Is the concert hall truly a haven, or a subtle instrument of empire? Leah Batstone unveils how musical programming wields geopolitical influence, offering strategies for elevating Ukrainian music within global repertoires, thereby fortifying the nation’s cultural security.
The concert hall may seem like the last venue for a discussion of national security. Indeed, for many audience members, it serves as a refuge from the world’s violence and chaos. But musical programming carries significant sociopolitical weight; given the amount of music available today, the choice to include any particular work becomes a testament to its cultural value. To choose one piece for performance over another is an implicit judgement of quality — and the hefty cost of a ticket for the experience only underlines this. The sense of intrinsic worth is compounded in the case of musical works that are performed and recorded season after season, which is still the modus operandi of most institutions. Programming decisions further establish the boundaries within which audiences can experience a first-rate orchestra or opera company; if the London Philharmonic Orchestra is performing Rachmaninov and you want to hear the ensemble live, then you are listening to Rachmaninov.
These are facts that empires have long understood. Much of the standard repertoire comes from hegemonic regimes, not because they produce naturally better musicians, but because they have the resources to cultivate their presence abroad and they understand that culture is both a way to amass international influence and to distract from misdeeds. The myth that high culture and political violence cannot coexist has a long history of being exploited by genocidal regimes: Nazi Germany is one example. The contemporary Russian Federation is another.
In June of 2022, Mikhail Piotrovsky, the director of the Hermitage Museum, gave an interview to Rossiyskaya Gazeta [Russian Gazette]. Regarding the importance of continuing to exhibit Russian art in major European cities, Piotrovsky said,
This was our ‘special operation,’ if you like, a major cultural offensive. […] The [Sergei] Shchukin and [Ivan] Morozov exhibition [at the Fondation Louis Vuitton] in Paris is the Russian flag over the Bois de Boulogne. […] So, we really had a big cultural offensive. And we came out of it having completed everything we had planned.
Towards the end of the piece, he confirms to the interviewer: ‘We are all militarists and imperialists (laughs)’.[1]
Following some initial reticence to work with Russian musicians closely linked to Putin after the full-scale invasion began, the staunchest supporters of the regime are back on Western stages. While the invitation was finally withdrawn, Valery Gergiev was set to conduct at Un’Estate da RE festival in Italy in July. Anna Netrebko has been contracted by the Berlin State Opera for the 2025 to 2026 season, along with performing at London’s Royal Opera. What is most telling about the Western treatment of these artists is that the questions around giving both stage and salary to allies of a brutal, dictatorial government have been made into clickbait: on a recent programme, BBC Radio 4 turned the outrage at Gergiev’s Italian invitation into philosophical fodder, asking ‘whether culture can be separated from those who promote it’. After countless thorough, thoughtful, and amply researched pieces have resoundingly answered that question in the negative, continuing to pose it today speaks volumes. In short, drawing attention to Russia’s nefarious use of diplomatic ‘soft power’ is going nowhere.
Those who care about promoting Ukraine and its rich culture might reorient their efforts towards securing the position of Ukrainian repertoire in the concert hall, to achieve what Polish or Czech music has in recent years. As a music historian who also programmes an annual three-day festival of Ukrainian music for New York City audiences, I would offer several strategies for achieving this goal. The first is to prioritise the performance of Ukrainian music by leading musicians and ensembles that are not Ukrainian. This is a difficult subject, especially at a time when one way of supporting Ukraine is to platform its musicians abroad. But these are not musicians who need to be convinced of Ukraine’s cultural contributions. When a non-Ukrainian performer or ensemble chooses a Ukrainian work, it sends a certain message about the music’s worth. And looking over contemporary concert programmes of the most influential classical music institutions, the Russian, Czech, and Polish works that have entered the repertoire are rarely performed by ‘native’ musicians.
However, given Russia’s current full-scale war against Ukraine, these performances must be done carefully — and perhaps counterintuitively: these works should be mostly, if not entirely, presented in a way that does not engage narratives of Russian aggression. A framing that today seems au courant will become rigid over time and it will prevent Ukrainian music from entering the concert hall in earnest. It is obvious from looking at the existing programming of Ukrainian music abroad, that this is a significant hurdle. Ukrainian repertoire is still rarely performed but, when it is, it often appears as part of special Ukraine-themed programmes or in service to some story about war, resistance, or mourning. Yet works by Ukrainian composers could and should be performed in a way that does not repeatedly tie Ukraine to the current war or to a one-dimensional identity as a victim of Russia.
Let me offer a specific example: in April 2025, the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) performed Liatoshynsky’s Third Symphony. Composed in 1951 with the epigraph ‘Peace will defeat war’, the work was initially suppressed by Soviet censors, and the composer was forced to revise the music and dispense with its message. That an ensemble as visible and highly regarded as the LPO learned and presented this powerful, but long overlooked, work is quite an achievement for Ukrainian repertoire. The programme, however, was problematic, placing Ukrainian works alongside Russian ones: Mussorgsky’s Songs and Dances of Death, sung by British bass Matthew Rose, and the overture to Semyon Kotko, Prokofiev’s operatic celebration of Soviet salvation from Ukrainian nationalism. The clear Russian orientation of the concert — although the initial concert title of ‘War and Peace’ was mercifully dropped — drew Ukrainian music into a dialogue with Russia, something most cultural figures have vociferously resisted since the beginning of the full-scale invasion. In addition, the ‘timely’ framing suggested that the LPO premiere of Liatoshynsky’s symphony only occurred in order to stage a political statement about the current war.
Without sacrificing a good programmatic theme, like music and war, which can be very appealing to audiences, Liatoshynsky’s Third and its postwar context are compelling artefacts quite apart from contemporary events. What if the symphony had been presented, instead, with Benjamin Britten’s anti-war Sinfonia da Requiem? What about another work from Rose’s repertoire, like an orchestral arrangement of Samuel Barber’s Dover Beach, a setting of Matthew Arnold’s poem about World War II? This kind of programme, which would have shown British audiences how Ukrainian music can address global and timeless themes, even with an elegant and subtle nod to current events, could have been tremendously affecting without reducing Ukraine to its present predicament — or to a dialogue with its oppressor.
In order, however, to insist on these kinds of thoughtful and researched programmes, Ukrainians need more presence in and influence over cultural institutions. Wealthy Russians have long supported not just arts organisations in their own communities but have given generously to the most prestigious and visible ensembles and concert halls. This has made them stakeholders. It has no doubt allowed them to leverage funding towards the performance of certain works and to make executive directors hesitate before programming others. Once Russian works are played repeatedly, they become part of the standard repertoire, and the work of the militarists and imperialists is done. Audiences will ask for this music themselves, and ticket-sale-wary ensembles will programme accordingly. Ukraine may have a smaller population than Russia, but it has its own share of billionaires, particularly in the North American diaspora, and they should be making annual gifts to the cultural institutions where they wish to see a Ukrainian presence.
It will take time for this kind of philanthropy to return on investment. Donors should not expect an immediate quid pro quo. This is a long game, which requires patience: Ukraine is competing against several centuries of Russian colonialism and resources. But here, Ukraine could take some lessons from empires both current and historic. A love of music is intimate, and that intimacy encourages investment in the survival of its creators. When Ukrainian music appears regularly on diverse global stages, performed by musicians of all backgrounds, in dialogue with the whole range of canonic repertoire, the nation will be more secure.
Endnotes
[1] Elena Yakovleva, ‘Pochemu neobkhodimo byt so svoey stranoy, kogda ona sovershaet istoricheskiy povorot i vybor. Otvechaet Mikhail Piotrovskiy [Why it is Necessary to be with Your Country When it Makes a Historical Turn and Choice. An Interview with Mikhail Piotrovsky]’, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, 2022 <https://rg.ru/2022/06/22/kartina-mira.html> [accessed 2 July 2025]. Many thanks to my friend and colleague, Associate Professor of Music Theory at the National Music Academy of Ukraine, Iryna Tukova, for bringing this interview to my attention.
Leah Batstone is a historical musicologist focusing on the intersections of art music, politics, and philosophy in Central and Eastern Europe. Her first book, Mahler’s Nietzsche: Politics and Philosophy in the Wunderhorn Symphonies, was published by Boydell and Brewer in 2023. She is currently working on a monograph about Ukrainian musical modernism and a handbook to Stefania Turkevych’s Symphony No. 1 — the first known symphony by a Ukrainian woman composer. Her scholarship has appeared in the Journal of the Royal Musical Association, Music and Letters, 19th-Century Music, and Musicology Now, and her forthcoming article in the Journal of the American Musicological Society explores Ukrainian modernism in the context of imperial music histories. She is an Assistant Professor and the Area Head of Music History at Montclair State University in New Jersey, as well as the founder and creative director of the Ukrainian Contemporary Music Festival in New York City.
Image: Sevilâ Nariman-qızı, sesler horu (сhorus of voices) from the series menim – seniñ (mine – yours), 2025
