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The Classical Revolution
A Foretaste

April 2011


For over a quarter century, the international Schiller Institute movement has been at the forefront in the battle against the cultural degeneration  which has shaped the thinking of policy makers and populations, and which has brought society to the brink disaster today.  As the poets understood,  "The pathway to Freedom is through Beauty", so we invite you to join us in creating a new Golden Renaissance in Science and Culture, to replace the present day cultural decay, and  free mankind from the disease of oligarchism.  We present in these three short videos a solution principle, as a prelude to the longer video DVD now in preparation.  

Download:

1. Who Owns Your Culture?[1]
iPod Version | HD Version

2. Launching the Renaissance[2]
iPod Version | HD Version

3. The Return of the Verdi Tuning[3]
iPod Version | HD Version

 

[1] Who Owns Your Culture?

Who owns your culture? You don't! You don't even own your own soul! You sold your soul cheap!

The Congress For Cultural Freedom -- a better name would be "the Sexual Congress for Cultural Fascism" -- shaped the culture after WWII. The counter-culture which was then promoted as an intelligence operation by powerful financial interests, has now become the culture.

When we take a look at today's culture, we notice that a lot of the things that Bertrand Russell wished for in a speech in Munich in 1953, actually came true:

"I think," Russell wrote, "the subject which will be of most importance politically is mass psychology. . . . Its importance has been enormously increased by the growth of modern methods of propaganda. Of these the most influential is what is called 'education.' Religion plays a part, though a diminishing one; the press, the cinema, and the radio play an increasing part. . . . It may be hoped that in time anybody will be able to persuade anybody of anything if he can catch the patient young and is provided by the State with money and equipment."

Russell continued, "The subject will make great strides when it is taken up by scientists under a scientific dictatorship. . . . The social psychologists of the future will have a number of classes of school children on whom they will try different methods of producing an unshakable conviction that snow is black. Various results will soon be arrived at. First, that the influence of home is obstructive. Second, that not much can be done unless indoctrination begins before the age of ten. Third, that verses set to music and repeatedly intoned are very effective. Fourth, that the opinion that snow is white must be held to show a morbid taste for eccentricity. But I anticipate. It is for future scientists to make these maxims precise and discover exactly how much it costs per head to make children believe that snow is black, and how much less it would cost to make them believe it is dark gray."

Russell concluded with a warning: "Although this science will be diligently studied, it will be rigidly confined to the governing class. The populace will not be allowed to know how its convictions were generated. When the technique has been perfected, every government that has been in charge of education for a generation will be able to control its subjects securely without the need of armies or policemen."

 

[2] Launching the Renaissance

What does one do when the state is corrupt, and the masses are apathetic? Where does change then actually come from? Friedrich Schiller found a really fantastic response: that it can only happen through classical art.

This "preview" of an upcoming DVD ("The Classical Revolution") features Helga Zepp-LaRouche (president of the Schiller Institute), tenor Raymond Björling (grandson of Jussi Björling), economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, Maestro Daniel Lipton, Harley Schlanger (member of Schiller Institute Board of Directors), Norbert Brainin (1923-2005, first violinist of the Amadeus Quartet), and baritone William Warfield (1920-2002), in a discussion on the following topics:

* Launching the Renaissance
* Bel canto: The Art of Beautiful Singing
* The Magic of Music and Counterpoint
* The Rediscovery of Motivführung
* The Artists: Bringing Humanity Forward
* Behind the Notes
* A New Classical Renaissance for the World

 

[3] The Return of the Verdi Tuning

At the time of Verdi, the pitch was 432 Hz, and he wrote his operas for that pitch. Giuseppe Verdi was a very intelligent person, he knew the voices very well, and he wrote for the voices. Going back to the Verdi tuning, and thereby breaking the perverse trend of the last decades of tuning ever higher, is a matter of respect for the artistic will of the composer, for his idea of color, of sound, of color of the voice, and also respect for the vocal instrument.

This third "preview" of an upcoming DVD ("The Classical Revolution") features a number of leading proponents of going back to the Verdi pitch of A=432 Hz: soprano Renata Tebaldi, baritone Piero Cappuccilli, Lyndon LaRouche and Liliana Gorini (initiators of the Schiller Institute's campaign for the Verdi Tuning), soprano Antonella Banaudi and Maestro Daniel Lipton.

Some of the other leading singers who supported the campaign for the Verdi Tuning are: Placido Domingo (tenor), Luciano Pavarotti (tenor), Montserrat Caballé (soprano), Joan Sutherland (soprano), Carlo Bergonzi (tenor), Giuseppe di Stefano (tenor), Birgit Nilsson (soprano), Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau (baritone), Kurt Moll (bass), Nikolai Ghiaurov (bass), Shirley Verrett (soprano), Fiorenza Cossotto (mezzo-soprano), Alfredo Kraus (tenor), Grace Bumbry (soprano), Edda Moser (soprano), Marilyn Horne (mezzo-soprano), Christa Ludwig (mezzosoprano), Peter Schreier (tenor), Sherrill Milnes (baritone), Renato Bruson (baritone), Ruggero Raimondi (bass), and many others.