KAMPAGNEAVIS NR. 7, EFTERÅR 2008

 

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Den 2. oktober havde Schiller Instituttet foretræde for Folketingets Politisk-Økonomiske Udvalg. Tom Gillesberg holdt talen nedenfor og kom derefter med en kraftig appel til folketingsmedlemmerne, hvor han bl.a. fremførte, at den nuværende finanskrise ikke så meget har paralleller til den i 30’erne, men i stedet til den den sammenbrudskrise Europa oplevede i det 14. århundrede. Dengang ledte handelshusene Bardi og Peruzzis fald til finanssystemet og og samfundsordenens opløsning og en ny mørk tidsalder, hvor Europas befolkning blev reduceret til en tredjedel. Der var ingen opfølgende spørgsmål fra udvalget, men formanden forklarede det med, at medlemmerne allerede var velinformerede om Schiller Instituttets standpunkter gennem det materiale man løbende havde fået og i forbindelse med Schiller Instituttets foretræde i begyndelsen af året.

Efter Schiller Instituttets foretræde var der åbent samråd med økonomiminister Lene Espersen, om hvilke tiltag hun vil tage, for at beskytte Danmark og den danske befolkning imod finanskrisen. Nederst ses et lille videoklip hvor Michelle Rasmussen efter mødet spørger ministeren om LaRouches og Sarkozys forslag om en ny Bretton Woods-konference.

Tale af Tom Gillesberg til Schiller Instituttets foretræde for Folketingets Politisk-økonomiske Udvalg den 2. oktober 2008.

Kun et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem
kan løse finanskrisen

Vi står midt i det største finansielle sammenbrud verden nogen sinde har set. Gigantiske papirværdier er allerede gået op i røg og mange flere vil følge. Panikken har allerede meldt sig, og fra verdens finansmarkeder skriges der: ”Red os, red os, giv os nogle flere penge.” Men luk ørene for sirenesangen og kravet om at skatteyderne skal redde spekulanterne. Der er ingen måde, hvorpå det igangværende finansielle sammenbrud kan stoppes inden for rammerne af det nuværende system. Kun gennem at sætte hele finanssystemet under konkursbehandling og etablere et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem baseret på principperne fra Franklin D. Roosevelt, som foreslået og udarbejdet af den amerikanske økonom og statsmand Lyndon LaRouche, er der en farbar vej ud af den nuværende krise.

Netop nu forsøger den amerikanske regering at få en hjælpepakke til finansmarkederne på 3.500 mia. kr. vedtaget i den amerikanske kongres. Det var gode nyheder, at kongressen i første omgang stemte nej, for lykkes det at få den vedtaget, vil det ikke som lovet redde finanssystemet og vores økonomiske fremtid. Måske sætter det spekulanterne i stand til at fortsætte deres kasinospil et par dage til, men ved at staten overtager den ubetalelige gæld, skaber man hyperinflation som i Weimar-Tyskland i 1923, men denne gang på global skala. Det vil omdanne dollaren til konfetti. At lade staten og skatteyderne overtage spekulanternes dårlige spillegæld er ikke blot umoralsk, men bringer også statens fremtidige sikkerhed og borgernes velfærd i fare.

 

LaRouche advarede imod sammenbruddet

Det har været en udbredt kliche hos medier, politikere og økonomer at ingen kunne forudse den nuværende krise, og at der ikke er noget alternativ til at pumpe flere penge ud i finansmarkederne, men det passer ikke. Lyndon LaRouche og Schiller Instituttet har gennem årtier advaret imod den finansielle afregulering og skiftet fra fysisk økonomi til finansspekulation, og den katastrofe det uundgåeligt måtte ende i. F.eks. forsøgte jeg ved kommunalvalget i november 2005 med kampagnen: ”Når boblen brister … Et nyt Bretton Woods” at sætte den forestående krise på den politiske dagsorden.

Den 25. juli sidste år holdt Lyndon LaRouche en webcast fra Washington, hvor han advarede om et dramatisk faseskift: Vi stod umiddelbart foran disintegrationen af hele det internationale finanssystem. Tre dage senere kollapsede den tyske IKB Bank under vægten af dårlige ”subprimelån”. De blev den snebold, der udløste lavinen. Efterfølgende fremlagde LaRouche en trepunkts kriseplan for USA. Vi har ikke blot advaret om krisens dybde men også fremlagt løsningsforslag, som da jeg i 2007 stillede op til Folketinget sammen med tre andre kandidater under sloganet: ”Efter finanskrakket – Magnettog over Kattegat”.

Den 17. januar i år fremlagde jeg ved et foretræde her for Politisk-Økonomisk Udvalg de umiddelbare tiltag der burde iværksættes for at undgå de frygtelige konsekvenser af et internationalt finansielt sammenbrud. Mange af jer mente måske at jeg overdrev, eller at det var for stort et spørgsmål for folketingsmedlemmer at beskæftige sig med, men der er ingen vej uden om. Folketingets medlemmer må skabe sig et klart billede af, hvordan et nyt finanssystem skal skrues sammen, og hvilke tiltag vi må foretage for at beskytte vores økonomi og befolkning.

 

1)    Red banker og boligejere – ikke spekulationsgælden

Efterhånden som forskellige banker og finansinstitutioner går ned, skal myndighederne ikke lade skatteyderne overtage bankernes tab (som det skete med overtagelsen af Roskilde Bank). I stedet skal man gennem en konkursbehandling sikre, at bankens normale bankvirksomhed fortsætter uhindret i en rekonstrueret bank, og så fastfryse de dårlige lån, derivater og lign. (spekulative finansinstrumenter som optioner, futures, credit default swaps, morgage backed securities etc.) til en senere behandling. Spekulanter kan få lov til at tabe skjorten, men det er vigtigt at småsparere og virksomheder beskyttes, og at bankerne kan fortsætte de daglige aktiviteter, som en økonomi ikke kan være foruden.Staten må samtidigt forhindre, at en flodbølge af folk bliver smidt ud af deres hjem.

 

2)    Todelt kreditpolitik

I stedet for ukritisk at pumpe milliarder ud til finansspekulanterne gennem national- og centralbanker skal vi målrette nationale kreditter til de dele af den fysiske økonomi, der kan komme til at lide under en kreditkrise, som hastigt forværres. Vi må forberede os på, at de tider, hvor et dansk indlånsunderskud kunne hentes på de internationale finansmarkeder, endegyldigt er forbi. Staten bør derfor bruge nationalbanken som en rigtig hamiltonsk nationalbank med en todelt kreditpolitik. Vi kan lade renten på udlån til finansmarkederne være rimelig høj, og samtidigt have billige kreditter på 1-2 procent til investeringer i industri, landbrug og infrastruktur, som staten udsteder gennem nationalbanken til private virksomheder via deres normale bankforbindelse. På lignende vis kan vi finansiere faste forbindelser over Femern Bælt, Kattegat og Øresund (Helsingør-Helsingborg), samt offentlige investeringer i motorveje, tog- og magnettognet, sygehuse, uddannelsesinstitutioner og forskning. Det kan sætte gang i økonomien, når den lånebaserede forbrugsfest tager af. Hvis krisen viser sig at føre til at almindelige familier ikke længere kan få rimelige realkreditlån o. lign. må staten ligeledes hjælpe til.

 

3)    Et nyt Bretton Woods

Det nuværende spekulationshærgede globale system må sættes under konkursbehandling og erstattes af en moderne version af det Bretton Woods-finanssystem, som Roosevelt tog initiativ til i 1944. Det nye system skal være kreditbaseret, som Roosevelt havde tænkt sig, ikke monetaristisk, så der er de indbyggede mekanismer til at skabe kreditter til nationale og internationale projekter.

Det voksende oprør i den amerikanske befolkning, som resulterede i at Repræsentanternes Hus stemte nej til Bush-regeringens hjælpepakke, giver håb om at USA kan skifte politik og være med til at søsætte et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem sammen med Rusland, Kina og Indien, der allerede har signaleret at de vil være med. Det vil indebære at den nuværende konfrontationssøgende politik erstattes med en tilbagevenden til respekt for national suverænitet og samarbejde i ånden fra Den vestfalske Fred fra 1648. Andre ledende lande vil selvfølgelig også støde til.

I Italien har senator Oskar Peterlini sammen med 19 andre senatorer rejst et forslag i det italienske senat, om at regeringen skal arbejde for indførelsen af ”et nyt system formet efter det nye Bretton Woods, som den amerikanske økonom Lyndon LaRouche har foreslået”, en tanke den italienske finans- og økonomiminister Tremonti allerede er en stor fortaler for. Den franske præsident Sarkozy har også netop annonceret, at han vil indkalde et krisemøde for at forberede en international konference om et nyt finanssystem.

Danmark burde være med og aktivt arbejde for et sådant nyt finanssystem, der vil genetablere faste valutakurser og råstofpriser landene imellem, og skabe langfristede kreditter til investeringer i produktion og infrastruktur. Samtidigt skal vi samarbejde om store projekter og udviklingsprogrammer (som f.eks. Den eurasiske Landbro, der vil tage op til to generationer at fuldføre, og som kan øge det videnskabelige og produktive niveau.

Ideologien om globalisering, og en ultraliberal frimarkedspolitik uden offentlig overopsyn og kontrol, har spillet fallit. Enten følger vi LaRouches anvisninger og vender tilbage til en politik, der sætter befolkningens ve og vel først og kan sikre realøkonomisk vækst, eller vi går en ny mørk tidsalder i møde med økonomisk sammenbrud, kaos og krig.

Derfor bør Folketinget afholde en hastehøring om finanskrisen og etableringen af et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem og invitere Lyndon LaRouche, som har været i stand til at forudsige krisen og ved, hvad der skal gøres, med som ekspert.

Tak for ordet.

Bilag til foretrædet:

1. Tom Gillesberg/Schiller Instituttet:http://www.schillerinstitut.dk/finanssammenbrud_gaa_ikke_i_panik.htm

2. Tom Gillesberg/Schiller Instituttet: Anders Fogh bør ringe til Sarkozy så Danmark er med i dannelsen af et nyt finanssystem

3. Tom Gillesberg/Schiller Instituttets foretræde den 17. januar 2008http://www.schillerinstitut.dk/folketinget170108.html

4. LaRouche Political Action Committee: “LaRouche: There is a Plan B” og “To Save Wachovia, Restore Glass-Steagall”: http://larouchepac.com/files/pdfs/20080929-PlanB.pdf

5. Resolution for en ny Bretton Woods-konference der blev introduceret i det italienske senat:http://larouchepac.com/news/2008/09/25/italian-senators-introduce-motion-calling-larouches-new-bret.html

 

Af Paul Glumaz

Før Hitler var der Storbritannien og den britiske udhungringspolitik i Indien
Mens mange ser med afsky på hungersnøden i Afrika, der er forårsaget af institutioner som Den internationale Valutafond (IMF) og GATT [forgængeren for Verdenshandelsorganisationen WTO -red.] samt kornkartellerne, er det få der er klar over, at briterne i det forrige århundrede var foregangsmænd for denne politik. Her følger en kort gennemgang af den britiske udhungringspolitik i Indien fra 1764 til 1914, hvor briterne bevidst anvendte hungersnød og fødevarekontrol som det væsentligste middel til at herske og regere.

For at forstå spørgsmålet om hungersnød i Indien, må man begynde med den kendsgerning, at Indiens klima er kendetegnet ved regntiden. Vejret følger et mønster, hvor et område i det meste af året har tørt vejr, hvorefter der kommer en periode med kraftig regn. I løbet af et årti udebliver regntiden mindst en gang i et område.

Traditionelt landbrug i Indien og andre lande tog altid højde for dette ved at lægge fødevarer til side lokalt i landsbyerne, som sikrede, at der ville være tilstrækkeligt med mad under tørkeår. De centrale myndigheder, hvad enten det var en hinduprins eller en stormogul, ville ophæve skatteopkrævningen i denne økonomisk usikre periode. Førend det britiske styre var det indforstået, at hungersnød måtte undgås, hvis de centrale myndigheder skulle have nogen som helst berettigelse som hersker over et område. Briterne ændrede alt dette.

Som B. M. Bhatia skriver i sin bog fra 1967, »Famines in India« (Hungersnød i Indien): »Fra omkring begyndelsen af det 11. århundrede til slutningen af det 18., var der fjorten større udbrud af hungersnød«. Det er cirka to per århundrede. Under Det østindiske Kompagnis styre i perioden fra 1765-1858 var der seksten større udbrud af hungersnød, otte gange flere end normalt. Derefter, under det britiske kolonistyre fra 1859-1914, var der i Indien omfattende hungersnød gennemsnitligt hvert andet år, eller 25 gange mere end normalt før briternes herredømme! Mens resten af verdens befolkning voksede på grund af teknologisk fremskridt, forblev Indiens befolkning, før 1914, på 220 millioner i mere end hundrede år.

Udbredt hungersnød, stort set hvert andet år, forårsaget med fuldt overlæg, var i over et halvt århundrede rygraden i britisk kolonipolitik i Indien.

Historien om briterne i Indien er historien om den forsætlige fremkaldelse af hungersnød. Disse udbrud af hungersnød var resultatet af Det østindiske Kompagnis politik. Denne politik indbefattede udplyndring ved hjælp af »landbrugsbeskatning«, åger og rendyrket slaveri overfor den indfødte befolkning.

Som vi skal se, nåede denne udplyndring en grænse i midten af det 19. århundrede, der førte til den første kamp for indisk uafhængighed, hvilket begyndte med Sepoy-Mytteriet. Efter den opstand udviklede det britiske koloniministerium, der overtog alle operationer fra Det østindiske Kompagni, en ny politik. Den nye politik drejede sig om at skabe vedvarende hungersnød i udvalgte områder, med det formål at tilvejebringe en masse sultende mennesker, der kunne bruges til slavearbejde, som briterne havde brug for til at opbygge infrastrukturen til det britiske styre.

 

Det østindiske Kompagni

Det britiske Østindiske Kompagni begyndte at overtage forvaltningen af Indien i 1764-65. Kompagniet blev udnævnt til diwan, eller guvernør, over området Bengalen af det skrantende stormogulrige. Briterne indtog Indien som forvaltere og skatteopkrævere for stormogulens hof.

Som skatteopkrævere havde de, antageligt griske, agenter for stormogulen inddrevet, hvad der svarede til £818.000 fra det bengalske område. I 1765-66, det første år under Det østindiske Kompagnis styre, var kompagniet i stand til at inddrive £1.470.000; i 1790-91 var dette beløb steget til £2.680.000. Ifølge Jean Beauchamps »British Imperialism in India«, skrev kompagniets chef i Indien, Warren Hastings, følgende til kompagniets hovedbestyrelse i London:

»På trods af tabet af mindst en tredjedel af indbyggerne i provinsen, og den deraf følgende nedgang i dyrkning, oversteg netto-opkrævningen i 1791 resultatet fra 1768… Det var naturligt at forvente, at skatteindtægterne også ville blive formindsket som følge af så stor en katastrofe. At det ikke skete, skyldtes, at disse med magt og vold blev opretholdt på samme niveau som tidligere«.

Den omtalte store katastrofe var måske den værste hungersnød i Indiens historie, som ramte provinserne Bengalen, Bihar og Orissa. Det anslås, at mindst ti millioner døde af sult. Omfanget af denne hungersnød var et direkte resultat af Det østindiske Kompagnis udplyndring.

 

Dyrkningsskat
For at øge skatteindtægterne havde Kompagniet iværksat et system, hvor det »udliciterede« retten til at beskatte jorden, den såkaldte »dyrkningsskat«. Skatteopkræveren havde ret til at inddrive så meget skat som muligt, eftersom han have købt denne ret på en auktion. Den der blev beskattet, den registrerede jordejer kaldet zamindari, havde til gengæld lov til at opkræve så meget som muligt til sig selv og skatteopkræveren fra de fattige bønder, der dyrkede jorden. Zamandarien, der kun var forpligtet til at betale skat til Kompagniet, havde stort set total magt over al jorden og alle bønderne.

På grund af dette udplyndringssystem efterlod Kompagniet ingen reserver til de tider, hvor regntiden ville udeblive. Desuden blev intet eller kun lidt sat af til vedligeholdelse af bøndernes infrastruktur, så som overrislingsanlæg. Resultatet var skrækkeligt, eftersom mere og mere af Indiens landbrugsareal kom under Kompagniets styre.

Udtømningen af Indiens rigdomme ved hjælp af dyrknings-beskatningssystemet, ødelæggelsen af den hjemlige tekstilindustri ved hjælp af »frihandels-dumping« af britiske tekstilvarer, samt den opiumsbaserede plantageøkonomi, førte til sidst til heftig modstand fra befolkningen. Dette førte endelig til Sepoy-mytteriet blandt zamindari’erne og andre, især blandt de der boede i områder, som ikke helt var under Kompagniets kontrol. Det knækkede næsten Det britiske Imperium.

Til slut blev Det østindiske Kompagnis styre i Indien afløst og erstattet af en generalguvernør og en koloniadministration. Kommissionen, som anbefalede denne ændring, drog den slutning, at problemet var mangelen på transport- og kommunikationsinfrastruktur, som var nødvendigt for at holde et så stort land besat. Kommissionsmedlemmerne drog også den konklusion, at der var brug for en herskende indisk klasse, der kunne fungere som mellemmænd for de britiske kolonialister.

 

Slavearbejdspolitik
Storbritanniens koloniale tilsynsførere blev enige om behovet for opbygningen af en rudimentær infrastruktur, for at gøre deres styre og udplyndring af Indien mere effektiv. Men Imperiet havde et problem. Det foreslåede net af jernbaner og storstilede kunstvandingsanlæg var, i kolonialisternes øjne, for dyre. Derfor besluttede man at tvinge den allerede udplyndrede indiske befolkning til at betale for disse udviklingsprojekter.

Det gav et andet alvorligt problem. Indien havde på den tid ikke en fritstillet arbejderklasse, der kunne levere billig arbejdskraft til sådanne projekter. Indiens kaste-system omfattede alle. Som Bhatia dokumenterer i sin bog, gjorde den rituelle fordeling af varer på det lokale plan, baseret på lav- og kasteforbindelser, det uønskeligt for enkeltpersoner og familier at forlade dette system – især ikke for at blive slaver for de britiske jernbane- og kunstvandingsprojekter.

Den britiske løsning på dette problem var »hungersnødhjælp«. Briterne oprettede »nødhjælpsarbejde« til at bygge jernbanerne. En hungersnød ville skabe forhold, hvor en inder, stillet over for døden på grund af mangel på mad, ville blive tvunget til at »vælge« at gå til et nødhjælpscenter, ligesom et sultende offer i Afrika i dag vil gøre. Når det først var gjort, mistede personen imidlertid sine kasteforbindelser og -privilegier. Derefter ville han få at vide, at hvis han fortsat ønskede at spise, måtte han arbejde med at bygge jernbaner til gengæld for mad. Den normale ration på disse projekter var under minimumseksistens, ligesom i nazisternes arbejds- og koncentrationslejre. Efterhånden som gårdsdagens sultofre døde af udmattelse og langsom udsultning i jernbane- og kunstvandingsprojekterne, ville dagens nye sultflygtninge komme ind i dette såkaldte hungersnødhjælpssystem. I dag ville man lettere omskrevet kalde dette system for »fleksibilitet« i arbejdsstyrken.

Med fremkomsten af jernbaner blev det nemmere for handelsmænd at opkøbe mad og andre varer billigt, og i visse tilfælde selv når det var dyrt, og eksportere dem til England – ligesom da briterne lod irerne sulte under kartoffelsyge-hungersnøden i Irland i midten af 1840’erne, samtidig med at man eksporterede deres korn. Under disse forhold ændrede hungersnød- og mangelsituationerne karakter. Mens hungersnød tidligere havde været et regionalt problem, blev fødevarer under denne britiske politik overalt i landet en mangelvare, hvilket ramte de fattigste på en katastrofal måde. Det var disse hungersnødramte fattige, der derefter fortsatte med at levere arbejdskraft til »nødhjælpsarbejdet«.

 

Åger og mellemmænd
Opbygningen af jernbanerne bidrog også til at udvikle en klasse af indiske pengeudlånere, som blev mellemmænd for briterne. Det gjorde det endog muligt for briterne at kontrollere områder, der ikke var ramt af fejlslagen høst. Sådanne områder blev ramt af stærkt stigende priser på grund af efterspørgslen på deres fødevarer fra andre egne af landet. Pengeudlånerne ville så sælge britiske varer til inderne til oppustede priser og købe deres korn til lavpris. Derefter ville de sælge korn til høje priser, enten på de internationale markeder, eller til de selv samme folk i tider med hungersnød.

Eftersom disse transaktioner hovedsageligt blev udført på kredit, blev store dele af befolkningen gældsslaver til pengeudlånerne, hvis de altså var heldige nok at slippe for at arbejde i nødhjælpsprojekterne. Briterne spillede desuden dette system af gældsslaveri ud imod det traditionelle kastesystem, der aldrig havde måttet slås med sådanne uhyrligheder.

Dette system frembragte en klasse af pengeudlånere, der blev en magtfaktor, som briterne til dels kunne bruge som modvægt til den lokale modstand i Indien mod deres styre.

Det indiske oprør i 1857 blev slået brutalt ned af britiske tropper

 Omfanget af hungersnød over hele Indien kan måles på udbredelsen af jernbanesystemet. Der var 461 km jernbaner i Indien i 1857; 2560 km i 1861 og 5400 km i 1865; i 1895 var der 31.290 km og 55.550 km i 1914.

Med udbredelsen af jernbanerne og »nødhjælpen«, der byggede jernbanerne, steg korneksporten hastigt. Eksporten af ris voksede fra 571.500 tons i 1867-68 til 828.000 tons i 1877-78. Hvedeeksporten voksede 22 gange i samme periode, fra 11.960 tons til 254.920 tons. Denne politiks forbryderiske karakter ses tydeligt, eftersom der var omfattende hungersnød i 1876-78. Eksporten af ris nåede op over 1,2 mio. tons, og hvedeeksporten nåede et lignende niveau i 1891-92.

Den værste hungersnød var i 1896-97, som ramte 62,4 mio. mennesker. Dette resulterede ifølge Bhatia bl.a. i folkelig opstand og uro i Bombay imod fortsat eksport af korn, i en tid, hvor folk stod overfor hungersnød. Den indiske regering nægtede imidlertid at ændre sin fødevarepolitik, og holdt stædigt fast ved det synspunkt, at »så længe handelen frit kan følge sin normale kurs, vil det, selv i den værst tænkelige nødsituation, gøre mere skade end gavn at forsøge at gribe ind…«

Lyder dette bekendt? Den første Bush-regering under præsident George H.W. Bush [1988-1992 –red.]bekendtgjorde en ny verdensorden baseret på »frihandel« og en ende på »restriktioner« pga. landes national suverænitet. Efterhånden som fødevarer og andre basale ressourcer i stigende grad kommer under euro-angloamerikanske kartellers kontrol, vil det meste af verden få det, som Indien havde det under briterne. Bush’ nye verdensorden er faktisk ikke ny, og hovedredskabet til at herske i denne nye verdensorden er hungersnød og »nødhjælpsprojekter« til ofrene.

Hvis folk ikke vågner op, vil de en dag opdage, at de har mistet hus og hjem og deres kære lavtlønnede arbejde, og nu må stå i kø til suppekøkkenet – hvor man vil få at vide, at der ikke vanker noget suppe, før man går med i et eller andet arbejdsprojekt. Slavearbejde, hungersnød og statsstøttede narkobaroner, som Det britiske Østindiske Kompagni, vil blive herrefolket i denne nye verdensorden. Det er sket før!

Måske man nu vil betænke sig, når man ser dokumentarfilm om det »strålende britiske herredømme i Indien« på tv. Den britiske politik i Indien var intet mindre end bevidst folkemord. Vi står i dag overfor den samme politik, men denne gang i globalt omfang.

 

Foto: Det britiske Imperium brugte fødevarekriser, som en del af deres politik

til at tvinge inderne til at arbejde gratis. Her er nogle af ofrene for den britiske politik

 

Fodnote:
1. Dette skal dog ikke tages som en støtte til kastesystemet, som bør afskaffes.

Læs også: A ’Free Trade’ Blight Caused the Irish Famine på:

www.larouchepub.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

KAMPAGNEAVIS NR. 6, SOMMER 2008

 

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Den 28. maj 2008 havde Schiller Instituttet foretræde for Folketingets Udvalg for Fødevarer, Landbrug og Fiskeri. Tom Gillesberg holdt talen nedenfor og uddybede efter spørgsmål fra medlemmer af udvalget, hvorfor de seneste årtiers frimarkedspolitik har slået fejl og at vi må vende tilbage til den form for nationale landbrugsprogrammer, der virkede i efterkrigstiden.

Talen som tekst

Tale af Tom Gillesberg, formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark, til Schiller Instituttets foretræde for Folketingets Udvalg for Fødevarer, Landbrug og Fiskeri den 28. maj 2008.

Fødevarekrisen kræver handling nu!

Tak fordi vi måtte komme med så kort varsel.

Vi står midt i et sammenbrud af det globale finanssystem. Verden mangler mad og hyperinflationslignende fødevareprisstigninger har gjort helt basale fødevarer utilgængelige for mange fattige mennesker. Der er en akut fødevarekrise. På trods af at formanden for FN’s fødevare- og landbrugsorganisation FAO slog alarm for et halvt år siden, er krisen indtil for nylig blevet holdt ude af mediernes søgelys. 40 lande har allerede oplevet fødevareoptøjer og ifølge Den Asiatiske Udviklingsbank er en milliard mennesker i Asien allerede alvorligt truet af hungersnød. I Afrika, Latinamerika og andre steder, ser yderligere en milliard mennesker samme skæbne i øjnene.

Den 3.-5. juni er der FAO-topmøde i Rom. Det skulle have diskuteret klima­forandringer og bioenergi, men i lyset af den akutte accelererende globale fødevarekrise har Schiller Instituttets internationale formand, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, iværksat en global kampagne for at diskutere fødevarekrisen i stedet^[i]. Både de hurtige umiddelbare tiltag, der kan afbøde de værste af fødevarekrisens effekter, og et program, der kan fordoble den globale fødevareforsyning og sikre, at vi både kan brødføde den nuværende befolkning og de ni milliarder mennesker, som FN anslår vi vil være i 2050. Med den tilgængelige teknologi vi har i dag, er der ingen grund til at mennesker dør på grund af underudvikling, sult og fejlernæring. Det har Schiller Instituttet hævdet siden sin oprettelse og fremført med fornyet styrke, siden den amerikanske økonom og tidligere demokratisk præsidentkandidat Lyndon LaRouche startede sin Mad for Fred-kampagne i 1988.

Årsagen til fødevarekrisen

Det mest uhyggelige ved fødevarekrisen er, at den ikke er resultatet af klima­forandringer eller uforudsigelige naturkatastrofer, men af en forfejlet malthusiansk politik. Den globale tilgængelighed af de livsnødvendige fødevarer er blevet reduceret, så de nu danner grundlag for den seneste spekulationsboble på finansmarkederne. Spekulanter tjener enorme beløb på at true milliarder af mennesker på deres liv og eksistens. Hvor mange mennesker skal dø, før vi griber ind?

De populære bortforklaringer på fødevarekrisen, som når medierne siger, at den skyldes en fejlslagen høst i Australien og at inderne og kineserne er begyndt at spise mere, eller når Verdensnaturfondens grundlægger prins Philip hævder, at krisen skyldes overbefolkning, er kynisk manipulation. Ser man på den globale kornproduktion per person over de seneste 50 år, frem til slutningen af 1980’erne, er det tydeligt, at samtidigt som befolkningstallet steg, øgedes produktionen langt mere, fordi den ikke blev overladt til det ”frie” marked, men blev prioriteret med programmer for national fødevareselvforsyning, øremærkede kreditter til landbrugsinvesteringer og produktionspriser for landmændene.^[ii]

Siden slutningen af 80’erne er det gået den anden vej. Det har været resultatet af et skifte i den overordnede økonomiske og handelsmæssige politik. Fødevarelagre blev pludseligt omdøbt til overskudslagre, som skulle fjernes hurtigst muligt. Landmænd blev betalt for at producere mindre frem for mere. Gennem GATT og senere Verdenshandelsorganisationen WTO blev verdens lande tvunget til at fjerne nationale beskyttelsesordninger for deres landbrug og erstatte forsyningssikkerhed med de ”frie” markedskræfter. Landmændene blev dårligere betalt mens multinationale fødevare­giganter havde kronede dage. Samtidigt gennemtvang Den vestlige Verden, bl.a. gennem IMF og Verdensbanken, at fattige gældsatte lande skulle erstatte deres produktion af mad til hjemmemarkedet med underbetalte eksportafgrøder, der kunne skaffe indtægter til afdrage på gælden. Uanset faren for fødevareforsyningen.

I miljøets navn sænkede man landbrugets produktivitet gennem restriktioner på gødning og sprøjtemidler, og der blev indført braklægningsstøtte, der kunne nedbringe den såkaldte ”overproduktion”. I de seneste år blev vanviddet så fuldbyrdet med beslutningen om at støtte produktion af biobrændsel fra majs og korn. Alene i 2007 blev majs og korn, der kunne have brødfødt 130 millioner mennesker i et helt år, lavet til bio-ethanol^[iii]. Det er, hvad FN’s særlige rapportør for ”ret til føde”-programmet har kaldt ”en forbrydelse imod menneskeheden” – et emne Egyptens præsident Mubarak har fortalt, at han vil tage op på FAO’s møde i Rom.

De seneste 25 års malthusianske politik – i ”miljøbevidsthedens”, globaliseringens og frihandlens hellige navn – er altså årsagen til den fødevarekrise, som nu truer menneskeheden.

Løsningen til fødevarekrisen

Ligesom det var en forkert international politik, der har skabt denne fødevarekrise, så er det også en ændret international politik, der kan løse den. Derfor opfordrer Schiller Instituttet Folketinget og den danske regering til at handle på følgende punkter og få dem sat på dagsordenen ved FAO’s konference i begyndelsen af juni:

1. Fødevarehjælp og hurtig nødhjælp til finansiering af såsæd, kunstgødning og landbrugsmaskineri til fattige nationer, så vi øger fødevareforsyningen allerede næste høst.

2. Et omgående stop for brugen af fødevarer til biobrændsel, ophævning af braklægningprogrammer og en ny grøn revolution til øgning af landbrugs­produktiviteten.

3. Indgreb imod den globale spekulation i fødevarer og olie, der bærer hovedansvaret for den seneste tids kraftigt stigende fødevarepriser, samt etableringen af et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem inden det nuværende finanssystem bryder helt sammen, som foreslået af Lyndon LaRouche^[iv] og for nyligt fremført af den italienske finansminister Tremonti.

4. Nedlæggelse af WTO og genetablering af nationale og regionale programmer for fødevareforsyningssikkerhed inkl. sikring af produktionspriser til landmændene.

5. Programmer i fattige nationer for at øge fødevareforsyningen gennem investeringer i infrastruktur, fødevareindustri og vandprojekter.

6. Langsigtede investeringer i store infrastrukturprojekter som Den eurasiske Landbro, der vil reducere transporttiden, øge energiproduktionen og fremme udviklingen af underudviklede områder.

Danmarks ansvar

Danmark er et rigt land, der også er et landbrugsland. Alligevel har vi ladet os forblænde af den britiske liberalismes blålys og har været med til at propagere for afskaffelse af den form for økonomi og fødevarepolitik, der i efterkrigstiden sikrede stadigt flere mennesker mere mad på bordet. Vi har været med til at påtvinge verden en global frihandelspolitik, der har betydet, at det mest uundværlige for os mennesker – mad – er blevet reduceret til blot at være en handelsvare og et spekulationsobjekt. At spise sig mæt er en menneskeret og fødevarer må derfor ikke styres af smarte købmænd og grådige spekulanter.

Danmarks og Marianne Fischer Boels forsøg på at afskaffe resterne af EU’s fælles landbrugspolitik, vil blot føje spot til skade gennem at yderligere forringe landmændenes kår og reducere fødevareproduktionen i EU. Erstatter vi egen fødevareproduktion med toldfri import fra fattige lande, vil vi ikke som hævdet forbedre deres situation, men blot sørge for at landmænd i ulandene, der burde producere mad til deres lokale marked, producerer til os i stedet og efterlader flere sultne maver i Afrika, Asien og Sydamerika.  Vi må i stedet øge vores produktion gennem at genetablere produktionspriser i EU og samarbejde med det strategiske partnerskab mellem Rusland, Kina og Indien ­– og forhåbentlig snart USA – om at forhindre en verdensorden baseret på en moderne version af Det britiske Imperiums politik og de deraf følgende konflikter og krige.

Danmark må gøre skaden god igen, ved at sørge for, at vi i stedet for at bruge miljøargumenter til at lægge hindringer i vejen for den nødvendige produktion af mad, skaber en ægte grøn revolution med moderne videnskab og teknologi. Lad os erstatte de seneste årtiers malthusianske politik med en fordobling af verdens fødevareproduktion som det første skridt i en ny økonomisk verdensorden, hvor vi ved hjælp af videnskabeligt og teknologisk fremskridt giver alle mennesker fred, sikkerhed og velstand.

Tak for ordet.

[i]  Bilag 1: ”I stedet for krig og hungersnød, lad os fordoble fødevareproduktionen” og bilag 2:”Mobilization to Double Food Production is in Full Swing” af Helga Zepp-LaRouche

[ii]  Bilag 3: ”To Defeat Famine Kill the WTO” af Marcia Merry Baker

[iii] Bilag 4: “Showdown over Gorey/WTO Plans To ”Let Them Starve” af Marcia Merry Baker

[iv] Bilag 5: “Out with Malthusian Ideas; Let’s Develop the Planet!” af Lyndon LaRouche

Den 22. maj havde Schiller Instituttet foretræde for Folketingets Udenrigsudvalg. Tom Gillesberg holdt talen nedenfor og uddybede efter spørgsmål fra medlemmer af udvalget, hvorfor det er et spørgsmål om liv eller død for fattige mennesker at vi erkender at de seneste årtiers frimarkedspolitik og antilandbrugspolitik har slået fejl og at vi må vende tilbage til det der virkede i efterkrigstiden. Formanden for Udenrigsudvalget, Gitte Seeberg, skal deltage på FAO-mødet i Rom og hun blev direkte adspurgt af Feride Gillesberg om at få sat spørgsmålet om at fordoble fødevareproduktionen på dagsordenen. Udvalgets medlemmer modtog også en række uddybende bilag. Se alle bilagene på folketingets hjemmeside.

Talen som tekst

Tale af Tom Gillesberg til Schiller Instituttets foretræde for Folketingets Udenrigs­udvalg den 22. maj 2008.

Fødevarekrisen kræver handling nu!

Jeg er Tom Gillesberg, formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark.

Tak fordi vi måtte komme med så kort varsel.

Vi står midt i et sammenbrud af det globale finanssystem. Verden mangler mad og hyperinflationslignende fødevareprisstigninger har gjort helt basale fødevarer utilgængelige for mange fattige mennesker. Der er en akut fødevarekrise. På trods af at formanden for FN’s fødevare- og landbrugsorganisation FAO slog alarm for et halvt år siden, er krisen indtil for nylig blevet holdt ude af mediernes søgelys. 40 lande har allerede oplevet fødevareoptøjer og ifølge Den Asiatiske Udviklingsbank er en milliard mennesker i Asien allerede alvorligt truet af hungersnød. I Afrika, Latinamerika og andre steder, ser yderligere en milliard mennesker samme skæbne i øjnene.

Den 3.-5. juni er der FAO-topmøde i Rom. Det skulle have diskuteret klima­forandringer og bioenergi, men i lyset af den akutte accelererende globale fødevarekrise har Schiller Instituttets internationale formand, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, iværksat en global kampagne for at diskutere fødevarekrisen i stedet[i]. Både de hurtige umiddelbare tiltag, der kan afbøde de værste af fødevarekrisens effekter, og et program, der kan fordoble den globale fødevareforsyning og sikre, at vi både kan brødføde den nuværende befolkning og de ni milliarder mennesker, som FN anslår vi vil være i 2050. Med den tilgængelige teknologi vi har i dag, er der ingen grund til at mennesker dør på grund af underudvikling, sult og fejlernæring. Det har Schiller Instituttet hævdet siden sin oprettelse og fremført med fornyet styrke, siden den amerikanske økonom og tidligere demokratisk præsidentkandidat Lyndon LaRouche startede sin Mad for Fred-kampagne i 1988.

Årsagen til fødevarekrisen

Det mest uhyggelige ved fødevarekrisen er, at den ikke er resultatet af klima­forandringer eller uforudsigelige naturkatastrofer, men af en forfejlet malthusiansk politik, der har reduceret den globale tilgængelighed af fødevarer og dermed har gjort de livsnødvendige fødevarer til det hotteste spekulationsobjekt i finansverdenen. Spekulanter tjener milliarder af dollars mens millioner af mennesker dør.

De populære bortforklaringer på fødevarekrisen, som f.eks. at den skyldes en fejlslagen høst i Australien og at inderne og kineserne er begyndt at spise mere, er kynisk manipulation. Ser man på den globale kornproduktion per capita over de sidste 50 år, er det tydeligt at produktionen steg frem til  slutningen af 1980’erne pga. programmer for national fødevareselvforsyning og brug af videnskabeligt og teknologisk fremskridt[ii].

Siden slutningen af 80’erne er det gået den anden vej. Det har været resultatet af et skifte i den overordnede økonomiske og handelsmæssige politik. Fødevarelagre blev pludseligt omdøbt til overskudslagre, som skulle fjernes hurtigst muligt. Landmænd blev betalt for at producere mindre frem for mere. Gennem GATT og senere Verdenshandelsorganisationen WTO blev verdens lande tvunget til at fjerne nationale beskyttelsesordninger for deres landbrug og erstatte forsyningssikkerhed med de ”frie” markedskræfter. Landmændene blev dårligere betalt mens multinationale fødevare­giganter havde kronede dage. Samtidigt gennemtvang Den vestlige Verden, bl.a. gennem IMF og Verdensbanken, at fattige gældsatte lande skulle erstatte deres produktion af mad til hjemmemarkedet med underbetalte eksportafgrøder, der kunne skaffe indtægter til afdrage på gælden. Uanset faren for fødevareforsyningen.

I miljøets navn sænkede man landbrugets produktivitet gennem restriktioner på gødning og sprøjtemidler, og der blev indført braklægningsstøtte, der kunne nedbringe den såkaldte ”overproduktion”. I de seneste år blev vanviddet så fuldbyrdet med beslutningen om at støtte produktion af biobrændsel fra majs og korn. Alene i 2007 blev majs og korn, der kunne have brødfødt 130 millioner mennesker i et helt år, lavet til bio-ethanol[iii]. Det er, hvad FN’s særlige rapportør for ”ret til føde”-programmet har kaldt ”en forbrydelse imod menneskeheden” – et emne Egyptens præsident Mubarak har fortalt, at han vil tage op på FAO’s møde i Rom.

De seneste 25 års malthusianske politik – i ”miljøbevidsthedens” og globaliseringens hellige navn – er altså årsagen til den fødevarekrise, som nu truer menneskeheden.

Løsningen til fødevarekrisen

Ligesom det var en forkert international politik, der har skabt denne fødevarekrise, så er det også en ændret international politik, der kan løse den. Derfor opfordrer Schiller Instituttet Folketinget og den danske regering til at handle på følgende punkter og få dem sat på dagsordenen ved FAO’s konference i begyndelsen af juni:

1. Fødevarehjælp og hurtig nødhjælp til finansiering af såsæd, kunstgødning og landbrugsmaskineri til fattige nationer, så vi øger fødevareforsyningen allerede næste høst.

2. Et omgående stop for brugen af fødevarer til biobrændsel.

3. Stop for WTO’s angreb på nationale programmer for fødevareforsyningssikkerhed, og sikring af produktionspriser til landmændene.

4. En ny grøn revolution til øgning af landbrugsproduktiviteten.

5. Programmer i fattige nationer for at øge fødevareforsyningen gennem investeringer i infrastruktur, fødevareindustri og vandprojekter.

6. Indgreb imod den globale spekulation i fødevarer og olie, der er medansvarlig for de stigende fødevarepriser, samt etableringen af et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem inden det nuværende finanssystem bryder helt sammen, som foreslået af Lyndon LaRouche[iv] den italienske finansminister Tremonti.

7. Langsigtede investeringer i store infrastrukturprojekter som Den eurasiske Landbro, der vil reducere transporttiden, øge energiproduktionen og fremme udviklingen af underudviklede områder.

Danmarks ansvar

Danmark er et rigt land, der også er et landbrugsland. Alligevel har vi ladet os forblænde af den britiske liberalismes blålys og har været med til at propagere for afskaffelse af den form for økonomi og fødevarepolitik, der i efterkrigstiden sikrede stadigt flere mennesker mere mad på bordet. Vi har været med til at påtvinge verden en global frihandelspolitik, der har betydet, at det mest uundværlige for os mennesker – mad – er blevet reduceret til blot at være et spekulationsobjekt og en handelsvare. At spise sig mæt er en menneskeret og fødevarer må derfor ikke styres af de normale handels- og markedsmekanismer.

Danmarks og Marianne Fischer Boels forsøg på at afskaffe resterne af EU’s fælles landbrugspolitik, vil blot føje spot til skade gennem at yderligere forringe landmændenes kår og reducere fødevareproduktionen i EU. Erstatter vi egen fødevareproduktion med toldfri import fra fattige lande, vil vi ikke som hævdet forbedre deres situation, men blot sørge for at landmænd i ulandene, der burde producere mad til deres lokale marked, producerer til os i stedet og efterlader flere sultne maver i Afrika, Asien og Sydamerika.  Vi må i stedet øge vores produktion gennem at genetablere produktionspriser i EU og samarbejde med det strategiske partnerskab mellem Rusland, Kina og Indien ­– og forhåbentlig snart USA – om at forhindre en verdensorden baseret på en moderne version af Det britiske Imperiums politik og de deraf følgende konflikter og krige.

Danmark må gøre skaden god igen, ved at sørge for, at vi i stedet for at bruge miljøargumenter til at lægge hindringer i vejen for den nødvendige produktion af mad, skaber en ægte grøn revolution med moderne videnskab og teknologi. Lad os erstatte de seneste årtiers malthusianske politik med en fordobling af verdens fødevareproduktion som det første skridt i en ny økonomisk verdensorden, hvor vi ved hjælp af videnskabeligt og teknologisk fremskridt giver alle mennesker fred, sikkerhed og velstand.

Tak for ordet.

[i]  Bilag 1: ”I stedet for krig og hungersnød, lad os fordoble fødevareproduktionen” og bilag 2:”Mobilization to Double Food Production is in Full Swing” af Helga Zepp-LaRouche

[ii]  Bilag 3: ”To Defeat Famine Kill the WTO” af Marcia Merry Baker

[iii] Bilag 4: “Showdown over Gorey/WTO Plans To ”Let Them Starve” af Marcia Merry Baker

[iv] Bilag 5: “Out with Malthusian Ideas; Let’s Develop the Planet!” af Lyndon LaRouche

KAMPAGNEAVIS NR. 5, FORÅR 2008

 

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Den 17. januar havde Schiller Instituttet foretræde for Folketingets Politisk-Økonomiske Udvalg. Tom Gillesberg holdt talen nedenfor og besvarede derefter en række spørgsmål fra medlemmer af udvalget, bl.a. om hvorfor Danmark bør beholde kronen og hvordan der er muligt at tredoble statens investeringer i infrastruktur. Inden foretrædet fik Tom Gillesberg mulighed for at fortælle finansminister Lars Løkke Rasmussen om det, og give sin tale med bilag  til beskæftigelsesminister Claus Hjort Frederiksen og undervisningsminister Bertel Haarder. Se alle bilagene på folketingets hjemmeside.

Kun et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem
kan løse finanskrisen

Goddag, jeg er Tom Gillesberg, formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark.

Tak fordi vi måtte komme.

Vi er her i dag, fordi den kreditkrise verden har oplevet gennem de seneste seks måneder, er del af et sammenbrud af det globale finanssystem. Kun ved at sætte hele finanssystemet under konkursbehandling og etablere et nyt Bretton Woods-system [i] kan vi undgå totalt kaos. Folketinget bør derfor arbejde for etableringen af et sådant Bretton Woods-finanssystem og sikre, at de danske myndigheder træffer forholds­regler for at beskytte befolkningen, den fysiske økonomi og vores bank- og finans­væsen.

 

Den internationale finanskrise

Da den internationale kredit- og finanskrise brød ud i slutningen af juli, ved at den amerikanske subprimekrise trak tæppet væk under gigantiske internationale finans­værdier og begyndte at vælte banker som f.eks. IKB-banken i Tyskland og den britiske Northern Rock, håbede de fleste, at det tyske finanstilsyn BAFIN overdrev, når det kaldte krisen den værste bankkrise siden 1930’erne.

I dag har det vist sig, at det er værre end selv BAFIN frygtede. Vi står ikke med en subprimekrise og nogle uheldige spekulanter, men med et sammenbrud af hele det internationale finanssystem. Systemet er gennemsyret af mange års finans­spekulation, som har skabt fiktive papirværdier, der nu må nedskrives med enorme milliardbeløb. De 500 milliarder kroner, som verdens banker hidtil har måttet afskrive på subprimekrisen, vurderer Deutsche Bank bliver til 2.000 milliarder kr. – 33 Kattegatbroer. Samtidig brister nu andre bobler som aktieboblen, boligboblen, kreditkort­gældsboblen og på et eller andet tidspunkt også den gigantiske derivatboble. Enorme papirværdier går op i røg.

Det vil efterlade en stor del af verdens finansinstitutioner bankerot og er en krise, der i størrelse og dybde overgår den i 30’erne og bringer tankerne hen på det finanssammenbrud i det 14. århundrede, der efter handelshusene Bardis og Peruzzis bankerot, indledte den mørke middelalder. Centralbankers forsøg på at udskyde krisen gennem at sænke renten og tilføre massive mængder likviditet vil blot medføre hyperinflation, som man så det i Weimar-Tyskland i 1923 – men denne gang på global skala.

 

LaRouche’s forslag til et Nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem

Lyndon LaRouche, økonom og tidligere demokratisk præsidentkandidat, har længe påpeget opbygningen til den nuværende krise. I ånden fra Roosevelts tiltag i 30’erne har han advaret imod finansverdenens ønske om at lade befolkningen betale for krisen gennem en drakonisk nedskæringspolitik og har i stedet foreslået et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem, der indebærer en konkursbehandling af det gamle finanssystem og etableringen af et nyt fastkurssystem. Det kan sikre fungerende banker og de langfristede kreditter til fysisk-økonomisk opbygning, der er nødvendige for den fremtidige globale samhandel og vores nationale velfærd.

Som det første skridt i den akutte krise foreslog han i august »Loven til beskyttelse af boligejere og banker af 2007«[ii], der kan redde de millioner af amerikanske boligejere, der trues af tvangsauktion, og beskytte de amerikanske banker. Til gengæld kan finansspekulation, hedgefonde og de »kreative« finansinstrumenter gå neden om og hjem. LaRouches lovforslag er blevet introduceret i otte delstatskongresser, (yderligere fem er på vej), er vedtaget i 30 amerikanske byer og er allerede begyndt at påvirke det amerikanske præsidentvalg.

Derefter, mener LaRouche, må USA i gang med en New Deal, og sammen med Rusland, Kina, Indien og andre lande etablere det nye Bretton Woods-finanssystem og et internationalt samarbejde om store infrastrukturprojekter, som f.eks. Den eurasiske Landbro og en tunnel under Beringstrædet. Allerede i 2005 vedtog det italienske deputeretkammer at forpligtige regeringen til at arbejde for etableringen af et nyt finanssystem[iii] og i sidste uge publiceredes underskrifter fra 40 franske borgmestre[iv] – deraf to parlamentsmedlemmer – for et nyt Bretton Woods.

 

Hvad gør vi i Danmark?

Herhjemme har Schiller Instituttet og undertegnede rejst denne debat.  Ved valget i november 2005 havde vi sloganet: »Når boblen brister… Et nyt Bretton Woods« og ved det nylige folketingsvalg plakater med: »Efter Finanskrisen: Magnettog over Kattegat«. Sideløbende har vi uddelt mere end 200.000 kampagneaviser for at sørge for, at vi alle rettidigt kan forberede os på den finansielle flodbølge, der er på vej.

Danmark skal beholde kronen og vores unikke realkreditsystem, og hurtigst muligt få afskaffet de nye farlige SDO-lån. Finanstilsynet må kortlægge de problemer vores banker er eksponeret over for udefra (også via udenlandske datterselskaber) og gennem de seneste års kraftigt stigende udlån herhjemme. Der må gribes ind for at nedbringe risikoen. Samtidig må vi forberede os på konsekvenserne af et kollaps af den danske boligboble og modsvarigheden til den amerikanske subprimekrise: Hundreder af danske pantebrevskaruseller, der snart vil kollapse sammen med boligboblen.

Fremadstormende banker har ukritisk lånt penge ud til byggeprojekter, som dem i Ørestaden, med ringe sikkerhed. Boligejere med stigende friværdi er blevet overtalt til at optage investeringskreditter med »sikkerhed« i friværdien, der er blevet brugt til forbrug og gearede finansinvesteringer, der har pumpet en boble op på det danske aktiemarked. Alt dette vil ramme de danske banker og hele vores økonomi hårdt.

 

Folketinget må handle

Folketinget må pålægge regeringen at arbejde for iværksættelsen af et nyt Bretton Woods-finanssystem og gennem tiltag lig »Loven til beskyttelse af boligejere og banker af 2007« sikre, at de danske borgere og den danske økonomi beskyttes.

Folketinget må også pålægge regeringen at forberede en hurtig iværksættelse af påtrængende anlægsinvesteringer, der kan holde gang i den danske økonomi og begynde et nationaløkonomisk skifte væk fra en forbrugsdrevet økonomi, hvor servicejobs erstatter beskæftigelse i de produktive erhverv. Vi må tilbage til en investeringsbaseret økonomi, hvor investeringer i infrastruktur, produktion, og videnskabeligt og teknologisk fremskridt skaber grundlaget for øget produktivitet og en højere levestandard for hele befolkningen.

Infrastrukturbudgettet må tredobles, så vi, udover de selvindlysende akutte motorvejs- og jernbaneinvesteringer, kan få bygget brugerbetalte faste forbindelser over Femern Bælt, Kattegat og Helsingør-Helsingborg og et offentligt betalt dansk magnettognet. Dette magnettognet vil ikke blot reducere rejsetiden mellem København og Århus til 25 minutter, men vil, når det er fuldt udbygget, binde hele Danmark tættere sammen og kunne overtage en stor del af person- og godstransporten. Et internationalt net vil ikke blot bringe os til Stockholm, Oslo, Hamburg og Berlin på under fem kvarter, men helt til Asien og Amerika.

 

Webcast med LaRouche

Den internationale krise vi står midt i er uden historisk sidestykke og kan ikke løses indenfor det nuværende finanssystems rammer. Den truer ikke blot vores nuværende og fremtidige velfærd, men er med aktiv hjælp fra imperiefraktionen i Storbritannien allerede i gang med at udløse globalt kaos og en ny mørk tidsalder. Men laver vi de nødvendige modige politiske indgreb, kan vi ikke blot overvinde den akutte krise men også skabe en global renæssance, der giver alle nationer og folkeslag mulighed for at skabe sig en menneskeværdig fremtid.

I aften kl. 19:00 vil Lyndon LaRouche holde en webcast fra Washington om alvoren i den nuværende krise og vejen ud af den. Det ville være en god idé at lytte med og efterfølgende gå i det italienske senats fodspor, og invitere LaRouche til Folketinget for at diskutere disse spørgsmål yderligere.

Tak for ordet

 

Andre bilag:

 

Bilag 3: Dækning af den internationale finanskrise i Schiller Instituttets nyhedsbrev Prometheus fra december 2007 og januar 2008.

Bilag 4: “US and China,” tale af Lyndon LaRouche I Los Angeles, USA, den 24. november 2007 om hans forslag om en 4-magtssamarbejde for at etablere et nyt stabil Bretton Woods finanssystem.

Bilag 5: The End of the ‘Free’ Market Economy: We Need Laws To Save the Common Good in Germany! By Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Bilag 6: The Debt Crises Moves To Center Stage by John Hoefle.

KAMPAGNEAVIS NR.4, EFTERÅR 2007

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Klik her

I sommeren 2006 udsendte Schiller Instituttet en kampagneavis i 50.000 eksemplarer, hvor vi foreslog etableringen af en magnetsvævetoglinje mellem København og Århus over Kattegat, der kunne reducere rejsetiden mellem Danmarks to største byer til 25 minutter. Det burde være første del af et dansk hurtigtognet. Hvis Danmark og Europa skal spille en ledende rolle i fremtiden, må vi lave de teknologispring nu, der gennem videnskabeligt og teknologisk fremskridt skaber øget velstand i fremtiden. I Asien venter man ikke på Europa. Kina har allerede bygget en maglevlinje og Rusland, Kina og Indien har påbegyndt et tæt økonomisk, teknologisk og videnskabeligt samarbejde.

Schiller Instituttet havde den 12. april 2007 foretræde for Folketingets Trafikudvalg om et dansk magnetsvævetognet

En delegation fra Schiller Instituttet havde i dag foretræde for Folketingets Trafikudvalg for at præsentere et forslag til bygningen af en dansk magnettoglinje mellem København og Århus som starten på et dansk højhastighedstognet.

På billedet ses fra venstre mod højre: Feride Istogu Gillesberg, Jon Kjær Nielsen, Tom Gillesberg, Michelle Rasmussen og Christina Brun Jensen.

I Radio Schiller fra den 12. april 2007 (mp3-fil) beskriver Tom Gillesberg besøget i Tafikudvalget, læser sin tale op og beskriver spørgsmålene og svarene der fulgte.

Tale af Tom Gillesberg til Folketingets Trafikudvalg den 12. april 2007:

[Sammen med talen blev vist en power point præsentation, der kan hentes her]

Goddag, jeg er Tom Gillesberg, formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark.

Først vil jeg gerne takke Trafikudvalget for at modtage vor delegation med så kort varsel (fn1).

I sommeren 2006 udsendte Schiller Instituttet en kampagneavis i 50.000 eksemplarer (fn2), hvor vi foreslog etableringen af en magnetsvævetoglinje mellem København og Århus over Kattegat, der kunne reducere rejsetiden mellem Danmarks to største byer til 25 minutter. Det burde være første del af et dansk hurtigtognet. For et par uger siden fik forslaget så en del pressedækning (fn3).

Et sådant dansk magnetsvævetognet bør være med i Infrastrukturkommissionens og Folketingets planer for den fremtidige danske infrastruktur, og vi er derfor her i dag for at opfordre Trafikudvalget til at bestille et officielt studie om sagen.

Et dansk magnettognet vil senere hen blive koblet på et internationalt net, der med tiden vil dække Europa fra nord til syd og række hele vejen over til Asiens østkyst, som foreslået af den amerikanske økonom Lyndon LaRouche under navnet Den eurasiske Landbro. Magnetsvævetog er allerede nu i daglig drift mellem Shanghai og Shanghai lufthavn, med en tophastighed på 431 km/t (fn4).

Magnetsvævetoglinjen Århus-København over Kattegat bør etableres nu fordi:

1) Reduceres rejsetiden mellem Danmarks to største byer til 25-40 minutter, vil de blive et sammenhængende økonomisk væv, og gennem øgningen af befolkningstætheden kan vi høste store økonomiske fordele. Som Øresundsbroen allerede har vist gennem en integrering af Malmø og Skåne i hovedstadsområdets økonomiske liv. Effekten af at forbinde København og Århus vil blive langt større på det både det økonomiske område som på arbejds-, forsknings-, uddannelses-, sundheds- og kulturområdet. Trafikspringet efter Storebæltsbroen vil blive overgået mange gange med denne nye forbindelse. Forbindelsen bør efterfølgende forlænges til Aalborg og udvikle sig til et nationalt hurtigtognet.

2) Med et teknologispring til magnetsvævetog er toget hurtigere, lettere og billigere at benytte end bilen, og togtrafikken dermed for alvor konkurrencedygtig. Et maglevnet vil også – på grund af den høje hastighed – have en næsten ubegrænset kapacitet, der rækker langt ind i fremtiden. Magnetsvævetog har også et lavt energiforbrug til gavn for samfundsøkonomien.

3) Et europæisk maglevnet er hurtigere og mere samfundsøkonomisk end fly, og vil bringe os nærmere de andre europæiske byer. Maglevtoget er også velegnet til hurtig godstransport.

Skal den danske økonomiske aktivitet og dens fleksibilitet opgraderes gennem denne nye teknologi, bliver det ikke gennem brugerbetaling, men gennem at statens investeringsbudget udvides til at finansiere bygningen af nettet, som staten tidligere betalte for opbygningen af den eksisterende danske infrastruktur. Dette vigtige aspekt af infrastrukturopbygning har den amerikanske økonom Lyndon LaRouche beskrevet som nødvendigheden af et statsligt investeringsbudget i et skrift til Den amerikanske Kongres med titlen: “Hvad kongressen må lære: Investeringsbudgettets glemte kunst” (fn5).

Statslige investeringer i denne type af grundlæggende økonomiske infrastruktur vil vende mangfoldigt tilbage i løbet af de næste 50 år, pga. den øgede økonomiske aktivitet, mobilitet og produktivitet der skabes i økonomien. Ved en simpel brugerbetaling bliver billetprisen for høj og de gavnlige samfundsøkonomiske effekter udebliver.

På kort sigt virker det som vanvid, at bruge så mange statslige penge på projektet, men på lang sigt (30-50 år) er det vanvid ikke at gøre det. Og jo før vi bygger det, jo før får vi de positive effekter.

Samtidigt er investeringer i grundlæggende økonomisk infrastruktur det bedste modsvar til den nuværende truende økonomiske afmatning og internationale økonomiske krise forårsaget af bristende bolig- og spekulationsbobler – både danske og internationale.

Selv om dette er en del af den fremtidige europæiske infrastruktur (og gør brug af en tysk designet teknologi), kan vi ligesom med Femern Bælt-forbindelsen ikke vente på et tysk initiativ. Den fremtidsoptimisme, der er resultatet af vore positive erfaringer med store infrastrukturprojekter her i Danmark, gør, at vi kan gå foran, og så senere få tyskerne med. Både når det gælder bygningen af Femern Bælt-forbindelsen og et magnettognet (fn6).

I Asien venter man ikke på Europa. Kina har allerede bygget en maglevlinje og Rusland, Kina og Indien har påbegyndt et tæt økonomisk, teknologisk og videnskabeligt samarbejde. De er allerede i gang med at designe nye typer kernekraftværker og lignende avancerede projekter. Rusland og Kina samarbejder nu om at sende rumsonder til Mars og diskuterer sågar en bemandet rejse til Månen.

Hvis Danmark og Europa skal spille en ledende rolle i fremtiden, må vi lave de teknologispring nu, der gennem videnskabeligt og teknologisk fremskridt skaber øget velstand i fremtiden.

Tak for ordet.

Efter talen var der en række spørgsmål fra udvalget, der er beskrevet og besvaret i Radio Schiller fra den 12. april 2007(mp3-fil).

Spørgsmålene var bl.a.:

Kan tog køre både på normale togskinner og dem fra magnetsvævetog?

Foreslår Schiller Instituttet lignende net i andre lande og et internationalt maglevnet?

Hvad siger du til dem som siger at Danmark er for lille til et sådant net?

Hvorfor begynde med København-Århus forbindelsen i stedet for en forbindelse til Berlin over Femern Bælt?

Hvorfor foreslår Schiller Instituttet magnetsvævetog? Er TGV-tog ikke hurtigere?

 

 

Trafikudvalgets dagsorden for den 12. april 2007:

http://www.folketinget.dk/?/samling/20061/udvda/tru_moede19.htm

Trafikudvalgets medlemmer modtog også en række billag der kan ses på:

http://www.folketinget.dk/Samling/20061/almdel/TRU/bilag/322/index.htm

http://www.folketinget.dk/Samling/20061/almdel/TRU/bilag/360/index.htm

http://www.folketinget.dk/Samling/20061/almdel/TRU/bilag/361/index.htm

Følg den fortsatte udvikling på vore maglev-hjemmeside: Danmark behøver magnettog.

»Vi danskere har gennem de store brobygningsprojekter fået en stor fordel frem for de fleste andre europæere. Den kulturpessimisme og nulvækstideologi, der blev trukket ned over hovederne på os og vasket ind i vore hjerner efter kulturskiftet i 1968, er gennem vores praktiske erfaringer med disse store byggeprojekter blev svækket, og vores naturlige gåpåmod og fremtidsoptimisme er blevet styrket.«

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Vi må handle nu – inden finanssystemet kollapser!

Valgplakat fra kommunalvalget i København, novem­ber 2005.

Tom Gillesberg, Formand for Schiller Instituttet i Danmark

Vi lever i skæbnesvangre tider. Mens de fleste politikere og økonomer sover tornerosesøvn, er der økonomiske processer i gang, der kommer til at bestemme vor skæbne lang tid fremover. Lyndon LaRouche, den amerikanske økonom og tidligere demokratiske præsidentkandidat, der som den eneste i de sidste 40 år konsekvent har været i stand til at forudsige de store økonomiske og strategiske omvæltninger, har længe advaret om, at mange års akkumulerede økonomiske og politiske fejltagelser, som f.eks. erstatningen af efterkrigstidens Bretton Woods-finanssystem med flydende valutakurser, eksplosivt voksende finansspekulation, nulvækstideologi, globalisering og afindustrialisering, har sat en tsunami i gang, der er på vej til at ramme verdens og Danmarks kyster. Verdens finanssystem er i gang med at disintegrere. 

Download (PDF, Unknown)

by Michelle Rasmussen

Published in The New Federalist, August 6, 2001.

Download (PDF, Unknown)

The sun was shining on Vienna, this Sunday morning in 1782. As the clock on the church tower was approaching 10:00, the 26-year-old Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was briskly walking towards the Royal Library, to the residence of Baron van Swieten, the former representative of the court of Vienna in Berlin, now, the chief librarian. He was whistling a theme from the manuscript he held in one hand, a manuscript he had just finished a few minutes before. With his other hand, he was carrying his viola.

The small group of the most promising young musicians in Vienna, whom the Baron invited to his house every Sunday, had now arrived. Mozart placed one of his newly dried manuscript copies on each of the four wooden music stands placed in a semi-circle in front of the marble fireplace. The Baron sat down in his comfortable chair nearby. Mozart, with a twinkle in his eye, unpacked his viola, and he and three of the other young musicians sat down in front of the music stands.

Then, they started to play. But not all at once. First Mozart played, alone — it was the theme he had been whistling. Then, the second violin entered, answering Mozart’s viola with the same theme, but this time played a fifth higher. Meanwhile, Mozart continued, playing the last part of the theme again, but this time one note higher than before, which meant that the last note he played, a note not even found in this key, uncomfortably clashed with the note then being played by the second violin, before things settled down when his next note came.

After the end of the second violin’s theme, Mozart and the second violinist continued playing a small duet, with each playing the second part of the theme even higher, until the first violinist raised his violin, and started playing the theme, this time, an octave above where Mozart had started. Simultaneously, Mozart’s viola and the second violin continued playing variations of this fragment of the theme, which intertwined with the first violinist, and with each other, until, unexpectedly, even before the first violin had finished his theme (at the point where the second part of the theme started), the ‘cellist took up the theme in deep resonant tones, while Mozart and the two violinists continued their intertwining themes. When the ‘cellist played the last tone of the theme, the Baron smiled, and closed his eyes, listening intensely, and with great joy, to the development of the fugue.

Just before the end, each of the four played the same harmonious theme, but instead of simultaneously, overlapped in such a way that a tense musical storm ensued, before calm was reestablished.

When the last tones had evaporated into the air, leaving evidence of their having sounded only in the hearts and minds of the gathered musicians, the Baron said, “Well Mozart, you have really brought the old Johann Sebastian back to life. And for that, I give you my deepest thanks.”

It had been the Baron’s idea. He had encouraged Mozart to transcribe three- and four-voice fugues from Johann Sebastian Bach’s groundbreaking work for keyboard instrument, the Well-Tempered Clavier. This, then, had been the first performance of Mozart’s transcription of Bach’s Fugue No. 5 in D Major, from Book II.

Baron van Swieten had scoured Berlin to find manuscripts of Bach and Händel, whose works were virtually unknown in Vienna, and had brought them back with him. He knew that it was by making their music come alive again, it was by learning from, and being inspired by their music, that he could help young musicians become good composers. He was convinced that it was through playing the greatest music of the past, that one could hope to create great music in the future.

The reconstruction above, by this author, is based on some of the known facts surrounding Mozart’s transcriptions of several three- and four-voice fugues from Johann Sebastian Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. Mozart transcribed them during the period around 1782-83, when he attended Baron van Swieten’s Sunday-morning musical salon, and while a phase-change in his compositional method was occurring. This change was provoked by his encounters with Bach’s works, in combination with Joseph Haydn’s revolutionary new string quartets (Op. 33), written the year before.

To continue the year 2000 commemoration of the 250th anniversary of the death of Bach (1685-1750), and to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the publication of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, this article concerning Mozart, and a projected future article on Robert and Clara Schumann, will present evidence of the degree to which these composers who lived after Bach, intensively studied and “re-composed” his works as pedagogical exercises, to deepen their knowledge of polyphony and counterpoint, and then directly made use of Bach’s compositional method in composing new works. This evidence will be presented through the words of these composers, and through several of their musical works, not widely known today.

Mozart’s Transcriptions of Bach
“I go to the house of Baron Van Suiten [sic] every Sunday at 10 o’clock and nothing is played there but Händel and Bach. I am making a collection of Bach’s fugues, those of Sebastian as well as Emanuel and Friedman [sic].—Also of Händel’s, and I don’t have those. I expect that you know that the ‘English Bach’ is dead? What a loss to the musical world!” Mozart wrote this to his father Leopold on April 10, 1782. In a letter to Leopold on Jan. 4, 1783, he writes that he is still going to Baron Van Swieten’s every Sunday, and on Dec. 6, 1783, he begs his father to send him some Bach fugues from Salzburg.

At Baron van Swieten’s, the young musicians pour over the Bach and Händel manuscripts the Baron had brought back from Berlin, playing them for each other. (See section on “The Musical Midwife,” at the end of this article for more about Baron van Swieten.)

Lyndon LaRouche has written about the revolutionary change provoked by Mozart’s exposure to two of Bach’s greatest works, The Musical Offering and The Art of the Fugue, at Baron van Swieten’s musical salon.1 Here, another aspect of his discovery of Bach is added, that of Mozart’s encounter with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. At the Baron’s suggestion, Mozart transcribed three three-voice fugues from Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier for string trio,2 plus Contrapunctus 8 from Bach’s Art of the Fugue,with a prelude consisting of a movement from Bach’s Organ Sonata No. 3 3; a prelude consisting of a movement from Bach’s Organ Sonata No. 2,4 followed by the fugal 3rd movement in C minor from the same sonata; and Fugue No. 8 by W.F. Bach. These six three-part preludes and fugues are known today as K. 404a.5 Since the preludes that accompany each of Bach’s fugues, were not well suited for string instruments, a special string trio prelude was composed for each one, generally considered written by Mozart. As David Shavin wrote in Fidelio, in these preludes, Mozart was “addressing the developmental potentialities of the fugal material that would have occupied Bach’s mind. Mozart, in presenting to the assembly his hypothesis as to how Bach’s mind worked, fashioned a powerful tool to aid in his own development, and in the development of those around him.”6

Mozart’s authorship of these preludes has been debated, however, because a manuscript from Mozart’s hand has never been found.7 The musicologist Julian Haylock wrote that these preludes “demonstrated an unerring emotional kinship with the fugues with which they are coupled. These preludes can be studied in relation to Mozart’s only other major work for string trio, the great Divertimento in E-flat major, K. 563, from 1788.

In addition to the three-voice fugues, previously mentioned, Mozart transcribed five of Bach’s four-voice fugues from the second book of the Well-Tempered Clavier, known as K. 405,8 and his manuscript exists. The significance of the four-voice fugues is that Mozart’s study of Bach’s treatment of four voices, could not but have revolutionized his thoughts concerning string-quartet writing.9

Mozart’s transcriptions are not exact. There has been a debate about these differences, which some attribute to possible mistakes in the manuscript he was using, and others to changes Mozart thought were necessary for musical reasons. “Even if Mozart copies, his creative fantasy plays and alters details, and each detail is worth notice,” Einstein writes.

Whereas Mozart’s manuscript for the Bach four-voice fugues has no introductions, the Austrian National Library in Vienna has a series of unsigned manuscripts of six four-part fugues of J.S. Bach (including four of those included in Mozart’s K. 405), and three of Bach’s five-part fugues,10 all with new introductions. The musicologist Warren Kirkendale writes that members of Baron van Swieten’s circle most likely wrote these, and that Mozart possibly wrote all or some of them. Another musicologist, Raymond Mayland, believes that Mozart or Haydn may have been involved in their composition.

Kirkendale concludes that the complete set of three-, four-, and five-part fugues originated from a manuscript that probably belonged to van Swieten.11

Bach’s ‘Well-Tempered Clavier’
Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier was a revolutionary work. It has been referred to as the “Old Testament” of Classical piano music. (The New Testament being Beethoven’s piano sonatas.) Finished in 1722, the full title was, “The Well-Tempered Clavier, or preludes and fugues in all the tones and semitones, both with the major third or ‘Ut, Re, Mi’ and with the minor third or ‘Re, Mi, Fa.’ For the use and profit of young musicians who are anxious to learn, as well as for the amusement of those who are already expert in the art.” This later became known as Book I of theWell-Tempered Clavier (BWV 846-869), and contained 24 preludes and fugues, one for each of the major and minor keys. A second book, Twenty-four New Preludes and Fugues, which repeated the procedure with 24 new compositions, was written between 1740-44 (BWV 870-93).

Bach used this work to explore, in depth, the new musical possibilities that arose as a result of the development of a new system of tuning keyboard instruments, called well-tempering, which could give these fixed-note instruments increased ability to play multi-voiced, or polyphonic music, as if there were different species of human voices singing together, with similar flexibility and irony.

In 1691, the German organist and mathematician Andreas Werckmeister (1645-1706) published a treatise entitled, “Musical Temperament or … mathematical instruction how to produce … a well-tempered intonation on the clavier.” Bach, Werckmeister, and others who supported the well-tempered system, rejected the previously held idea that musical intervals in the physical universe, had to conform to abstract mathematical proportions. This idea had put a straitjacket on the musical universe, limiting it to only those keys in which “pure” intervals could be played.

The new movement, of which Bach was a leader, created systems in which it would be possible to play music in all keys. The “comma” (the part of the octave that is left over if only mathematically “pure” musical intervals are used) was distributed unequally throughout all of the keys. (Different keys had different-sized intervals, giving each key its own nuance or “color,” creating a “musical palette,” which is lost in the modern practice of “equal-tempering,” where all half-notes have the same value.) It were then possible both to write music in every key, and to modulate—to move from one key to any another—within the same piece of music, in a way not possible before.

The musical universe was liberated from a system centered in the key-in-itself, or its closest neighbors, to being a system that was expanded to encompass all of the major and minor keys. In addition, Bach’s use of the Lydian interval, previously banned, and other lawfully created dissonances, served as a musical transcendental bridge, to allow musical development to supercede even the 24-key system.12

Musical action was transformed from being limited to change within a few keys, to becoming action based on the unlimited development of musical ideas throughout the entire “24-key-plus” musical universe, where musical development takes advantage of explicit and implicit relations between a whole range of different keys; where the possibilities to create musical change, transformation, paradox, and development are increased to the maximum.

“As any listener to a Bach composition can easily recognize, the position of any note, is an ambiguity, that becomes less ambiguous, as the composition unfolds, and the intervals so generated, and their inversions, are heard with respect to the well-tempered system of bel canto polyphony as a whole. It is the change, with respect to the whole well-tempered system, that determines the notes, not the notes that determine the change.” 13

Just before Bach, other composers had experimented with writing single pieces which modulated throughout all the keys, or with writing different pieces for all 24 keys.14 But Bach’s musical genius surpassed them. Bach-family biographer, Karl Geiringer, writes that Bach realized that the new system could revolutionize the method of fugal composition. Before, change was only possible by introducing new musical subjects or “counter-subjects,” or variations of the theme. Now, change was possible by writing developmental sections, called episodes, which would transport the theme from one key to another, with the establishment of the new key being solidified by the theme being announced in the new key. A greater “oneness” existed than ever before, because the material for the episodes was taken directly from the main theme, or the theme’s counterpoint.15

Bach continued to develop his fugal compositional method, later creating such masterpieces of creativity as the Musical Offering, and the Art of the Fugue.

The Importance of Studying Fugues
“This volume of fugues The Well-Tempered Clavier was always lying open on Mozart’s pianoforte,” recalled Mozart’s pupil Thomas Attwood.

In the process of writing the transcriptions for stringed instruments of Bach’s three- and four-voice fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier, Mozart had to separate out each of the voices, and regard them as individual, sovereign voices, in and of themselves, and see how they formed a unity with each other through musical dialogue. By doing so, Mozart gained greater insight into Bach’s method of composition, akin to “reliving” his creative thought processes.

Recall my reconstruction of a morning session at Baron van Swieten’s above. In a fugue, each voice enters by playing the theme, or a slight variation of the theme, and then paradoxically proceeds to unfold its voice in an independent manner, yet in dialogue with the other voices. Through studying Bach’s fugues, Mozart could study Bach’s method of composing several equally important, independent voices, which were created to be played together to form a beautiful whole.

Music that has more than one voice is called “polyphony” — from the Greek for “many voices.” The art of combining the many voices in a beautiful manner is called “counterpoint,” from “point against point.” This refers to the art of composing a second voice, to be played together with a given first voice. (Setting one “point,” or note, of a second voice, to one “point,” or note of a given first voice.) For example, adding one, or more, counterpoint voice(s), to a well-known Psalm melody.

When writing counterpoint, the composer strives to enable each voice to be a coherent, melodic voice, in and of itself. However, through natural development of each of the voices, including the use of the inversion of musical intervals or themes, they come into conflict with each other, creating what are called dissonances, or musical intervals that are uncomfortable, which create tension, and demand to be resolved. This creates an impetus for paradox, surprise, development, and change in the music. The art of counterpoint developed over centuries, and reached its highest point with Bach’s music.16

Posterity was given an insight into Bach’s ability to see the development potential of a given theme, from the following story told by one of Bach’s sons. Bach’s son was sitting next to him at a concert where a fugue was being performed. Just after the first presentation of the theme, Bach whispered to his son, predicting exactly which fugal techniques the composer would use to develop the theme. When, as predicted, the music developed exactly as Bach said it would, he nudged his son and said the equivalent of, “I told you so!”17

In other words, Bach could immediately see the pregnant developmental possibilities of a given theme — for example, which fugal development methods were appropriate: counterposing the theme to other voices playing the same theme, but starting at different times; maybe to the same theme played twice as long, or twice as fast; or to a changed theme, or part of the theme, maybe even upside down (inverted); or against one or more different musical ideas.

It also worked the other way around. A composer like Bach would choose an appropriate fugal theme based, firstly, on what type of musical development he had decided to achieve, and, secondly, on what type of fugal treatment could cause that result. The chosen theme would then be designed to be developed in that way.

Laurence Dreyfus, whose viol quartet recorded Mozart’s transcriptions of Bach’s four-voice fugues, wrote that one can see in the Bach fugues, “all kinds of foreshadowings of what later become staples of part-writing in Mozart’s late string quartets.” Referring to the fact that Beethoven, Schumann, and Brahms were great pianists and well-versed in Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier,Dreyfus posed the irony that “the language of Bach’s four-voice fugues, perhaps even more than the canonic repertory of string quartets themselves, should profoundly inform so much of their polyphonic thinking.”

Mozart’s act of transcribing Bach’s fugues, enabled Bach, who died earlier in the same decade in which Mozart was born, to become Mozart’s teacher—from his grave!

Mozart’s string transcriptions also give performers and listeners greater ability to distinguish the separate voices, and follow their interplay, because of the unique “colors” and registration of the different string instruments. (This author has also experimented with having a vocal trio, comprised of three different types of singing voices, sing sections of one of Bach’s three-part fugues, Fugue No. 8, Book I of the Well-Tempered Clavier, during a class on polyphony and counterpoint.)

The Mozart-Haydn Dialogue
Mozart’s four-voice fugues based on Bach were written six months after the publication of Haydn’s revolutionary Op. 33 in 1781. Haydn’s breakthrough in writing his Op. 33 string quartets, which he called “auf eine ganz neue, besondere Art” (in an entirely new and special manner), was based on two musical discoveries. The first was his steps in the development of the kind of independence and equal standing of the different voices which characterized Bach’s fugues, for the four voices of a string quartet—how to write string quartets which are not limited to the first violin playing the melody, and the three other instruments playing more or less an “um-pa-pa” accompaniment. The second was the concept Prof. Norbert Brainin, the former first violinist of the legendary Amadeus Quartet, has termed “Motivführung”—a unity of the composition, achieved through the creative development of a musical motivic element presented at the very beginning, through playing with the potential variations and oppositions (inversions or negations) of that motivic element. Development was not limited to the “development” sections, but continued throughout the work.

In response to Haydn, Mozart would write his six “Haydn Quartets” from December 1782 to January 1785 (K. 387, 421, 428, 458, 464, 465). In these quartets, Mozart took what he had learned from his study of Bach, and from Haydn’s breakthroughs, and continued the musical revolution at an even higher level.

Listen to the fugue-like finale from the first of his “Haydn Quartets” K. 387, the string quartet Mozart wrote in December 1782, while he was attending Baron van Swieten’s salon, for a taste of Mozart’s earliest attempt to learn from both of these masters, and go further. The last three quartets embodied even more contrapuntal writing than the earlier ones. Listen especially to the first, second, and last movements of the fifth “Haydn Quartet,” String Quartet in A Major, No. 18, K. 464, written in 1785, for Mozart’s use of chromaticism and contrapuntal development. The last movement, which is based on a chromatically transformed version of the theme of first movement, has been called the “contrapuntal ne plus ultra” of Mozart’s Haydn quartets.

After hearing the last three of these quartets performed, Haydn said to Mozart’s father Leopold, “Before God, and as an honest man I tell you that your son is the greatest composer known to me either in person or by name. He has taste and, what it more, the most profound knowledge of composition.” Haydn’s earlier string quartets had also had an impact on the young Mozart. Before Op. 33, Haydn’s string quartets with fugal finales had become a model for Mozart’s early string quartets of 1772-73.

Musicologist Alfred Einstein, in the chapter on counterpoint in his book on Mozart,18 stressed that it was the development section of Haydn’s “Dialogue Quartets,” Op. 33 String Quartets, which helped Mozart to take what he had learned from Bach’s counterpoint, and make it into something new and Mozartian. Haydn’s new works helped Mozart to learn to play with counterpoint and polyphony.

It is reported that, in 1784, Mozart and Haydn actually played string quartets together in a “composers quartet,” with Haydn playing first violin, and Mozart playing viola, together with two other musicians. 19

The string quartet-centered musical revolution started by Haydn and Mozart was brought to a pinnacle by Beethoven. As Norbert Brainin has stated, the high point of string-quartet writing was found in Beethoven’s late string quartets, because the independence of each of the four voices is the greatest (yet they create the most beautiful whole).

There is a similar concept in Schiller’s work entitled Kallias, or On the Beautiful. There, Schiller states that a landscape painting is beautifully composed, when all parts play into one another as a whole, yet, each part seems to be acting out of its own free will. A tree bends down of its own weight, and thereby lets the mountain behind it be seen.

Mozart’s Own Fugal Writing
On April 20, 1782, just a few days after the above-mentioned letter in which Mozart told his father that he was collecting fugues by Bach, he wrote the following letter to his sister and fellow-musician, Maria-Anna, called Nannerl. Included was Mozart’s “Fantasy and Fugue” (K. 394). He wrote,

“I composed the fugue first and wrote it down while I was thinking out the prelude. I only hope that you will be able to read it, for it is written so very small; and I hope further that you will like it. Another time I shall send you something better for the clavier. My dear Constanze [whom Mozart would marry in August] is really the cause of this fugue’s coming into the world. Baron van Swieten, to whom I go every Sunday, gave me all the works of Händel and Sebastian Bach to take home with me (after I had played them to him). When Constanze heard the fugues, she absolutely fell in love with them. Now she will listen to nothing but fugues, and particularly (in this kind of composition) the works of Händel and Bach.

“Well, as she has often heard me play fugues out of my head, she asked me if I had ever written any down, and when I said I had not, she scolded me roundly for not recording some of my compositions in this most artistically beautiful of all musical forms and never ceased to entreat me until I wrote down a fugue for her. So this is its origin.

“I have purposely written above it, Andante Maestoso, as it must not be played too fast. For if a fugue is not played slowly, the ear cannot clearly distinguish the theme when it comes in, and consequently, the effect is entirely missed. When I get the time and opportunity, I will make another five [fugues] and deliver them to Baron van Suiten; because I have to say, he really owns, while admittedly very small in quantity, but in regard to quality, a very great treasure of good music.

“And therefore, I ask you to promise me not to take back your promise, and let no man see them. Learn them by heart and play them. A fugue is not so easy to play after only hearing it. — If father has not yet had the works of Eberlin copied, then I would be very pleased — I have gotten hold of them and — because I could no longer remember that, with a closer look, they are of too low a quality, and truthfully, do not deserve a place between Händel and Bach….”

Here we can catch the first glimpse of the effect that studying Bach’s and Händel’s fugues had on stimulating Mozart’s own creativity, and also the effect that Mozart’s wife, the soprano Constanze’s love for the fugue had on encouraging Mozart to develop his creativity through this art.20

After 1783 or 1784, Mozart stopped writing fugues as musical exercises.

In addition to the “Haydn Quartets” mentioned above, the inspiration Mozart derived from studying Bach’s fugal methods can be seen in the following works, among others, written during and after the 1782 period:

* A group of unfinished fugues 21

Einstein notes that the many unfinished fugues were not unfinished masterpieces, which were a shame to have been left undone, and were just waiting for a student to finish. Rather, he most probably dropped them, because he found them lacking in developmental potential. Most were left off during the developmental section, or just before.

* Prelude (fantasy) and Fugue in C, K. 394 (383a)

* Fugues K. 401 and 443

* C Minor Fugue for two pianos, K. 426 from 1783 (later transcribed by Mozart for a string quartet).

* Mozart’s C Minor Mass, K. 427 (417a), unfinished

Mozart worked on his C Minor Mass during the period he was attending Baron van Swieten’s salon in 1782-83. He had originally planned to perform it in Salzburg, the city of his birth, after his marriage to Constanze, but he did not finish it. The uncompleted mass was performed in October 1783, with Constanze as a soprano soloist.

The conductor of the Mozartverein, Kappelmeister Alois Schmitt, in the tradition of Mozart’s pupil Süssmayr’s work to complete Mozart’s Requiem, edited and completed the Mass in C Minor, completing the instrumentation from sketches, and adding sections from other Mozart masses to fill in the missing parts.

Schmitt explicitly acknowledged Bach and Händel’s influence on the composition of this work, and names Mozart’s transcriptions of Bach’s fugues in the preface to the first edition:

“Thanks to the Sunday concerts at Baron van Swieten’s home, Mozart had become quite well acquainted with the past masters Bach and Händel. He arranged ten fugues by Bach for string instruments and instrumented several oratorios by Händel for Baron van Swieten….” After commenting on Händel’s influence, Schmitt continued, “On the other hand, the quartet Benedictus is more in the spirit of Bach. The austere sweetness, the masterful polyphony of this piece give it a unique flavour found nowhere else in Mozart literature.”

Bach’s influence is also evident in:

* The “Cum Sancto Spiritu” section, and the double fugue “Hosana.”

* The Jupiter Symphony, No. 41, K. 551, 22 with the great contrapuntal finale written in “invertible” counterpoint.

* Suite in C major, incomplete, K. 399

* Sonata for piano and violin in A major-minor, with an unfinished fugal finale (K. 402)

* Piano sonata K. 309

* Fantasia for piano in D minor (K. 397)

* Piano Sonata K. 475

* “the contrapuntal flavor of the later (piano) sonatas”

* canons, some with very naughty texts (K.229-231, 233, 234, 347, 348)

* F minor Fantasia for mechanical organ, K. 608

* The Bach chorale with counterpoint sung by the armed men in Act II, Scene 28 of The Magic Flute

* The Requiem

Mozart’s Compositional Method
Alfred Einstein wrote that Mozart’s father, Leopold, called the developmental unity, the progression of musical thought, “il filo,” the thread. It was that “filo,” which Mozart followed, which is so dependent on the “right” beginning, that the beginning must be at a high enough level, because everything else develops out of that “kernel.” It is the “filo” that Mozart had in his mind before he started writing notes down. He would write “the whole” down first, for vocal music, the first violin, the singing voices and the bass line all the way through, adding the middle instrumental voices later. As for chamber music, or a symphony, he would write down the leading voices first, hopping from instrument to instrument, depending on which one took the lead, and would add the other parts afterwards.

However, for certain complex contrapuntal sections, Mozart would first work out the details, before writing out the whole partitur, for example, the Allegro section of the Prague Symphony, the manuscript of which had been located shortly before Einstein wrote his book.

More on Bach’s Influence on Mozart
Baron van Swieten’s Viennese salon was not the first encounter Mozart had with the Bach family. In 1762, when Mozart was a child of six, J.S. Bach’s son, Johann Christian, befriended him in London, where the Mozart family lived for several years. The symphonies that the child prodigy Mozart composed there were largely modelled on Johann Christian Bach’s, and especially Mozart’s earliest piano concertos, written after he returned to Salzburg.

The last movement of Mozart’s D major Concerto (K. 40) was taken from Philipp Emanuel Bach. The question is, which, if any, of Johann Sebastian’s works were known by Mozart during this period.

Also, after the 1782 Baron van Swieten period, Mozart became quite excited, after listening to J.S. Bach’s choral works, first as they were performed, and then, in his mind, as he studied the scores. Mozart visited Leipzig in 1789, where he went to the St. Thomas Church, where Bach had been cantor, to play the organ. The new cantor, who had been Bach’s student, Johann Friedrich Doles, was in attendance. An eyewitness wrote, “Mozart played without previous announcement and without compensation on the organ of the church of St. Thomas. He played beautifully and artistically before a large audience for about an hour…. Doles was utterly delighted with his playing and thought that old Sebastian Bach … had been resurrected. With good taste and with the greatest ease Mozart employed all the arts of harmony and gloriously improvised upon the themes, among others of the chorale ‘Jesu, meine Zuversicht’….”

“At the instigation of Doles, the cantor of the Thomasschule in Leipzig, the choir surprised Mozart by performing the motet for double choir, ‘Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied,’ by the patriarch of German music, Sebastian Bach. As soon as the choir had sung a few bars, Mozart started; after a few more he exclaimed: ‘What is that?’ And now his whole soul seemed to be centered in his ears. When the song was ended, he cried out with delight: ‘Now, here is something one can learn from!’

“He was informed that this school, where Sebastian Bach had once been cantor, possessed a complete collection of his motets, which were preserved as if they were a saint’s relics. ‘That is right, that is fine,’ he exclaimed. ‘Let me see them’ There was, however, no complete score of these songs. He therefore took the separate parts, and then, what a pleasure it was for the quiet observer to see how eagerly Mozart sat down, the parts all around him, held in both hands, on his knees, on the nearest chairs. Forgetting everything else, he did not stand up again until he had looked through all the music of Sebastian Bach. He asked for copies….” 23

“The Musical Midwife”
Who(se):

father admired Benjamin Franklin, calling himself a “small republican?”
introduced the young Mozart to Bach?
was the young Beethoven’s First Symphony dedicated to?
wrote German librettos based on Milton and Thomson, for Haydn to set to music, provoking the composition of the Creation, and the Seasons?
love for great music, and efforts to support the development of great musical geniuses, personified the “red thread” linking Bach, Händel, Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, through his direct personal intervention?
The answer to every question is: Baron Gottfried van Swieten.

Baron Gottfried van Swieten (1733-1803), though not a professional musician, may be the music-lover who had the greatest impact on the development of Western Classical music. His great love for, and promotion of the music of Bach and Händel, who lived a generation before him, and his decisive influence on three of the greatest Classical musicians of his, or any time, Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven, grants Baron van Swieten a special place in musical history.

What was the background of this musical midwife who helped to provoke such a profound revelation in Mozart?

Baron Gottfried van Swieten, born in the Netherlands, was the eldest son of Dr. Gerhard van Swieten (1700-72). Dr. Van Swieten was summoned to Vienna to become the personal physician of the Empress of the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire, Maria Theresa, in 1745, and held several other posts, including director of the court library. Though employed by the Empire, he openly admired Benjamin Franklin, and called himself a “small republican.”

His son, Gottfried van Swieten, educated at the Jesuit “Theresianum,” became a diplomat, representing the court of Vienna in Brussels (1755-7), Paris (1760-63), Warsaw (1763-64), England (1768-69), and as Ambassador Extraordinary at the Prussian court in Berlin, from 1770 to 1777, where he was the liaison between Vienna’s Chancellor Count Kaunitz, and Frederick the Great. (His superior in Brussels said that his only criticism was that “music takes up the best part of his time.”)24

Early in life, the Baron composed at least three comic operas, and 10-12 symphonies.25 (His collaborator Haydn, though, later characterized them as being “as stiff as he is.”)

One researcher reports that the Baron first became enchanted with Baroque music while living in England.

Baron van Swieten wrote that none other than the King of Prussia, Frederick the Great, introduced him to the music of Bach, in Berlin. In a confidential letter to Count Kaunitz on July 26, 1774, the Baron wrote, “Among other things, he [the King] spoke about music and about a great organ player by the name of Bach [J.S. Bach’s son Wilhelm Friedemann Bach], who had just given a concert in Berlin. This artist is equipped with a talent which supercedes everything which I have heard or can imagine in the direction of in-depth harmonic abilities and power in his playing, while they, who have known his father, do not find that he can measure up to him. The King is of that opinion, and to prove it, with a loud voice, he sang a chromatic fugal theme, which he had given to the old Bach, who, on the spot, made a fugue with four voices, thereafter with five voices, and at the end, one with eight obbligato voices.” The King referred here to J.S. Bach’s visit in May 1747, which led to the composition of his great work, The Musical Offering.26

During the Baron’s stay in Berlin (1770-77), he attended the musical salons held by Fredrick the Great’s sister, Princess Anna Amelia of Prussia (1723-87), where J.S. Bach and Händel were the favorite composers. He was to love and promote the music of these two composers for the rest of his life. Van Swieten even studied composition with a student of J.S. Bach, Princess Anna Amelia’s musical advisor, Kappelmeister Johann Philipp Kirnberger (1721-83), an important musical theoretician.

The Baron was also in contact with other students of Bach. Van Swieten visited one of Bach’s sons, Carl Philipp Emanuel, in Hamburg in 1774, the same year he first heard about him from the King. He corresponded with C.P.E., and bought some of J.S. Bach’s manuscripts from him, including copies of fugues, many years before they were printed. He also commissioned six string symphonies (W. 182) from him, and C.P.E. Bach dedicated his third set of Sonaten für Kenner und Liebhaber (W. 57) to Van Swieten. The Baron knew Bach student Johann Friederich Agricola, the Prussian court’s composer and author. Another of Bach’s sons, Wilhelm Friedmann, who moved to Berlin in 1774, also made a great impression on van Swieten.

The Baron brought several of J.S. Bach’s printed works to Vienna, including The Art of the Fugue, and also manuscripts of The Well-Tempered Clavier, the “Organ Trios,” and possibly some of the “Preludes and Fugues for Organ.” In addition to piano and organ works by Bach, the Baron also had several of Bach’s motets and his larger choral works.27

Upon his return to Vienna, he succeeded his father as director of the court library, and was appointed president of the Education and Censorship Commission in 1782. The Baron was supportive of the reform ideas of Emperor Joseph II, Maria Theresa’s son, who succeeded her.

The Mozarts first met the Baron during their trip to Vienna in 1767-68. During the negotiations surrounding the composition and production of Mozart’s opera La Finta Semplice, Wolfgang responded to criticism that the opera was “unsingable,” by playing the whole opera on Baron van Swieten’s piano, to a group of music lovers who were “greatly moved.” Later, in 1781, the Baron heard Mozart’s opera Idomeneo, as well as Mozart giving a concert, where he played a Concerto (K. 365) and a Sonata for Two Pianos (K. 448).

The Baron’s importance for the promotion of J.S. Bach’s works is evidenced by the fact that the first Bach biography, written by Johann Nikolaus Forkel, was dedicated to him.

At van Swieten’s salon, in addition to pedagogical investigations of instrumental works, they also sang together, with van Swieten singing soprano, Mozart singing alto, simultaneously playing the piano, while two other musicians sang tenor and bass.

During the 1780s, Van Swieten formed a group of noblemen interested in “old music,” called the Gesellschaft der Associierten, which arranged concerts in the Royal Library, or their palaces, of works of C.P.E. Bach, and oratorios of Händel. Mozart became the director of these concerts in 1787, conducting an orchestra of 86 musicians. Mozart wrote new arrangements of Händel’sMessiah, “Acis and Galatea,” “Alexander’s Feast,” and the “Ode for St. Cecilia’s Day” for the concerts. There is current research regarding a manuscript, previously unknown, of an arrangement of Händel’s Judas Maccabaeus, attributed on the title page to Mozart, recently found in Halifax, England.28 He also wrote wind instrument arrangements of some of Händel’s works.29

New arrangements were made because neither the Royal Library, nor the palaces had organs, which were a part of Händel’s instrumentation, and due to the changed instrumentation practice of the time, which included adding clarinets and trombones.30 In a letter from the Baron to Mozart, of questioned authenticity, regarding Mozart’s idea of arranging the aria “If God Be for Us” from the Messiah, he is said to have written, “He who can clothe Händel so solemnly and so tastefully that he pleases the modish fop on the one hand and on the other still shows himself in his sublimity, has felt his worth, has understood him, has penetrated to the well-spring of his expression, from which he can and will draw confidently. That is how I view what you have accomplished….” The Baron himself conducted a performance of Mozart’s arrangement of Händel’s “Acis and Galatea” at the home of Count Esterházy.

C.P.E. Bach’s Die Auferstehung und Himmelfahrt Christi was also performed under Mozart’s baton.

During the last decade of Mozart’s life, the Baron, to a certain extent, helped Mozart financially, including commissioning the Händel arrangements, and when Mozart became disillusioned with the musical tastes at Court, Mozart wrote that van Swieten was among the group of Vienna’s music lovers who asked him to stay. In 1789, Mozart wrote that after two weeks of circulation, the only name on a subscription list to support Mozart’s concerts, was that of the Baron.

On the very day that Mozart died, Dec. 5, 1791, the Baron was dismissed by the Emperor Leopold II, who opposed Joseph II’s reform policy. According to musicologist E. Olleson, “The death of Joseph II, in January 1790, strengthened the hand of those who opposed the educational reforms [his and van Swieten’s, head of Joseph II’s Education and Censorship Commission], and a bitter struggle developed, lasting almost two years….” 31

Another source wrote that the Baron fell, most probably, because of his association with the Masonic-linked Illuminati lodge. It is possible that he first came into contact with the Illuminati in Berlin, but in any case, he was listed as a member of the lodge in Prague. The Baron’s loyalty to the Crown seems to have come into question, when a tutor he had arranged for the Crown Prince, Johann Baptist von Schloissnigg, was accused and investigated for being a member of the Illuminati, with rumors flying that the Baron was part of a conspiracy. The affair “climax[ed] in the hours after Mozart’s demise.” Further investigation is needed, given the questions surrounding Mozart’s death, of the fact that his sponsor, Baron van Swieten was swept from power on the very day Mozart died, amidst charges of political conspiracy. (Mozart, himself, was a member of the pro-American Revolution faction of the Masons.)

After Mozart’s untimely death, two months short of his 36th birthday, van Swieten arranged the first performance in Vienna of Mozart’s Requiem, to benefit Mozart’s wife, Constanze. He also supported Mozart’s son, until Constanze remarried,32 including paying for his schooling in Prague.

Baron van Swieten also had a profound influence on two other musical geniuses, Haydn and Beethoven.

Haydn
While stationed in Berlin, the Baron championed Haydn’s works, but his greatest impact on Haydn’s music was helping to cause the composition of three of Haydn’s great oratorios. Van Swieten had paid for Haydn’s second trip to London, where he became enthusiastic about the Händelian oratorio tradition still alive there. Afterwards, the Baron encouraged Haydn to write his own oratorios, The Seven Words, The Creation(1798), and The Seasons (1801), and it was actually the Baron himself, who wrote the German librettos for them. Van Swieten played an increasingly important role in the preparation of the three libretti.

Regarding The Seven Words, he arranged Josef Friebert’s text to Haydn’s taste, with relatively small changes. The background to The Creation is more interesting. One source wrote that Haydn brought an anonymous English libretto back with him from England, based on John Milton’s Paradise Lost, which was said to have been written for Händel. Van Swieten wrote, rather than simply translated, a German libretto from this, but closely followed the plan in the English libretto.

The entire conception for The Seasons libretto was the Baron’s, based on an English poem by James Thomson. He also wrote suggestions in the margin of the librettos for The Creation and The Seasons about how the text might be set to music, especially the descriptive passages.33 (On a humorous note, Haydn later eliminated a passage in The Seasons that imitated the croaking of frogs, saying that van Swieten had forced him to write it.)

One can say that van Swieten caused The Seasons to be written. A tired Haydn was close to 70 years old when van Swieten wrote the libretto, proposed the musical plan for the work, and pressured him to agree to compose the piece, which took Haydn three years, with constant encouragement (or pressure) from the Baron. This year marks the 200th anniversary of The Seasons premier in 1801, at a concert financed by Baron van Swieten and his friends.

Van Swieten collaborated with Haydn in the production of the vocal editions of the three oratorios. The Gesellschaft der Associierten, established by the Baron, arranged the financing, and the first performances of all three works.

Beethoven
Beethoven was already fully acquainted with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier before meeting the Baron. At the same time that the 27-year-old Mozart was being introduced to many of Bach’s works at the Baron’s musical salon in Vienna, in Bonn, the 11-year-old Beethoven was playing most of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier, according to the written statement, dated March 1783, by his teacher Christian Gottlob Neefe.

“Louis van Beethoven, son of the tenor singer mentioned, a boy of eleven years and of most promising talent. He plays the clavier very skillfully and with power, reads at sight very well, and—to put it in a nutshell—he plays chiefly The Well-Tempered Clavichord of Sebastian Bach, which Herr Neefe put into his hands. Whoever knows this collection of preludes and fugues in all the keys—which might almost be called the non plus ultra of our art—will know what this means. Herr Neefe has also given him instruction in thorough-bass. He is now training him ins composition…. He would surely become a second Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart were he to continue as he has begun.” Neefe was a close friend of a successor of Bach as cantor of Thomaskirche, Hiller.

In 1787, at the age of 16, Beethoven visited Vienna for the first time, impressing Mozart with his improvisational abilities, and receiving a few music theory lessons from him. Professor Jahn, a biographer of Mozart, relates the story of the first meeting between Beethoven and Mozart. Beethoven “was taken to Mozart and at that musician’s request played something for him which he, taking it for granted that it was a show-piece prepared for the occasion, praised in a rather cool manner. Beethoven observing this, begged Mozart to give him a theme for improvisation. He always played admirably when excited and now he was inspired, too, by the presence of the master whom he reverenced greatly; he played in such a style that Mozart, whose attention and interest grew more and more, finally went silently to some friends to were sitting in an adjoining room, and said, vivaciously, ‘Keep your eyes on him; some day he will give the world something to talk about.’ ” 34

In 1792, a year after Mozart’s death, Beethoven moved to Vienna, for the purpose of studying with Haydn. Mozart’s death had left Vienna without a truly great pianist, until the arrival of Beethoven. Beethoven’s leading biographer, Thayer, states that all contemporary authorities attested to Beethoven’s success on his arrival in Vienna, attributing it to “his playing of Bach’s preludes and fugues especially,” as well as his sight-reading and improvisational capabilities.

To repeat, it was especially Beethoven’s ability to play Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier magnificently, in a Vienna that Baron van Swieten had brought to love Bach, which opened all doors for him, and which drew him into the Baron’s musical circle. Beethoven’s close friend Schidler stated that after musical performances in his house, the Baron “detained Beethoven and persuaded him to add a few fugues by Sebastian Bach as an evening blessing.” 35

It just might have been the case that the elderly Baron sat in the same imagined chair as above, with his eyes closed, while Mozart’s successor, Beethoven, serenaded him with Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier.

Baron van Swieten encouraged Beethoven to study counterpoint, and often asked about his progress. Beethoven, like Mozart, also transcribed two of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier fugues for string quartet for study purposes, that in B flat minor, and an incomplete version of the fugue in B minor, both from Book I.

Beethoven had great respect for Bach, later asking his publisher for all of Bach’s works, calling him the “Urvater der Harmonie,” the “patriarch of musical harmony.” On another occasion, Beethoven said, “Bach sollte nicht Bach, sondern Meer heissen” (Bach should not be called Bach (brook), but Meer (ocean), because of his infinite and inexhaustible wealth of combinations and harmonies.” Beethoven copied out and highlighted a quote about Bach’s music, from Forkel’s biography of Bach, which included, “Only the connoisseur who can surmise the inner organization and feel it and penetrate to the intention of the artist, which does nothing needlessly, is privileged to judge here; indeed the judgment of a musical connoisseur can scarcely be better tested than by seeing how rightly he has learned the works of Bach.”

Baron van Swieten also had a literary influence on Beethoven, introducing him to Shakespeare and discussing Homer with him.

The Baron’s importance for Beethoven is evidenced by the fact that, in 1800, Beethoven dedicated his first symphony to him.

Let the story of Baron Gottfried van Swieten conclude with the obituary about him printed in the Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung in 1803:

“In him, music loses a significant Maecenas, and the world an upright and loyal man…. Swieten was an adherent of no school or sect, every true talent he welcomed; nevertheless, his favorites were Händel, Sebastian Bach, Mozart, and Haydn, with whom he occupied himself almost daily. Would that a man of high station may soon come forward, who will so actively espouse the cause of music as did Swieten!”
Notes

1. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr. “Mozart’s 1782-1786 Revolution in Music,” Fidelio, Winter 1992, Vol. I, No. 4.

2. From Book 1: Fugue No. 8 in D sharp minor; from Book 2: No. 13 in F sharp, BWV 882 and No. 14 in F sharp minor, BWV 883.

3. The 2nd movement in F, Adagio e dolce, from Bach’s sonata for organ No. 3 in D minor, BWV 527.

4. The 2nd movement, in E flat, Largo, from the Sonata for Organ No. 2 in C minor, BWV 526)

5. One available CD recording is “Mozart: Complete String Trios and Duos,” a performance by the Grumiaux Trio, Arrigo Pelliccia and the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields Chamber Ensemble, Philips 454 023-2.

6. David Shavin, “Mozart and the American Revolutionary Upsurge,” Fidelio, Winter 1992, Vol. I, No. 4.

7. The musicologist Alfred Einstein, who wrote an important biography of Mozart, bases his contention that they were composed by Mozart, on the process of elimination — that they could not have been written by anyone else from that time. “…that these arrangements, although not authenticated by the existence of an autograph manuscript, could only have come from Mozart. Only Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (the great contrapuntist, and student of Bach-mr), whose Six String Quartets, Op. 21 show exactly the same design (six adagios and fugues), could also be considered as their author; yet Albrechtsberger’s creative imagination and feel for style came far short of that shown in these four adagio movements.” (record notes 3-part f, also find citation from Einstein. art.)

In a 1936 article Einstein had previously stated that Albrechtsberger could not be the author, “Able and estimable as he was, a glance at the prelude quoted with this article (the prelude that accompanies Fugue No. 13 from Book II of Bach’s WTC) is sufficient to show that no other master than Mozart could have written it. Mozartian is the delicate grace of the melody, Mozartian is the courage which accompanies it with such a galant figure, Mozartian too is the terseness, the concise form, which does not for a second forget the introductory character of these forty bars, and Mozartian is the agreement of prelude with fugue, which winged, playful character he has realized most finely.” Einstein continues with descriptions of how well-suited the other preludes are to their fugues. (Musical Times, page 212.)

8. C Minor (after BWV 871 No. 2)

D Major (after BWV 874 No.2)

D# Minor, transposed to D Minor (after BWV 877 No. 2)

E Flat Major (after BWV 876 No. 2)

E Major (after BWV 878 No. 2).

A sixth fugue, No. 22 in B flat minor, (after BWV 891) transposed to B minor, was left uncompleted by Mozart, later to be completed by his contemporary Anton Stadler. (Yo Tomita, A new light shed on the origin of Mozart’s KV 404a and 405 through the recent source study of J.S. Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier II, www.music.qub.ac.uk/~tomita/bmc1996/KV405art.html, page 3.)

9. To hear the four-voice fugues, played by Laurence Dreyfus’s early music viol consort group Phantasm, on the Internet: www.gmn.com/classical/worknotes.asp.?wid=15. There are also available recordings played by modern string quartets.

10. No. 4, C# minor (transposed to D minor) from WTC I

No. 22, B flat minor (transposed to A minor) from WTC I and

Organ fugue BWV 546 (Yo Tomita, page 3.)

11. The manuscripts are part of the “Kaisersammlung,” the music collection of Emperor Franz II, the son of Emperor Joseph II. A contemporary stated, “His Majesty love(d) fugues very much,” referring to Emperor Franz, who inherited part of the collection, and his love of fugues from his father. Regarding the four-part fugues, in addition to the same fugues from the Well-Tempered Clavier as K. 405: in D# minor (transposed to D minor), E flat, D, and E, there is one in B flat minor (transposed to B minor) and a J.S. Bach organ fugue BWV 548. There is a recording of these available entitled “Bach Chez Mozart” HM 739. The three five-part fugues are: from the fugues in C# minor (transposed to D minor) and B flat minor (in A minor) from WTC Book I, the only two five-part fugues Bach wrote, with the addition of a J.S. Bach Organ fugue BWV 546. Kirkendale’s own score of the nine slow four- and five- part movements is available at the Library of Congress. (Kirkendale pg. 46-47, 49, 65.)

12. Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr., “Politics as Art,”EIR, Nov. 17, 2000, Vol. 27, No. 45.  See also Mindy Pechenuk “Mozart’s ‘Ave Verum Corpus,’ ” Fidelio, Winter 1996, Vol. V, No. 4, on the role of the Lydian interval.

13. Bruce Director, “Riemann for Anti-Dummies,” Part 9, New Federalist, Vol. 15, No. 11 May 28, 2001.

14. By Mattheson in 1719, and Suppig in 1722, the year of Bach’s first book.

15. Karl Geiringer, The Bach Family, Seven Generations of Creative Genius, George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London, 1954.

16. In the period before Bach, writing counterpoint had become a stiff, pedantic exercise, dominated by court Kapellmeister Johann Joseph Fux’s book Gradus ad Parnassum from 1725. Fux banned the use of the Lydian interval, the interval between three whole notes, for example: C-F# (also called the tritone), in line with those who called it “the devil’s interval:” “mi against fa is the devil in musica.” The Study of Counterpoint: from Johann Joseph Fux’s Gradus ad Parnassum, tr. and edited by Alfred Mann, W. W. Norton and Co., New York,1965, pg. 35, and Fred Haight, unpublished.

17. Op. cit. Geiringer

18. Alfred Einstein, Mozart: His Character, His Work, Oxford, 1962.

19. The Irish tenor Michael Kelly wrote about his hearing them play together in 1784, “Storace gave a quartett (sic) party to his friends. The players were tolerable; not one of them excelled on the instrument he played, but there was a little science among them, which I dare say will be acknowledged when I name them: Haydn, first violin; Baron Dittersdorf, second violin; Mozart, viola; and Vanhal, cello. (Mozart St. Q. CD notes.)

The quartet which played at the Baron’s 1794-95 quartet parties included: Haydn; Beethoven’s friend, the violinist Schuppanzigh; and Emmanuel Aloys Foerster, who had set Bach for string quartet, in association with the Baron, back in 1779-80, before Mozart came to Vienna.

20. Constanza also participated in Mozart’s musical life in other ways. Mozart wrote works for four-handed piano, and for piano and violin, which they played together. Mozart gave Constanza an intimate knowledge of whatever he was working on, including having her sing all of his operas. Regarding Constanza’s musical taste, when hearing Haydn’s quartets, she expressed that she liked the parts with the “strong spices” the most. (From German language book on Mozart.)

21. K. Anh. 33 and 40 (383b), Fugue in F major; K. Anh. 39 (383d), Fugue in C minor, probably from 1783; K. 154 (385k), Fugue in G minor, probably from 1782; K. Anh. 39a (626b/27), Fugue in C minor, probably from the end of the 1780’s; K. Anh.C 27.10, Fugue in E major; and K. deest, Fugue in D minor.

22. The musicologist Alfred Einstein stressed the “decisive important of Bach on Mozart’s musical development, and the inspiration for the great contrapuntal finales, like the String Quartet K. 387 and the Jupiter Symphony, and the use of counterpoint in his other Vienna compositions. RL, pg. 221.

23. One piece of evidence of the effect that Bach’s choral works had on Mozart’s writing afterwards, can be seen in Die Zauberflöte’s Scene 28 (armed men) in Act 2’s finale, where he placed a Lutheran choral tune, Ach Gott von Himmel sigh Darien, based on Bach’s Cantata No. 2 on the same choral, in a contrapuntal setting. This cantata was in the collection Mozart studied in Leipzig. Marshall 18.

24. Edward Olleson, “Gottfried van Swieten, Patron of Haydn and Mozart,” Proceedings of The Royal Musical Association 89, April 23, 1963, p. 64, cited in John W. Campbell, “Mozart and the Baron: Musical Patronage at Work,” The Choral Journal, May 1995.

25. Excerpts from the first movement of Gottfried van Swieten’s Symphony in D major (‘Overtura dell Opera Carrara’), are printed in R. Bernhardt, ‘Aus der Umwelt der Wiener Klassiker, Freiherr Gottfried van Sweiten,’ Der Bär, Jahrbuch von Brietkopf & Härtel, 1929/30, pg. 164ff. Cited in Olleson, pg. 74.

26. see ‘Thinking through Singing’ — The Strategic Significance of J.S. Bach’s A Musical Offering, by David Shavin, Fidelio, Vol. IX, No. 4, Winter 2000. Shavin also corrects the Baron’s information regarding Bach’s fugal elaboration of the King’s theme.

27. There has been a debate about how much Bach was known in Vienna before Van Swieten came home from Berlin. It is known that one Viennese musician, Wagenseil, had his students study Bach’s and Händel’s harpsichord suites. (Schenk, 325-6) The musicologist Alfred Einstein maintained that the works that the Baron brought home were either unknown in Vienna before that, or that there were not many other copies than Van Swieten’s. (Einstein 155-156, and Musical Times.) Another source states that some Bach manuscripts circulated in Austria, including his Well-Tempered Clavier, but that Mozart did not know of their works until the 1780’s. (RL, 78.)

28. The manuscript, not in Mozart’s hand, was found by music lecturer Dr. Rachel Cowgill, in a choral music collection of William Priestley, clothier and member of the Halifax Choral Society, which he said came from Moravians in Germany, probably via Moravian settlements in his area. In the slow movements, and solo parts, new counter-melodies played by the clarinet and flute were added, which Dr. Cowgill terms beautiful. (Rachel Cowgill, How I found ‘Mozart’ in Halifax, The Guardian, March 17, 2001. www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,4153487,00.html)

29. Emperor Franz II, Emperor Joseph II’s son, put his choir and orchestra at the disposal of the Baron for these concerts.

30. “To this end he (the Baron-mr) employed the talents of our Mozart, who knew how to give new life to Handel’s noble inspirations by means of the warmth of his own feelings, and through the magic of his own instrumental style to make them enjoyable for our age.” From Franz Xaver Niemetschek’s Mozart Biography, Prague, 1808, tr. In Deutsch, 508-9, cited in Campbell.

31. For more on the educational policy battles, see S. Adler, Die Uterrichtsverfassung Kaiser Leopolds II, Vienna & Leipzig, 1917.

32. Constanze married the Danish diplomat Georg Nikolaus Nissen (1761-1826), and moved to Copenhagen. Nissen later wrote the first major biography of Mozart, with Constanze’s supervision, entitled, Biographie W.A. Mozart’s: nach Originalgriefen: Sammlungen alles über ihn Geschrieben. Constanze participated in the musical life of Copenhagen, and promoted the publication of the works of her late husband.

33. Van Swieten’s suggestions are printed in C. F. Pohl, Joseph Haydn, Leipzig, 1927, iii, 358-9, and M. Friedländer, ‘Van Swieten und das Textbuch zu Haydn, „Jahreszeiten,”’ Jahrbuch der Musikbibliothek Peters, 1909, pg. 47-56.

34. Alexander Wheelock Thayer, Life of Beethoven, Elliot Forbes, editor, Vols. 1 and 2, Princeton, 1967.

35. A note from the Baron to Beethoven exits from these early years, evidencing their close relationship, “To Hr. Beethoven in Alstergasse, No. 45, with the Prince Lichnowsky: If there is nothing to hinder next Wednesday I should be glad to see you at my home at half past 8 with your nightcap in your bag. Give me an immediate answer. Swieten” Thayer, pg. 161.

Additional sources to those mentioned in the above footnotes:

(A version of the above article with more complete source footnotes is available from the author. You can send a request for it to mr@schillerinstitut.dk)

Anderson, Emily, editor, The Letters of Mozart and His Family,  London, Macmillan, 1938.

Blom, Eric, Mozart (New York: Pellegrini & Cudahy, 1949), 147, cited in Campbell.

Campbell, John W., Mozart and the Baron: Musical Patronage at Work, The Choral Journal, May 1995, pg. 17.)

Clove

Einstin, Alfred, Hans personlighed, hans vaerk, Thaning & Appel, Copenhagen, 1963, originally

Findlay, Patrick N. J.S. Bach’s Influence on W. A. Mozart, internet address.

Haylock, Julian, CD notes, Mozart’s complete string trios and duos, Philips 454 023-2

Kirkendale

Landon, H. C. Robbins, editor, The Mozart Compendium, A Guide to Mozart’s Life and Music,  Thames & Hudson, 1990

Landon, H. C. Robbins, Mozart’s Gyldne Aar, 1781-1791, from Mozart, The Golden Years 1781.1791, H. C. Robbins Landon, Gyldendal, 1989, translated 1991

Schenk

Svendsen, Troels, I skyggen af Skabelsen, Klassisk Musik, Nr. 4, April. 2001

Zaslaw

Mozart String Quartets, Amadeus Quartet, CD notes.

Internet page of the Austrian Royal Library.

Arneth’s “Geschichte Maria Theresias (VIII, S. 621)

Count Karl Zinzendorf’s diary, Dec. 30, 1788, tr. In Deutsch, 337, cited in Campbell.

Editor’s note in Deutsch, 425, Prager neue Zeitung (Prague, Ap. 9, 1794), tr. In Deutsch, cited in Campbell.

Appeared in Cramer’s Magazin der Musik. Quoted in Thayer’s Life of Beethoven, pg. 66.

Allgemeine Musikalische Zeitung, v. col. 476, cited in Olleson

Mozart’s Breve, Skandinavisk Bogforlag, pg. 202, tg, mr. (mr-check against the English in Campbell.)

Mozart Missa in C, Edition Breitkopf Nr. 1867, Breitkopf & Härtel, preface.

Marshall 18.

Schenk 410-11.

In German:

Holschneider, Andreas, Zu Mozart’s Bearbeitungen Bachscher Fugen, Die Musikforschung Vol. 17 (1964).

Lewicki, Ernst, (Title unknown, about Mozart’s relationship with Bach), Mitteilungen für die Mozart-Gemeinde, Vol. 15, Berlin, 1903.

Das Problem Amerika als Artefakt der europäischen Expansion, by Reinhold Wagnleitner, internet address: ezines.onb.ac.at:8080/ejournal/pub/ejour-98/beucher/cocola/wga5.html, pg. 1
Visit the international Schiller Institute for more articles about music and culture