|
Our humanistic culture still bases itself on
disciplines, the study of which was an indispensable condition of higher
intellectual learning before the invention of our music. It is today still
burdened with unessential studies of higher mathematics, rudiments of chemistry
and physics which we can certainly leave to those in the universities and
technical schools who wish to dedicate themselves to these professions.
The study of music in our high schools, till now altogether neglected,
is a requisite of higher general education. This means the study of at
least harmony, form, counterpoint up to the understanding of a Bach fugue,
the study of scores to the full comprehension of the contrapuntal soul
struggle in the third act of Tristan, the architecture and thematic
development of a Beethoven symphonic movement, the symphonic construction
of an act of the Nibelungen Ring.
Richard Strauss
|