ABSTRACT
This chapter presents Paul Bekker's early view of the relationship between politics and music, and offer further analysis of his aesthetic position in light of the conceptual tensions encountered so far. Drawing on Karen Painter's recent work, it explores the significance of the ethically laden terms 'process' and 'activity' in Bekker's language in order to shed light on their connections to his musical ideals. Bekker participated in a long-standing German tradition of viewing the symphony in political terms, and his points about the collective power of music accorded with the contemporary 'communal vision' of which the symphony was such a powerful expression Bekker's cultural-political position can usefully begin by considering an article published in 1921 entitled Vom Ethos der Musik. In order to judge the ethical value of music, Bekker contends that it is necessary first to move beyond analyses of components that may for example be related to the personality or the technical skills of the composer.
