Citation
Coclanis, Peter A. (2010). Literature of the Heart: The Communist Manifesto Oratorio. Books & Culture, 16(4), 35-36.Abstract
Music is the literature of the heart; it commences where speech ends.—Alphonse de LamartineThe various anniversaries of Marx and Engels' Communist Manifesto, first published in 1848, have occasioned a slew of commemorations, commentaries, and execrations. The many new editions and translations during the Second International (1889-1914), the famous centennial celebrations in Lyons in 1948, and Eric Hobsbawm's estimable 1998 edition celebrating birthday 150 come immediately to mind in this regard. But no commemoration in my view has ever been so unusual as that of Czech composer-pianist Erwin Schulhoff, who actually set the Manifesto to music in 1932.