Music in education
Parlophone, a small collection of records entitled 2000 Years of Mmic.
This example has been widely followed ever since. Curt Sachs himself
continued his initiative on a much larger scale by founding in Paris
the Sound Anthology (Antbologie sonore). Later, similar initiatives were
taken with the publication of the Colwzbia Histo9 of Masic, and, quite
recently, with that of the Histog! of Mtlsicin Soand(issued by His Master’s
Voice). Apart from these instructive series on the history of music,
productions of recent years have borne specially on the works of
such-and-such a composer (publications of the Haydn Society, the
Bach Guild, etc.).
Lastly, certain recent collections of recordings are devoted exclu-
sively and systematically to old music, although they cannot be re-
garded as new historical anthologies in the strict sense of the term. The
reasons are as follows : each anthology contains a repertory of musical
recordings, whose number varies from case to case, but it is always
more or less limited. Further, these anthologies give examples of the
different stages of music’s historical evolution by selecting works which
are more interesting scientifically than artistically and, in many cases,
are even incomplete. In short, their main purpose is necessarily an
instructional one.
However, there is a German proverb which says: Man mer& die
Absicht tlnd man wird verstimmt (We feel the purpose and are thence
constrained) ; in other words, we can achieve an educational purpose
more easily if we conceal our intention. Although I am little versed in
modern pedagogy, I believe that this principle is playing an ever
greater part in general education. Thus, in modern schools, children
are taught to read entire sentences, instead of, as in the past, isolated
words. Likewise, one of the principles of music education at the present
time is that, in order to impart a true understanding of music, an
appeal must first be made to the pupil’s spontaneous emotions, not
to his intellect.
I do not feel authorized to describe in detail the usefulness of re-
cordings in music education. I could add nothing to the very specific
article written for this volume by Professor Cherbuliea of Zurich
University, on ‘The Gramophone Record, an Aid in Music Educa-
tion’, where he discusses the methods to be adopted, from simple
reception to analytical and finally synthetic reception. It amounts to
explaining the different elements of music to the accompaniment of the
repeated playing of suitable recordings.
This affords further proof that one of the most important educational
qualities of recordings is the possibility of playing them an unlimited