Music in education
involved in the study of musical composition; the syllabuses at present
in force rely on musical forms characteristic of the last part of the
nineteenth century (suites after the manner of Bach, sonatas with two
themes and three movements, etc.).
I now ask your indulgence for a few remarks which I would almost
describe as ‘personal and confidential’. At one period of my life I was
overcome by a certain lassitude which estranged me from my favourite
composers and led me to confine my interest to the geniuses of my own
country.
The Italian composers of the sixteenth century began to have a clear
attraction for me and, by a perhaps natural reaction, the two great B’s
(Bach and Beethoven) became rather remote. I had discovered, as
Goethe would say, my elective affinities. My Italian temperament could
not achieve complete harmony with these two great minds, despite
my intense admiration for them.
Further, my music began to reflect, and be enriched by, a taste for
primitive art, simplicity and even rusticity, as well as for figurative art
and architecture from the tenth century onwards. Though it is against
my inclination to speak about myself, I must do so in order to achieve
my object of making you understand why I should like to see a reform
of music education in my own country. Music is indeed a universal
language, but we must nevertheless bear in mind human relationships,
racial affinities, ethnical tendencies and characteristics. In fact, it would
be just as difficult to imagine any of the wonderful cantilenas of the
Sicilian Bellini, which are Doric and of Greek origin, composed by a
German as it would be to imagine one of Bach‘s fugues composed in
the Gothic style by an Italian.
I should therefore like to say something about the studies I consider
essential for cultivating the taste of a young Italian who wants to be-
come a composer. These studies will centre round certain outstanding
composers : the two Gabrielis, Frescobaldi and Vivaldi for instrumen-
tal music, Palestrina and Monteverdi for the vocal music of the madrigal
and motet. In addition to these masters, many other composers of the
same period will be studied in less detail. These composers, particularly
Monteverdi, formed my own taste and, through me, that of my pupils.
The classicism of the eighteenth century will hardly be touched upon
and romanticism will be left on one side altogether, these two periods
to be studied at a later stage. The origin of the Gregorian chant will
obviously not be passed over in silence; its free style will teach the
student how to set words to music and arrive at the astonishing and
dazzling declamato of Monteverdi.