Article by Kabalevsky

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MENC: The National Association for Music Education

Mutual Enrichment of Children of Various CountriesAuthor(s): Dimitri KabalevskiReviewed work(s):Source: Music Educators Journal, Vol. 53, No. 6 (Feb., 1967), pp. 45-47Published by: Sage Publications, Inc.on behalf of MENC: The National Association for Music Education

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by

Dimitri

Kabalevski

*

Music teachers and

educators of

many

different countries

were

united at

the Seventh Conference

of

the ISME

by

a

good,

important,

and noble

theme. The

communi-

cation

between cultures of various

peoples

was

always

one

of the most

important conditions of the prog-

ress of culture

of

the entire world.

Prominent

musicians of

the

past

always displayed

a keen interest

in

life

and music not

only

of

their

own

nation,

but also of other

peoples.

This

interest

enriched the musi-

cians,

not

at

all

weakening

their

national

originality.

Beethoven remained

a

great

Ger-

man

in

his

Russian

quartets

dedi-

cated to

Count

lazumovsky,

as

well as

in

his

Irish,

Welsh,

and Scot-

tish

songs.

Dvorak never ceased

to

I)e a Czech classic composer even

in

his

symphony

From the

New

World, which

appeared

as a result

of the

author's interest

in

the music

of

the

American

peoples.

Ravel is

always

French,

whether

in the

SpanishRhapsody,

or in Greek

or

Jewish

songs.

The

author,

Composer

and

Professor of

Music

at the

Moscow

State

Conservatory,

is

Vice-President

of

the

ISME.

This

ar-

ticle was

presented

as an

acldress

at the

Seventh

Biennial

Conference of

the

ISME in

Interlochen,

Michigan,

Autgust

18-26, 1966.

Russian

music

supplies

numerous

examples

of this

kind,

namely

in

Glinka's

Kamarinskaya

based

upon

the Russian folk melodies.

Mention

should

be

made of his

two

over-

tures on the

Spanish

themes:

The

Night

in

Madrid

and

Aragonese

Hota. Listing the most inspired

episodes

of Glinka's

strikingly

Rus-

sian

operas,

one can

hardly

miss his

Act

Polonaise from

the

opera

Ivan

Susanin,

and Persian

Choir

and Oriental Dances from the

opera

Russian and Ludmilla. Inter-

est,

respect,

and love of

spiritual

culture of

foreign

countries of both

the East and

West

is one

of the

most beautiful traditions

of

Russian

music laid

by

Glinka.

In

contemporary

Soviet

music,

Glinka's tradition has received

much

stronger support by

the main

feature

of our

country

itself-by

multinationality,

which unites

quite

different

original

cultures

of both

the

West and

the

East

within

our

common

Socialist culture. We

Soviet

composers,

as Russian com-

posers

of the nineteenth

century,

remain

passionate

advocates

of

na-

tional

originality, being

at

the

same

time

the

enemies of

any

national

limitations.

Among

the best works

by

Sergey

Prokofiev,

one

can men-

tion his compositions based upon

the

themes of Russian

folk

songs,

and on the

subjects by

Shakespeare,

on the

tales

by

Gozzi

and

Perro

as

well as on the Ukrainian

folk

songs.

Similarly,

among

the

vocal

music

of Dimitri

Shostakovich,

the same

line

of the

creative

arrangements

of

Russian, American, English, Jew-

ish,

and

Spanish

folk

songs

and

folk

poetry may

be

seen.

In

the

ballets

by

Aram

Khachaturian,

the

lyrical

scene

of

today's

Armenian

village

is

changed

into the heroic

atmosphere

of the

slave rebellion in

ancient

Rome.

Among George

Sviridov's

best

compositions, songs

to the

lyrics

by

Sergey

Esenin are

placed

beside the

songs

to

the

lyrics by

Robert Burns.

African, Indian, Iranian,

and In-

donesian

themes and tunes attract

Soviet

composers

as well as

poetry,

music,

and culture of the

peoples

of

Europe

and

America.

Today,

in-

terest

and mutual relations between

the

cultures

of

various

nations

gain

an

especially important meaning.

Striving

for

such a

relation reflects

the

desire of the

peoples

of

the

world to

live

in

durable

peace,

in

the

atmosphere

of

confidence,

mu-

tual

understanding,

sincere

friend-

ship,

and-this

is

especially

impor-

tant-of mutual

respect,

to

which

every nation has every right

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45


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whether it is

big

or

small,

whether

it

is a

developed

or

a

developing

nation.

The

aesthetic

training

of children

and

youth

is of extreme

importance

in the process of the development

of

these noble

trends. Sometimes

this mission

may

show itself

quite

unexpectedly.

Thus,

one of

the let-

ters

that

I

received

from

American

children was

written in 1955

by

Caroline

Simendet,

a

fourteen-year-

old

girl

from Minnesota.

She asked

how to

perform

my

piano

sonatina.

Of

course,

I

replied

to that

letter

and the reaction

was

quite

sur-

prising:

The New York Times car-

ried an item which stated

that

music

helped

an American

girl

to

learn that the iron curtain be-

tween the USA

and

the USSR

is

not as

impenetrable

as she

was

repeatedly

told

by

the

adults.

Music educators

of various

coun-

tries do not

spare

efforts

to achieve

such

a

form

of music education

of

children and

youth,

to

make

a

better

contribution

in the

rap-

prochement

of

the

peoples,

and

consolidate

friendships

and

mutual

understanding.

Here,

I should

like

to

turn to

the two

problems

which,

in

my opinion,

are of

great

interest.

What

particular

materials should

be

used to educate

children's

taste

and

music culture?

This is

the

first

problem

which

arises

before

every

music

educator.

Most teachers

all

over the world consider

that

music

education

should

be

based

on a

combination of

three elements:

folk

music,

classical

music,

and con-

temporary

music.

However,

in

prac-

tice,

solving

this

problem

is not

as

simple

as

it

sounds,

and

this

very

often

causes

many

heated discus-

sions. Most often, the discussions

deal

with the

third

element,

con-

temporary

music.

Here,

two

extreme

opinions

tend

to collide.

Today,

there are still

some teachers who

try

to avoid con-

temporary music in their teaching.

They

are afraid

of

this new music

which

is

capable

of

undermining

the basis

of

classical musical

logics

taught

to

young

musicians,

of

spoiling

not

only

the

musical

taste of

students,

but even their

hands and voices.

I am

frankly

sorry

for the students who take

courses

from

such teachers.

I

am

sorry

for

the

teachers

themselves,

too,

because

they lag

behind their

own

students

who,

as a

rule,

have

healthy,

though perhaps

immature

feelings, and strive for contem-

porary

music in which

they

dis-

tinctly

recall the

surrounding

world

and even themselves.

On

the

other

hand,

discussions

are held

by

some

composers

who

stick to

the

extreme,

the

so-called

vanguard positions

-

the

compo-

sers charmed

by

the

dogmas

of

dodecaphonic,

aleatoric,

puantilis-

tic,

and

other

artificially

born

sys-

tems

and theories

which are

called

to

substitute

for

the tonal

base

of

music,

as if

the

latter were

ex-

hausted and dead. While

complain-

ing

about the

wide

public

which

does

not

consider

their music an

art and does not listen

to

it,

these

composers

want to accuse

the

whole

existing system

of

musical educa-

tion

which

is-they say-the

reason

for

all

of

their

problems.

During

one

of the

International

Music

Congresses,

at

the

exhibition

of

new

music

scores,

some

of which

looked

like

coded

drawings

made

by

mistake on

the music

paper

splashed with inkspots, I was hor-

rifled

listening

to a

musician

furi-

ously

trying

to

prove

the

negative

influence of classics on the live

per-

ception

of

contemporary

music.

Classics,

he

said,

educate

children

in a conservative way, so that they

are unable to understand the new

art. Withdraw classics

and folk

music from the school

curricula?

From

the

very

first

steps

of teach-

ing,

replace

it at least

by

modern

dodecaphonic

music? Is this the

only way

to restore

the

broken

bond

between

modern

music

and listen-

ers?

How

happy

are both the art

and the

children

because the great

majority

of music

teachers under-

stand all the

tragi-comic

absurdity

of such

speculations.

One item is of particular interest;

musicians

taking

such a stand

(I

mean

not

only

composers,

but also

performers,

critics,

and

maybe

some

educators)

use the

word contem-

porary

in

a

very peculiar, personal

manner. For

them,

contemporary

music

is

the

only

music not

appre-

ciated

by

the

large

audience. There-

fore,

neither

Prokofiev

nor

Shosta-

kovich,

neither

Bartok

nor

Kodaly,

neither

Britten

nor

Orff,

neither

Hindemith

nor

Barber,

nor

many

other

good composers

of

our

time-

none of them has the

right

to be

considered as a

contemporary

mu-

sician.

By

the

way,

none of these

great

composers

has ever

called

himself a

vanguardist,

though

un-

doubtedly,

all

of

them

belong

among

the

most

progressive

com-

posers

of

our

age.

And

only

those

who

terrifically

want to be

reputed

as

the

most

progressive,

and even

the

super-progressive

without

suffi-

cient

reasons-they

start

noising,

claiming

themselves to be van-

guardists, denying to the others the

MUSIC EDUCATORS JOURNAL

6


4/4

right

to

be considered

as

contempo-

rary.

Even

Arnold

Schoenberg,

the

founder of

the atonal

school,

thought

the education of

young

musicians

must be based on the

classical

art;

apropos, by

the end

of his

life, he felt it

a

necessity

to

turn back to tonal

music.

We should not be confused

by

the fact that a great number of con-

temporary composers

work

in

the

dodecaphonic

manner-Hindemith,

who

is

not

at

all a conservative

mu-

sician,

said that

dodecaphony

is a

nightmare pursuing

composing

fanatics

who

do not

want to

be out

of fashion. One of the

top

leaders

of

vanguardism,

he West

German

musicologist

Theodor

Adorno,

has

admitted

recently

that both of

the

two

systems, dodecaphony

and

aleatorics,

are

equally

alien to

the

live ear.

Well,

this

time

I

do not

argue with him.

We must discover the most com-

plicated

contradictions of

modern

music,

and

find our main

positions

in

the

ideological

and

artistic dis-

cussions

which form

the

atmosphere

of

the

development

of

today's

art.

We

must

help

the

great

army

of

mu-

sic educators to

act so

in their

turn.

It is

very important

for

us musi-

cians,

who form

the

ideologic

and

aesthetic

attitudes

of

young people,

to look into

all

of

this. If

you

lose

the

way

alone,

it is half

the

trouble,

though

rather

bad,

of course.

But if

you

lose

the

way yourself

and lead

your pupils

with

you

in a

wrong

direction

or

even to

a

deadlock-

this

trouble

is far more serious.

And

now

I should

like

to

say

a

few

words

about

the second

prob-

lem which is no

less

important

for

the musical

education,

namely,

the

circumstances

disturbing

all

of

us:

the

repertory

of

music education

is

not rich and

versatile

enough, espe-

cially

for

this

most

real

and

noble

purpose.

I would

like

to

mention

another

letter received from a

seven-year-

old

girl

from

England

two or three

years

ago.

The

girl

wrote

and said

that after

she

had learned

my

piano

variations on a

Russian

folk

tune,

she was able to understand better

who

the Russians are. I do not know

what this nice

girl

felt,

while

prac-

ticing

rather

complicated passages

of

my

variations,

but while

reading

her

letter,

though

it was

naive,

I

felt real

satisfaction.

(Frankly,

all

the letters

I

receive from children

always

arouse these

feelings

in

me,

though my

answers to these

letters seem

to take almost as

much

time as I

spend

while

writing

music . .

.)

Five

years

ago,

as

if

foreseeing

our meeting, in my foreword to the

collected

pieces

by

Eli

Siegmeister,

edited

in

Moscow,

I

wrote:

The

pieces by

Eli

Siegmeister

will

help

those who

will

play

or

listen

to

them to feel

through

the music the

nature of

the

American

people,

be-

cause

they

are imbued

with the

spirit

of American

folk

music.

And

now

I can tell

you

that our children

love these

pieces

and

play

them

with

pleasure,

not

only

because

they

are fine and

useful

in

a

peda-

gogical

sense,

but

also

probably

because

they

broaden

the

outlook,

enrich their

conception

of

the

world,

and arouse their

interest

and

affection for the

country

where

they

have

not

yet

been. This is

the

very

connection

of the educational

and

cognitive

roles of

art.

Our

children

are

introduced

to the art of other

countries

with the same

interest. A

very

good

illustration

of what

I

have said was

the

enthusiasm

of the

pupils

of our music schools

during

preparation

for the week of Hun-

garian

music held in

Moscow,

and

the

week of

Soviet music held in

Budapest recently.

And

still

I can

but

repeat:

there

is too little music

with

good

thoughts,

kind

feelings,

and

great

truths

of

life to

contrib-

ute to mutual relations

and

mutual

enrichment of children of various

countries.

I think

the

ISME,

as

an

interna-

tional

organization

should include

in

the

sphere

of its

activity

and

of

its influence as

many composers

as

possible. Apparently,

we

would be

able

to take some effective

practical

measures

in

this

way.

First of

all,

we

may

start

by publishing

a

spe-

cial varied

series of

selected

music

for

children and

youth

under the

title

Composers

of the World to

Children of the World.

Not

less

important are similar books of folk

songs

of various countries. I

am

convinced

that UNESCO would

support

such

an

idea if we

decided

to launch

it. It

may

be worth think-

ing

about

different

competitions

and

special

awards

systems.

All this

would

undoubtedly

favor our com-

mon

cause,

strengthen

the

interna-

tional

authority

of the

ISME,

and

especially

lead to further consolida-

tion of

friendly

relations

between

peoples

and sincere

mutual

respect

for

useful

exchanges

between

various

national

cultures.

Our dear

unforgettable

President,

the

outstanding

musician and

great

educator

of

our

time,

Joseph

E.

Maddy,

recalled

to

me

quite

re-

cently

the words I used some

years

ago

at the

meeting

with American

musicians

in

Washington:

If

the

governments

would follow the ex-

ample

of

musicians,

there

would

be

no cause for war.

A

1967

MENC

DivisionConventions

Eastern

Southwestern

Southern

NorthCentral

Northwest

Western

February

0-13

March 0-12

April

26-29

April

13-16

March

9-April

March 9-22

Boston,

Massachusetts

Colorado

prings,

Colorado

Atlanta,

Georgia

Detroit,

Michigan

Missoula,

Montana

Las

Vegas,

Nevada

FEBRUARY,INETEENIXTY-SEVEN

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Documents

Article by Kabalevsky