Views of Lyndon LaRouche and The LaRouche Movement - Music and Science

Music and Science

LaRouche is fascinated by musical theory, as well as mathematics and physics, and this fascination also translates into his teachings; his followers for example have attempted to link the musical scale to his Neoplatonist model of economic evolution, and study singing and geometry. A common teaser used by the movement is to ask people whether they know how to "double the square"—draw a square whose area is twice the size of an existing square. A motto of LaRouche's European Workers' Party is "Think like Beethoven"; movement offices typically include a piano and posters of German composers, and members are known for their choral singing at protest events, using satirical lyrics tailored to their targets.

LaRouche and his wife have an interest in classical music up to the period of Brahms. LaRouche abhors contemporary music; holding that rock music is subversive, and was deliberately created to be so by British intelligence interests. LaRouche is quoted as saying that jazz music was "foisted on black Americans by the same oligarchy which had run the U.S. slave trade". This dislike for modern music also extends to more recent classical music; LaRouche movement members have protested at performances of Richard Wagner's operas, denouncing Wagner as an anti-Semite who found favor with the Nazis, and called a conductor "satanic" because he played contemporary music.

In 1988 LaRouche advocated that classical orchestras should return to the "Verdi pitch," a pitch that Verdi had enshrined in Italian legislation in 1884. Orchestras' pitches have risen since the 18th century, because a higher pitch produces a more brilliant orchestral sound, while imposing an additional strain on singers' voices. Giuseppe Verdi succeeded in 1884 in having legislation passed in Italy that fixed the reference pitch for A at 432 Hz, but in 1938, the international standard was raised to 440 Hz, with some major orchestras tuning as high as 450 Hz in recent times. LaRouche spoke about the resulting strain on singers' voices in his 1988 presidential campaign videos. By 1989 the initiative had attracted support from more than 300 opera stars, including Joan Sutherland, Placido Domingo, Luciano Pavarotti and Montserrat Caballé. While many of these singers may or may not have been aware of LaRouche's politics, Renata Tebaldi and Piero Cappuccilli ran for the European Parliament on LaRouche's "Patriots for Italy" platform and appeared as featured speakers at Schiller Institute conferences on the topic. The discussions led to debates in the Italian parliament about reinstating Verdi's legislation. LaRouche himself gave an interview to National Public Radio on the initiative in 1989 from prison. Stefan Zucker, the editor of Opera Fanatic (and, incidentally, the "world's highest tenor") opposed the initiative on the grounds that it would result in the establishment of a "pitch police," arguing that the way it presented the history of the tuning pitch was a "simplification", and that LaRouche was using the issue to gain credibility. The initiative in the Italian Senate failed to result in corresponding legislation being passed.

LaRouche considers pitch important, believing that the Verdi pitch has a direct relation to the structure of the universe, and that bel canto singing at the correct pitch maximizes the music's impact on both singers and listeners.