A Conversation in Athens

Children shudder at boring things, and unfortunately, in frighteningly little time they can be made to give up the use of their own spirit, free judgment, independent thoughts and creative imagination. In teaching music I try to protect their rights. I work for the freedom of their spiritual forces out of the initiatives of their imagination.

Olga: “Why out of their imagination and not out of their knowledge?”

“Knowledge is a long flight of steps, one can’t see where it ends. Your imagination, on the other hand, is a heavy wind lifting you up and placing you right in the middle of music so that you may drink from it and bathe in it. It is a primary child-reality.“

“So they shouldn’t learn knowledge?”

“You couldn’t restrain them from doing so: learning is their being, the desire for knowledge tingles under their skin. Imagination, metamorphoses, poetry, magic, and tales turn children towards learning. Only the obligatory things, the must-dos, the boring, dry schoolmaster-like teaching makes them turn their back to learning.