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The West‐German avant‐garde music scene of the early 1970s—the period in which the spirit of the New Left manifested itself most intensively in the musical field—was especially marked by the numerous discussions and debates about the nature of political music, its perfection and failures, conducted by musicians and music writers with endless energy and engagement. This chapter throws light on one of these debates: the argument between Nikolaus A. Huber and Clytus Gottwald in 1971–72 about Huber's composition Harakiri. It investigates the terms of the debate, firstly with regard to the musical facts—and in particular a comparison made at the time between Huber's Harakiri and Hans Otte's contemporary piece, Zero—and secondly with regard to the ideas of Theodor W. Adorno, who provided the New Leftist avant‐gardists with politico‐aesthetical ideas.

This introduction sets out the two key arguments for the book. The first is that pleasure operates as a constitutive force in public life, generating alliances and allegiances and shaping sociopolitical relations. The second key argument interrogates pervasive assumptions about political music as a form of resistance and opposition, and instead calls for a less romanticized view. This chapter also introduces readers to Guinea and its history, and addresses theories of recognition in understanding local practices of naming, voice, quietness, and expressive ambiguity. It concludes with a brief discussion of methodology and ethics relating to the study of pleasure in a context of violence, poverty, and dictatorship.

The conclusion presents a summation of Copland’s and Eisler’s political music and their contributions in both their writings and their film scores to the history of the Hollywood industry and American music and film scores. As modernist composers and outsiders to Hollywood, they were able simultaneously to challenge and assimilate Hollywood’s expectations while producing work that coincided with their own political agendas.

This chapter recounts yet more milestones and developments in Wolff's musical career, as well as the changes within his household which in turn enacted further changes into his opus. As Wolff settled into life at Dartmouth, he once again found himself diverging politically from the paths set by Cage and Cardew. But beyond the social consciousness of his performance collective, Wolff turned to a new technique: the veiled embedding of old worker's songs and political tunes in the fabric of his counterpoint. In addition, Wolff would also create another landmark piece in his career: Wobbly Music, which was his first choral work. It established his canon of musico-political sources: the worker's music championed by folk revivalists of the 1950s and 1960s, and exploited a technique that had long fascinated him: hocket.

This chapter marks another threshold in Wolff's musical career: Burdocks. Drawing performative techniques from the improvisatory Scratch Orchestra and heterophonic textures inspired by an African field recording, Burdocks was Wolff's first work intended for a large ensemble. It was his first multimovement work in which each movement had distinctly different instructions on how and what to play. And it was his longest in actual (not just conceptual) performance. In addition, Wolff also had to contend with competing political ideologies between his two mentors, John Cage and Cornelius Cardew, the founder of the Scratch Orchestra. Yet the chapter argues that Wolff's musical “transitional point” came not so much in Burdocks or political intent, but in a new approach to melody that began with a series of piano pieces he wrote in 1969–1970.