The long history of musical censorship
Editor, The Times:
I read your account of the Everett School District and its decision to bar the playing of an instrumental version of “Ave Maria” at a graduation ceremony [“Top court rejects appeal of ‘Ave Maria’ ruling,” NWTuesday, March 23] and recalled my own school experience with musical censorship.
Way back in 1965, at the height of the Cold War when I was 11 years old and in fifth grade, our teacher told us we could bring a Christmas album into class and he would play it.
My father, a U.S. naval commander, was also an amateur opera singer with a love for big, baritone voices, and he used to play a record by the Soviet Army Men’s Chorus. One song in particular always struck me as sounding like winter and Christmas — without understanding a word of Russian, you could get the sense of horse-drawn carriages with sleigh bells jingling as they rushed through the snowy woods, and the swirling balalaika’s added a taste of something exotic and exciting.
So when I brought the record to class and presented it to my teacher, he took one look at the cover, gave me a withering look of disdain and refused to play it. He also put it away in a desk drawer and wouldn’t give it back until the end of the school day, presumably so I wouldn’t infect any other students with my communist sympathies or whatever it was he was afraid of.
Though it puzzled me at the time, that lesson stayed with me, this notion that musical notes in the air could be a threat of some kind and couldn’t be enjoyed even when separated from any lyrical content.
Musician Kathryn Nurre’s quote goes to the heart of the matter: “We liked the way it sounded.” This latest decision by our Supreme Court to let the ruling stand indicates that fear of music is apparently still alive and well. My fifth-grade teacher would be pleased.
— Ron Dickson, Seattle