“And the School Will Sing!”

At the regional scientific and practical conference discussing ways to further improve the out-of-school education of pupils, unresolved problems in the field of aesthetic education were noted. The solution of fundamental questions in the aesthetic education of schoolchildren, as well as of preschoolers and young people, is most directly connected with the development of choral singing. In this respect a good deal has been done in the city of Gorky and the region. The results are indisputable, above all, of joint efforts: for several years Gorky has had a creative association of leaders of children’s choirs — a branch of the all-Russian “Kamerton”, headed by Honoured Art Worker of the RSFSR G. A. Struve. Here this work is carried out by Anatoly Alexeevich Ezhov, head of the musical choir school “Zhavoronok”, and Lev Konstantinovich Sivukhin, artistic director of the boys’ choir chapel and Honoured Art Worker of the RSFSR. We asked them to express their opinion on the questions raised and to share concrete proposals that could really help in carrying out serious and urgent tasks of aesthetic education.

A. A. Ezhov: At the regular meetings and conferences, which the Gorky regional branch of the all-Russian society (chairman Alexander Ivanovich Syrov) helps us to hold, creative exchange of experience and discussion of methodological and artistic problems take place. The main positive result is the appearance of new children’s choirs, the professional growth of individual leaders, and noticeable progress in the artistic development of children taking part in a good collective. This is especially tangible at the annual April festivals of choral art, “Pioneer Spring” — this year it will be the 15th. We have real enthusiasts, great masters of their craft. They regard aesthetic education in childhood and youth as a matter of state importance. And yet we still have quite a few regrettable, very serious shortcomings, in particular in the development of choral singing in the secondary school, which turn into great costs in education.

L. K. Sivukhin: Choral singing in general, and in the process of education in particular, has enormous possibilities: it is the most accessible, most democratic form of artistic collective creativity. A person who in childhood received the right direction and was carried away by joint musical study (and choral singing is necessarily collective creativity) retains the ability to tell true art from ersatz and from loud fashion. Having come to love the very rich native musical culture, he cannot but feel pride in it and will strive to preserve and develop his native art. All this is indisputable and needs no proof. But in practice things are considerably more complicated.

A. A. Ezhov: Business contacts and a real understanding of the seriousness of the matter are necessary on the part of all leaders of public organisations and of the departments of culture and public education, as well as planning and funding, and on the part of teachers, tutors, the collectives of children’s music schools, music colleges, the conservatory, the philharmonic and the Choral Society.

L. K. Sivukhin: The traditions of Russian unaccompanied choral singing are so rich that even now they serve as the highest model of the originality, brightness and depth of national culture. Among the general public, however, they no longer have much significance. This is not only regrettable but also explains the ease with which any Western imitations spread among young people. Many people have simply never heard of their own wealth and have no idea of it! At the same time, there are examples of a careful attitude to folk, national traditions, in particular in world art. These are the mass song festivals in the Baltic Union republics, and also in Georgia.

A. A. Ezhov: The experience of our friends in Bulgaria, Hungary and Czechoslovakia, where singing in school is given enormous attention, almost as much as mathematics, literature and languages, could be adopted more actively if we wished. Our opportunities are no less, but our attitude to these questions leaves much to be desired.

L. K. Sivukhin: The process of musical education involves three different stages. The education of the very youngest — in kindergartens, even in nurseries, as well as in the preparatory class of children’s music schools, the junior choir groups at the Palace of Pioneers, choral studios and the Boys’ Choir Chapel — is almost the most responsible stage. The point is not only that everything begins with it. The main thing is the amazing possibilities of a small person from 2 to 5 years old, which educators, teachers and parents, unfortunately, realise only to a small extent. Children of this age have the greatest emotional receptivity. With today’s flow of information, the aesthetic and musical education of a small child is considerably harder than it was, say, three decades ago. No one, unfortunately, takes this into account. Considerable experience has been accumulated, but there is no unity of views and methodology, nor the proper experience among teachers. Let the instruments at first be musical toys, but they must be perfect, beautiful and well tuned. Let songs be organically combined with games and dances, but the songs must not only be accessible to children’s psychology, they must necessarily meet high artistic requirements and the characteristics of the age. This is by no means always observed by those who write music for small children. The second stage is schoolchildren. There is no argument that the task is enormously difficult: to prepare a person for socially useful work, to help him find his place in life and to acquire the ability to bring joy to people and receive it himself. But far from everything is done for its more successful accomplishment, and, most importantly in my view, efforts are not distributed proportionately. We care more about polytechnic training and sports development, while art in school is left too little room and time: for example, 45 minutes a week for a singing lesson. How can we not recall the words of K. Ushinsky: “If the school sings, the whole country will sing!” In our city there are more than 10 general-profile children’s music schools. In several general schools there are choral studios, which, however, have no allocated hours. For several years a choral department has operated in the children’s music schools, a form of children’s musical development that justifies itself, but it is still not properly supported either by teachers or by parents. There is also a number of problems of music education in secondary school, for example the enthusiasm for the guitar, which too, under skilled direction, can and should be used as a means of education. And finally, the education of young people who have left school. Here we are already talking about amateur art: I will not remind you how necessary and important it is or how great our achievements in its development are. But if we analyse the state of choral art, the picture is not so gratifying: the folk choir is still passable, but the academic choir causes very serious concern. There was a time when all the Gorky higher education institutions had good choral groups, and now, perhaps, only the university choir (leader V. Izyuminko) is really working, and for 2–3 years the students of the medical institute have been singing again (leader T. Kazantseva).

The conversation was recorded by Valentina Blinova. “Gorkovsky Rabochy”, 2.02.80.