Propaganda

Nobody asked but ... 

After I first became a Prokofiev listener, as a child upon hearing Peter and the Wolf and the ballet music of Cinderella, as a high schooler upon buying the Ormandy/Philadelphia Symphony No. 5, I would hear on occasion that Prokofiev was a victim of censorship.  At the time, I understood that to mean that the composer only put out music which unambiguously promoted Soviet interests.  I didn't understand how that worked.  I was further mystified by the incredible beauty of Prokofiev's music -- I heard no bombastic, missiles-on-parade, statist drivel.  It was while listening to and watching Harry Warren's and Busby Berkeley's sublime 'Remember My Forgotten Man' that I saw how propaganda works, it is through the mothballing of that which doesn't fit the narrative.

Sergei Prokofiev

Harry Warren