MENC: The National Association for Music Education

Mutual Enrichment of Children of Various Countries

Author(s): Dimitri Kabalevski
Reviewed work(s):
Source: Music Educators Journal, Vol. 53, No. 6 (Feb., 1967), pp. 45-47
Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. on behalf of MENC: The National Association for Music Education
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3390913 .
Accessed: 14/09/2012 16:07
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .
http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of
content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms
of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org.

Sage Publications, Inc. and MENC: The National Association for Music Education are collaborating with
JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Music Educators Journal.

http://www.jstor.org

77/VIV7I

PI

I
X

I-

LII

z//A
/ /
M

X M

EN

-x

S %

--

-x -

-r

1t

111

NAM\\

N\\

I\
O
CHNl
VIOI

U \CT

-lk

MUTUAL
ENRICHMENT
OF VARIOUSCOUNTRIES
OF CHILDREN

\ \ \ \
r

N-~3

I I
I rI I i I Ij / I I
~!LLLIAA?2{7
I
r

-4

I ii-_r

\sVN4N^
&.JI

h,

'

--L-u--

4-

I I//X

i'

by DimitriKabalevski
* 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 communication between cultures of various
peoples was always one of the most
important conditions of the progress 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 musicians, not at all weakening their
national originality.
Beethoven remained a great German in his "Russian" quartets dedicated to Count lazumovsky, as
well as in his Irish, Welsh, and Scottish 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
"Spanish Rhapsody," 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 article was presented as an acldress at the
Seventh Biennial Conference of the
ISME in Interlochen, Michigan, Autgust
18-26, 1966.
FEBRUARY.

NINETEEN

SIXTY-SEVEN

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 overtures on the Spanish themes: "The
Night in Madrid" and "Aragonese
Hota." Listing the most inspired
episodes of Glinka's strikingly Russian 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. Interest, 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 composers of the nineteenth century,
remain passionate advocates of national originality, being at the same
time the enemies of any national
limitations. Among the best works
by Sergey Prokofiev, one can mention 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, Jewish, 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 Indonesian themes and tunes attract
Soviet composers as well as poetry,
music, and culture of the peoples
of Europe and America. Today, interest 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, mutual understanding, sincere friendship, and-this is especially important-of mutual respect, to which
every nation has every right
45

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 letters that I received from American
children was written in 1955 by
Caroline Simendet, a fourteen-yearold girl from Minnesota. She asked
how to perform my piano sonatina.
Of course, I replied to that letter
and the reaction was quite surprising: The New York Times carried an item which stated that
music helped an American girl to
learn that the "iron curtain" between the USA and the USSR is
not as impenetrable as she was
repeatedly told by the adults.
Music educators of various countries do not spare efforts to achieve
such a form of music education of
children and youth, to make a
better contribution in the rapprochement 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 contemporary music. However, in practice, solving this problem is not as
simple as it sounds, and this very
often causes many heated discussions. Most often, the discussions
46

deal with the third element, contemporary music.

Here, two extreme opinions tend
to collide. Today, there are still
some teachers who try to avoid contemporary 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 contemporary music in which they distinctly 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 composers charmed by the dogmas of
dodecaphonic, aleatoric, puantilistic, and other artificially born systems and theories which are called
to substitute for the tonal base of
music, as if the latter were exhausted and dead. While complaining 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 education 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 furiously trying to prove the negative

influence of classics on the live perception 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 teaching, replace it at least by modern
dodecaphonic music? Is this the
only way to restore the broken bond
between modern music and listeners? How happy are both the art
and the children because the great
majority of music teachers understand 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 "contemporary" in a very peculiar, personal
manner. For them, contemporary
music is the only music not appreciated by the large audience. Therefore, neither Prokofiev nor Shostakovich, neither Bartok nor Kodaly,
neither Britten nor Orff, neither
Hindemith nor Barber, nor many
other good composers of our timenone of them has the right to be
considered as a contemporary musician. By the way, none of these
great composers has ever called
himself a "vanguardist," though undoubtedly, all of them belong
among the most progressive composers of our age. And only those
who terrifically want to be reputed
as the most progressive, and even
the super-progressive without sufficient reasons-they start noising,
claiming themselves to be "vanguardists," denying to the others the
MUSIC

EDUCATORS

JOURNAL

right to be considered as contemporary. 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 contemporary composers work in the
dodecaphonic manner-Hindemith,
who is not at all a conservative musician, 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,"the 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 complicated contradictions of modern
music, and find our main positions
in the ideological and artistic discussions which form the atmosphere
of the development of today's art.
We must help the great army of music educators to act so in their turn.
It is very important for us musicians, 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 deadlockthis trouble is far more serious.
And now I should like to say a
few words about the second problem 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, especially for this most real and noble
purpose.
I would like to mention another
letter received from a seven-yearold 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 practicing 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, because 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 pedagogical 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 Hungarian 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 contribute to mutual relations and mutual
enrichment of children of various
countries.
I think the ISME, as an international 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 special 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 thinking about different competitions
and special awards systems. All this
would undoubtedly favor our common cause, strengthen the international authority of the ISME, and
especially lead to further consolidation 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 recently the words I used some years
ago at the meeting with American
musicians in Washington: "If the
governments would follow the example of musicians, there would be
no cause for war."
A

1967 MENCDivisionConventions
10-13
February
March10-12
April26-29
April13-16
March29-April1
March19-22

Eastern
Southwestern
Southern
NorthCentral
Northwest
Western

FEBRUARY,
SIXTY-SEVEN
NINETEEN
FEBRUARY,

NINETEEN

SIXTY-SEVEN

Boston,Massachusetts
Colorado
Springs,Colorado
Atlanta,Georgia
Detroit,Michigan
Missoula,Montana
LasVegas,Nevada

47~~~~~~~~~~
47