories that some of us have assumed in learning from our elders.
In the last completed 4T, Shostakovich's brutal fourth symphony expresses the horror of totalitarianism (I can interpret it as readily antifascist as hostile to Stalinism); his Fifth shows the idea that after a great struggle the world can achieve a glorious new future (in view of where he composed it, the Marxist ideal of Communism), and his Seventh is titled the "Leningrad" symphony... for a good reason. For extreme optimism near the end of WWII I offer Prokofiev's Fifth symphony, Copland's Appalachian Spring ballet score, and Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and third piano concerto (paradoxically he was dying of leukemia, but he still had his hope). Classical composers could no longer write like that after the Holocaust and the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Nearly eighty years later we still live under that shadow, and Classical composers could no longer write with such optimism.
Maybe our reticence about a ferocious 4T reflects memories that some of us have assumed in learning from our elders.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.