The volume Italian Music during the Fascist Period, appeared in this series five years ago. In producing so vast a study of the Fascist regime, it was immediately clear that, even if a real regime of aesthetics never existed in Italy (since artistic expression was regarded ad a complementary instrument in consensus politics), cultivating the image was an essential part in the mechanism of generating a consensus, anticipating the politics of spectacle used throughout the world today.
The idea of devoting a book to various forms of dictatorship developed from our researches on the Facist regime: we wante dto extend our field of research to include other European nations and to encompass Southern American Countries.
In the present volume the music is explored as a political phenomenon in fifteen nations under totalitarism regimes. Historical and aesthetical articles focus on both individual figures as well whole generations of composers operating under dictatorship.
The book's contents are arranged geographically: thirteen chapters are dedicated to ten European nations, listed in alphabetical order (France, Greec, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Serbia, Spain and Hungary), followed by nine essays concerning Latin America (Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Cuba, Mexico).
Obviously, the volume cannot pretend to be exhaustive in its coverage. We have striven to achieve consistency in the number of essays devoted to each nation, but this was not always possible (especially in relation to Latin America) due to the varying resources available to modern research. Generally we chose to avoid wide-ranging approaches striving to encompass the whole of a topic, in the belief that, in most cases, specific, detailed examinations are more conclusive than a general history would be.
One of the book's twenty-two essays is 161 pages and almost a book in itself: this is the article on Renzo Massarani from Carlo Piccardi. Renzo Massarani, born in Mantua, was a Jewish composer and music critic. He was a pupil of Alfredo Casella and is noted for creating the group 'The Three' along with Rieti and Labroca. A committed Fascist, he participated in the March of Rme. However, in 1938 he fell into disgrace because of the racial laws and was forced to emigrate to Brazil, from whence he never returned.