We support our Publishers and Content Creators. You can view this story on their website by CLICKING HERE.

As I peruse conservative cultural commentary, I am troubled by a lack of awareness and appreciation for 20th-century art music. The music of a composer like Franco Margola has much to teach us about how modernity can connect with tradition and the values of civilization.

Italy, like all countries in Western civilization, has had its cultural ups and downs. I was raised in the assumption that Italy was the center the cultural universe but the reality is that the peninsula, like any other Western culture, has had a varied record—sometimes in the middle of action and innovation, other times in the shadow.

When it comes to music, Italy led the way during the Renaissance and Baroque eras, encompassing sacred polyphony and the rise of instrumental music, opera, and oratorio. (Italy’s leadership in music during this period explains, for example, why most musical terminology derives from Italian.) But a peculiar thing happened to Italian music: opera captured the minds and hearts of Italians to such a degree that in time it became the musical genre in the land. Starting in the late 18th century (the era of Haydn and Mozart) Italian composers came to concentrate almost exclusively on opera, leaving symphonic and chamber music to their counterparts up north. The symphony was the German Way and opera was the Italian Way, and never the twain should meet.

Around 1900, a new generation of Italian musicians believed this situation needed to change. This generazione dell’ottanta (Generation of the ’80s) included such composers as Ottorino Respighi, Alfredo Casella, Gianfrancesco Malipiero, Ildebrando Pizzetti, and Giorgio Federico Ghedini. All were dedicated to reviving Italian instrumental music and to creating a new modern “Italian sound” that would break from the dominance of Romantic opera. To do this, they looked to Italy’s rich musical past for inspiration—particularly to the glory days of the Renaissance and Baroque. The group achieved notable success not only in Italy but in the wider music world—Respighi’s colorful tone poems known collectively as the “Roman Trilogy” (The Pines of Rome, The Fountains of Rome, and Roman Festivals) have become orchestral favorites (and some of the few works by an Italian that you are likely to hear in a symphony concert). In addition to composing new works, this group rediscovered, edited, and performed great Italian music of the past, thus enriching the repertoire and contributing to national musical pride.

This new Italian renaissance affected the next generation of composers, born early in the 20th century. One of these younger men was Franco Margola (1908–1992; the name is accented on the first syllable) from Brescia in northern Italy.

I had not heard of Margola until quite recently. It just so happened that the classical music magazine that I help edit covered some new releases of the composer’s work in the past few years. This got me curious enough to check out Margola’s music, and I liked very much what I heard—even more so when I looked into his philosophy of music. Biographical information on Margola is scarce (he has no entry in The Complete Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, for instance) and his music appears little known outside of Italy. I have gleaned all my information on him from scattered reviews and liner notes to recordings.

I have chosen to write about Margola not because he is an essential composer for all those exploring classical music to know—indeed, most of even experienced listeners have never heard of him—but because I think his work is significant in a way that will resonate with the followers of a journal of ideas like this one. I find this man’s statements about music to fit in very well with the heritage of modern classical humanism so much cherished by imaginative conservatives. Margola helps us ponder what a conservative aesthetic might mean as applied to music. Unfortunately, as I peruse conservative cultural commentary, I am troubled by a lack of awareness and appreciation for 20th-century art music. Rather than railing indiscriminately at the entire modern tradition, we need to bring to light what is good in that tradition. The music of a composer like Margola (there are many similar artists, in all fields) has much to teach us about how modernity can connect with tradition and the values of civilization.

Throughout his long composing career—which lasted from the late 1920s through the 1980s—Margola resisted trends toward atonality, instead embracing neoclassicism and elements of Romantic expression. He used dissonance, but always expressively and as a complement to consonance. Like neoclassicists in general, Margola sought moderation and restraint in his music, projecting a sense of cool precision and order (without rejecting emotional warmth when called for) and adhering to the classic forms and developmental techniques that had sustained Western art music for centuries. Margola’s pieces always have a clear phrase structure, and they give classical tonality a vibrant update through Impressionistic chords, a piquant peppering of nonharmonic notes, and a rhythmic drive that gives the music a distinctly modern feeling. While undeniably conservative, this Margola’s music can never be called retrogressive because, by choosing traditional aesthetic values as a deliberate spiritual path, he created a distinctive and valid expression of his times.

Calling for “greater human openness” in modern music, Margola said that “I wanted to find, through an intimate catharsis, the way to greater human communication.” He also participated in the general revival of the music of the past—the early music movement—that was heating up during his day and continues in ours. Old music was sought not only for its own sake, but also as an inspiration and catalyst for new compositions. As Margola stated, “I believe that many musicians of our century are inspired directly by musical languages of the past as a way to bring themselves back ideally to a more serene climate.”

Margola spoke of how World War II decisively affected his life in the direction of a search for serenity in his music: “[L]ater, and for some years, I had horror at any manifestation of violence and, having become intolerant of any sound harshness, aimed at a relaxing production almost as if it were an antidote.” Margola’s native Italian heritage of melody and singing also surely pushed him to emphasize these elements in his music instead of the obsessive search for new harmonies and timbres which the overt modernists pursued.

The composer offered his clearest mission statement in this way:

“After trying, for some years, to force my musical nature to the dodecaphonic technique, and after having found an absolute moral irreconcilability with such sound climate, I decided to resume what I consider to be my true life: that of the silent craftsmanship which, in absolute modesty, operates outside clamor and controversy.”

In other words, Margola did not reject hardcore modernism out of ignorance; he tried its techniques and found them wanting. This is because the 12-tone technique, the most “advanced” style of Margola’s day (which, however, plenty of composers chose not to follow) he found emotionally constricted and unable to express the more positive sentiments of life. As he put it, “Having crossed the limits of natural harmonics, the music of today in fact seems to vindicate itself against man, offering him only a face of suffering.”

With irony, Margola observed that

“If the music of our century actually expressed contemporary man, it would be more popular. Dodecaphony has expressed the abnormal side of the man of today. But this is only a part of him and not everything: goodness, generosity and love are attributes of man. And since dodecaphony is unable to express this nature, as an art it cannot be considered the sole expression of our time.”

Note that Margola does not deny atonal composers the right to create the music they choose; he says that atonality should not be the only style allowed. There should be a free musical marketplace, in other words. And certainly, one of the lessons of music in the 20th century (classical, popular, or whatever) is that of pluralism. There is far more variety in “modern” music than in any other Western musical era. With such variety abounding, you are bound to find something you will like. And voices like Margola’s remind us that there are different ways of being modern in music.

This composer’s choice of a “relaxing production” can be heard in a recent disc titled Franco Margola: Music for Violin, Piano and Orchestra, featuring a talented group of musicians out of Milan. The two concertos for violin and chamber orchestra, one of them titled Concerto dell’alba (Concerto of the Dawn), show Margola at his most charming and pastoral. But elsewhere the Italian composer shows us he can generate tension and drama too. The Double Concerto for violin, piano, and string orchestra, also included on the disc, is a dark and expressive piece with an almost film noir atmosphere. The violin and the guitar seem to have been close to Margola’s heart, and he wrote copiously for both. His sonatas for violin and piano, and those for violin and guitar, are gems, as are his short pieces for mandolin.

Some listeners value works of Western music on the basis of how they led to this or that, or what style elements in them were pathbreaking or “had never been heard before.” But there is another option: to savor music for its intrinsic qualities, regardless of where it falls along some academically conceived line of historical development. As a musical conservative, Margola belongs in a class with such composers as Maurice Duruflé or Ralph Vaughan Williams, who seemed “behind the times” when judged by the artificial standards of artistic progress. What they wrote, however, stands as something other than a dated relic of its times. As the American composer Lukas Foss said, “to have a big foot in the future, you’ve got to have a big foot in the past.” By remaining true to their inner vision and ignoring the tyranny of high fashions, these composers created work that endures.

One key aspect of conservatism—including aesthetic conservatism—is a humble acknowledgement of limits. Margola knew his strengths and stuck to them, not striving for something beyond his range. He was not a powerfully original genius like Bach or Beethoven, but not every composer has to be. The composers we take to be “the greats” were often not recognized as such in their day; it took time and perspective to see them as such. One of the fallacies in thinking about culture is the idea that art is endlessly renewing, that innovation and genius are constantly on tap. But in a period of cultural decline, it is enough for an artist to show forth beauty and craft, reflecting the best of the tradition and witnessing to enduring values. Margola did this in his modest but estimable work, renewing and refreshing the classical tradition with beauty, wit, charm, and a touching melancholy.

Speaking more generally, I believe it is important to rediscover 20th-century art music. If relatively few in our society take an interest in classical music in general, the number who are conversant with 20th-century art music is even smaller. Listeners often react negatively to the very idea of “modern” music, and conservatives decry modernism in the arts. But I believe that, more often than not, generalized comments on “modern music” reveal a lack of familiarity with the entire breadth of the repertoire. Declaring a generic allegiance to beauty, truth, and goodness—the great transcendentals—is unfortunately no safeguard against blinkered and narrow aesthetic judgments. One cannot form an opinion of music one hasn’t heard, just as one cannot comment on philosophers that one hasn’t read. Given that nobody can “know it all,” we should at least maintain humility and openness to the tradition. We need to discover beauty not just in the abstract but in concrete—in specific artists and works, of all periods of our Western heritage.

Unfortunately, the classical music repertoire has stagnated into a series of greatest hits, and much that is valuable has fallen out of view as the relentless assembly line of culture rolls on. With the enormous growth of popular music in the last century, 20th-century art (or “serious”) music has been crowded out and pushed to the margins. In my writing I often try to be a cultural conservator, taking note of forgotten artists and works that I feel are of value and significance and passing along what I have found, in the hopes that they will resonate with others. And one thing I can say without hesitation is that there is a goldmine, a glorious back catalog, of great music of the past century waiting to be discovered. Franco Margola is only the beginning.

The Imaginative Conservative applies the principle of appreciation to the discussion of culture and politics—we approach dialogue with magnanimity rather than with mere civility. Will you help us remain a refreshing oasis in the increasingly contentious arena of modern discourse? Please consider donating now.

The featured image is “Cello Player” (1920) by Amedeo Modigliani, and is in the public domain, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.


Print Friendly, PDF & Email