Reflections of an American Harpsichordist Unpublished Memoirs, Essays, and Lectures of Ralph Kirkpatrick

the equipment and education of a musician ❧ 107
use any form of background they are capable of acquiring, since in the con-
text of a total self-commanding function anything can potentially be turned to
use. For those who deal with music of the past, a sense of its context in its own
time is highly desirable if not imperative. This involves knowledge not only of
contemporary musical media, manners of performance, and circumstances of
performance, but of the linguistic and cultural background, as far as it can
be discovered, through pertinent history and biography, and through surviv-
ing institutions. It goes without saying that the player of obsolete instruments
or the performer of obsolete music must be far more knowledgeable in his
domain than the average musician concerned only with current instruments
and styles. It is clear that in this context studies in history, literature, and the
visual arts can be of enormous importance to any musician capable of broad-
ening his background.
The domain least capable of helping to supply a musician with broad cultural
background and broadened aesthetic perceptions is perhaps that of musicology.
A musician can frequently learn much from the history of art or of literature
that is more valuable to him than that which is assumed to be related merely
because it is catalogued under the heading of music. Cataloging and classifi ca-
tion can undoubtedly help to coordinate knowledge, but they can also rend it
asunder. Their infl uence on current educational programs has not been suffi -
ciently counteracted. I would be tempted to submit the proposition that confi n-
ing or orienting the academic work of a musician to musicological subjects is as
suffocating to the cultural potential as confi ning a painter to the history of art
minus literature if, of course, any academic cultural background is attempted at
all. Moreover, the constricting infl uences of this exclusively musical and musico-
logically oriented background are only too frequently evident among the musi-
cologists themselves. In short, I think that, for the cultural reintegration of both
music and musicians, a revision of the courses of study, both in music schools
and in graduate schools, may have become highly desirable.
The real problem is that many people, and among them the most talented,
do not pursue their education or development in the regular way that one is
tempted to outline. Many of them resist certain dishes on the educational bill
of fare and only absorb them, or their equivalents, in their own good time, and
often only many years later. The most wisely organized academic bill of fare
cannot function as a guarantee of assimilation or even of complete or balanced
nourishment. Perhaps we are fated to be more often sure of being wrong than
of being right. Is it not true that some of the most interesting students have
some of the most fl agrant discrepancies in their equipment? Will we ever have
better than ad hoc solutions for the problems they present?
I myself presented and still present a drastic example of the discrepancies to
which I alluded above. If asked for a truthful account of my education, I would
only reply with some awful truths. Here they are:
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