The Political Playlist: Music and Power from Beethoven to the Cold War

Music has never been just art and beauty—it has also served as protest, propaganda, and diplomacy. This course traces its political power across two centuries, starting with Beethoven's Eroica Symphony, originally dedicated to Napoleon before a disillusioned Beethoven furiously scratched out the dedication, through totalitarian regimes' use and suppression of music as propaganda, to Cold War jazz diplomacy and rock's surprising role behind the Iron Curtain. We close with the Scorpions' "Wind of Change," the power ballad some people truly believe was secretly written by the CIA.