THE ISME CONFERENCE IN BUDAPEST - STATEMENT BY ZOLTÁN KODÁLY

I think the significance of this conference can be seen in the number of people attending who seem to tacitly agree that “good music”, music of substance, is threatened. It is a crisis that such music does not appear to have a receiving public anywhere in the world. The fact that this was not articulated by anyone in any presentation, I believe may be symptomatic of a loss of aesthetic consciousness. For example, a German TV company visited me the other day, and they told me an interesting piece of news. Since the number of those who listen to good music has decreased dramatically, now they want to smuggle good music into TV programmes.

All over the world there is a sincere need for the teaching of music to spread in wider and wider circles. This shows clearly that people do need good music, even though the title of the conference was the spreading of new music. But the public is as indifferent to the new music as to the good “old” music. In this respect our method of teaching the public has received general applause. In his concluding words the secretary-general recommended our six-hour primary school here in Budapest, as a model to be followed. Indeed, only through primary school education is it possible to bring the elements of the knowledge of music to wider circles.

For me, Klára Kokas’s presentation was the most remarkable. By observing parallel groups, she demonstrated that children who make music and sing develop physically and mentally much faster than those who sing a little or not at all – even at the kindergarten level. This has also received great attention from foreign visitors. They warmly recommended the thorough continuation and replication of such studies not only locally but globally. This would be the only means that could offer a larger scope for music in elementary schools. The closed phalanx of teachers who do not understand or hate music could be broken only if we proved that we do not spread music or plead for more music in elementary schools only for the sake of music, but that we can improve the development of man’s entire personality through this.