“A cursory search for information about iconic composers like Beethoven, Mozart, Liszt or Stravinsky inevitably yields articles and blog posts proclaiming them the ‘original punk rockers,’ linking them with … bands like the Ramones, the Sex Pistols and The Clash,” writes Alexander Carpenter in Wednesday’s (9/22) The Conversation (Australia). “Who are the supposed punks of the classical music world? It seems that, for many commentators, any composer who went against the grain in some way was a punk [including] the medieval nun Hildegard von Bingen … Tchaikovsky [and] Mozart…. But Beethoven … appears to be the exemplar of a proto-punk…. Musicologist William Kinderman’s very recent book about the political nature of Beethoven’s music describes the composer as a ‘Rebell und Punk.’ … Punk rock … is … in essence, a rock revival movement rather than an anarchic reimagining or refashioning of music…. If we must draw some connecting lines … we could look to [Stravinsky’s] 1913 ballet Le sacre du printemps … reputed to have sparked a riot, and … lauded as a turning point in the development of musical modernism. This performance, like the legendary first gig by the Sex Pistols in 1976, has since become shrouded in myth.”
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