In this essay, Harvey Sachs retraces often overlooked aspects of the relationship between Italian musical life and the Fascist regime, highlighting institutional and personal aspects of artistic life. The author investigates how political power sought to control, direct, and exploit music as a tool of consensus and propaganda, intervening in cultural institutions, conservatories, orchestras and opera houses.
Through extensive documentation, Sachs reconstructs the behaviour of composers, conductors and musicians, showing a range of attitudes that spanned from staunch support for the regime to opportunistic conformism and more or less explicit resistance. He highlights the complexity of individual choices, avoiding simplistic judgements and noting how many artists found themselves mediating between creative needs, professional survival and ideological pressures.
Music in Fascist Italy is a fundamental contribution to understanding the link between art and politics and the role of culture in authoritarian systems.