International Conference on the Role and Place of Music in the Education of Youth and Adults; Music in education; 1955

Music in education

design and the meaning of a number of technical expressions, they

will have formed certain basic concepts of musical style and of stylistic

differentiation, they will have made a fairly intimate acquaintance with

a small but representative part of the vast literature of music, and they

will know where to look for musical information they do not possess.

We believe that they become equipped to be good citizens in the world

of music, and as such to enjoy the benefits and privileges of citizenship

in that great world.

MUSIC EDUCATION

IN THE UNIVERSITIES OF EUROPE

bY

Valentin DENIS, Professor, Louvain Univetsity, Belgium

A BRIEF REMINDER OF THE PAST

Music has long been the very basis of instruction. Among the Greeks
and the Romans music education was entrusted to rhetors, the in-
fluence of whose schools may be traced up to the seventh century in
Italy, Spain and Gaul. After the fall of ancient Rome, its civilizing
mission was continued by Christian Rome. Indeed the Church set up
cathedral and abbey schools everywhere. Having inherited an already
very ancient tradition, it encouraged in its turn the musical training of
the young. This task was performed with all the more zeal and care
because, apart from its evident desire for cultural continuity, the
Church was also pursuing a frankly ritualistic aim: to ensure musical
performances worthy of its religious ceremonies. The first important
foundation in this field was undoubtedly the Schola Cantorum, organ-
ized in Rome about A.D. 600 by Pope Gregory the Great. This, the
oldest musical conservatory, was clearly of a religious and even strictly
liturgical character. In the seventh and eighth centuries, the cantors