Rhythm and life : the work of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze 9780945193005

Table of contents :
Frontmatter
List of Illustrations (page ix)
Foreword (page xi)
Acknowledgements (page xv)
Introduction (page xvii)
Chapter I. Prologue: Youth, 1865-1892 (page 1)
Chapter II. Maturing Composer, 1892-1908 (page 21)
Chapter III. Rythmique: Experimentation, 1893-1906 (page 55)
Chapter IV. La Rythmique: Ear Training, 1892-1906 (page 91)
Chapter V. Body Movement, 1906-1917 (page 115)
Chapter VI. Méthode: Other Publications, 1906-1980 (page 135)
Chapter VII. Hellerau, 1910-1914 (page 149)
Chapter VIII. Geneva and Hellerau, 1914 (page 181)
Chapter IX. Derivatives from Rythmique, 1913-1965 (page 203)
Chapter X. Geneva: Expansion of Rythmique, 1914-1924 (page 219)
Chapter XI. Rythmique in the United States, 1913- (page 235)
Chapter XII. Paris, 1924-1926 (page 247)
Chapter XIII. Home Again, 1926-1932 (page 265)
Chapter XIV. Denouement, 1933-1950 (page 281)
Chapter XV. Centennial Celebration, 1965 (page 297)
Chapter XVI. Personal Commentaries (page 325)
Appendices (page 339)
Bibliography (page 361)
Index (page 381)

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

The Work of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze

by

Irwin Spector

DANCE AND MUSIC SERIES No. 3

PENDRAGON PRESS STUYVESANT, NY

Dance and Music Series No. 1 French Court Dance and Dance Music: A guide to primary source writings 1643—

1789 by Judith L. Schwartz and Christena L. Schlundt (1987) ISBN 0-

: 945193-08-4

No. 2 Louis Pécour’s 1700 Recueil de dances by Anne L. Witherell (published by UMI Research Press, 1982) ISBN 0-8357-1367-9 No. 4 Dance and Instrumental Diferencias in Spain During the 17th and Early 18th Centuries (Vol. I, History and Background, Music and Dance) by Maurice Esses (in press) ISBN 0-945193-08-4

This publication was generously supported by a grant from Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Counsel for the Arts.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Spector, Irwin. Rhythm and life: the work of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze / by Irwin Spector. p. cm. -- (Dance and music series ; no. 3) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-945193-00-9 : $48.00 1. Jaques-Dalcroze, Emile, 1865-1950. 2. Music teachers-Switzerland-Biography. I. Title. II. Series. ML429,J2S6 1990

[B] CIP

780’.92--dc20 89-28139 MN

7 Z “| | KGLSEX

dd

To Janiedear

No art is nearer to life than music. One can say that music is life itself. E. Jaques-Dalcroze

Contents

Foreword Xi Acknowledgements XV List of Illustrations ix

Introduction xvii Chapter I. Prologue: Youth, 1865-1892 l Chapter II. Maturing Composer, 1892—1908 21 Chapter III. Rythmique: Experimentation, 1893-1906 55 Chapter IV. La Rythmique: Ear Training, 1892—1906 9]

Chapter V. Body Movement, 1906-1917 115 Chapter VI. Méthode: Other Publications, 1906~—1980 135

Chapter VII. —-Hellerau, 1910-1914 149

Chapter VIII. | Geneva and Hellerau, 1914 18] Chapter IX. Derivatives from Rythmique, 1913-1965 203 Chapter X. Geneva: Expansion of Rythmique, 1914-1924 219

Chapter XI. Rythmique in the United States, 1913— 235

Chapter XII. Paris, 1924-1926 247

Chapter XIII. Home Again, 1926-1932 265 Chapter XIV. Denoument, 1933-1950 281 Chapter XV. Centennial Celebration, 1965 297

Appendices 339 Bibliography 361

Chapter XVI. Personal Commentaries 325

Index 381 Vil

List of Illustrations

Frontispiece. Jaques-Dalcroze at the piano 11

Young Emile Jaques XViii

Jaques-Dalcroze as a young man 19 Gustave Doret, Romand composer 48

Rythmique, first sketches 58-65 Marie Adama van Scheltema 78

Jaques-Dalcroze family 86

Wolf Dohrn 150 The Institute, Hellerau 159 Annie Beck 176 Rythmique personified 196 International Eurhythmics (Punch, 1920) 147

Dance of the Furies, 1912, sketch by Bottinger 170

Three rhythmicians 213 Jacques Cheneviére 220 Robert Abramson, American rhythmician 244 Paul Boepple, 1920 260 Joan Llongueras, 1920 262 Initial program, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, 1918 234

composer 218 Jaques-Dalcroze 280 Letter, Jaques-Dalcroze to George Templeton Strong, American

Scene, Genéve chante, Monica Jaquet, Floriane Sylvestre 282

Scene, Les Jumeaux de Bergame 302 Monument at Ste. Croix honoring Dalcroze 303 1X

RHYTHM AND LIFE

Three disciples 308

Stage caricature, Jean Gonvers as Jaques-Dalcroze 314

Caricature by Boris Petrovic, 1923 338

Xx

Frank Martin

Foreword

Thoughts on La Rythmique of Jaques-Dalcroze [It is noteworthy that Frank Martin’s reflections on la rythmique are expressed largely in negative observations, i.e., what rythmique is not. He was conscious of errors and misunderstandings in the concept of Jaques-Dalcroze’s method, to say nothing of bold omissions, calculated, no doubt, to save time and effort, but thus failing to address the master’s procedures. Martin’s comments seem to be difficult to comprehend in that the reader must, at the same time, shed the negation and then determine the missing emphasis. ]

“What is la rythmique of Jaques-Dalcroze? What purpose does it serve?” It is very difficult to answer in a few words, or in hundreds of words. It would be far easier to explain what it is not, since it is virtually impossible to explain it by the usual abstractions: pedagogy, discipline, art. Rythmique is not only an educational method, it is not, properly speaking, a discipline, and in all cases, it is not an art like music or dance. Rythmique appears to be in opposition to the dominant tendencies of contemporary disciplines,

which is to study the parts rather than the whole, and thus to attain concrete and direct practical results most quickly. This opposition, well understood by Jaques-Dalcroze and his followers, does not condemn research for immediate results which is necessary for all sorts of studies. But rythmique, with all its powers, seeks to fill a gap which certainly exists in education in

our day of extreme specialization; it does not claim to substitute for any other instruction. It seeks to complement the intellectual, artistic, or active disciplines.

X1

RHYTHM AND LIFE

Rythmique comes from the study of solfége, a special method contrived by an astute musician. It takes, as its prime force, music itself. | emphasize music, and not its rhythmical element, as people too often believe. Rythmique, by virtue of its musical emphasis, reunites the great examples given us by former civilizations, the Greeks who were the first to define the spirit, and, among others, the ancient Chinese. The study of music is thus tied directly to the practice of rythmique,

but not from the technical aspect, instrumental or vocal performance, or the general study of harmony or composition. Rather, it is a point of direct contact with music by the development of hearing, or, more exactly, by the development of the musical ear. Solfége, as one practices it in the Dalcroze system, cannot be dissociated from what appears most often in rhythmical activity—body movement. And when | say solfége, | mean as much harmonic hearing as vocalized exercises. In effect, without previously learned musical hearing, there is no way that music, in its entirety, can remain a prime force and the basis for development in this educational system. Without musical hearing we would fall into a sort of primitivism where the only thing that counts is rhythm by itself, or body movement by itself. It is only too often that one thinks of rythmique as counting the beats and carrying out actions. Unfortunately, that is the way it is sometimes taught! That is only one side of rythmique study, the most matter-of-fact, nevertheless, even though rhythm is only one of the musical elements, without doubt the most basic, but also, consequently, that which is considered closed to the deep roots of our being.

What characterizes the practice of the rythmique of JaquesDalcroze—what I believe to be something unique—is that it simultaneously engages our principal actions: attention (first we must hear and record what affects our ear); intelligence (one must understand, analyze what he has heard); sensitivity (one must allow musical feeling to penetrate); and finally, body movement, which by its more or less complete adaptation to the music performed, happens to prove that one has been attentive, that he has heard and understood—in short, that he has been perceptive. And this interpretation by gesture, involvement of the entire body, provides the calm of an immediate physical awareness of the intellectual and perceptible stress of our spirit at the same time that it gives joy in gradually finding synonymous action. It is in this simultaneity and concordance of the work of spirit and of body movement that one must look for the cause of joy and of relaxation which a good lesson in rythmique infallibly gives.

Xi

FOREWORD

It goes almost without saying that the action of rythmique, the correlation that it establishes between the activities of the spirit and of the body, provides a particularly desirable milieu for children. To them, in effect, these

diverse activities are not yet dissociated; no one specialization comes to

create barriers between them. Thus it is quite natural in the course of childhood that this complementary instruction finds its place which is to harmonize our different faculties. Personal experience, however, permits me to say that rythmique can also bring to adults benefits which, if not easy to define, are no less real and lasting.

Naarden, Holland (1966)

Xi

Acknowledgements

The year 1965, the centennial of the birth of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, brought forth giant celebrations commemorating the man and his work. It fostered a rejuvenation of his ideas and methods, and remembrances of former activities which had been in decline for the previous fifty years. The second biographical work on the famous Swiss musician and educator was issued that same year, the first having been written by his sister Héléne Jaques Brunet-Lecomte in 1950. The 1965 volume, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze:

L’Homme, le Compositeur, le Créateur de la Rythmique, published in Neuchatel, contains contributions by Alfred Berchtold, Henri Gagnebin, Bernard Reichel, Clair-Lise Dutoit-Carlier, Edmond Stadler, Tibor Dénes

and Frank Martin. It was sponsored by the centennial committee that promoted promoted the year’s significant events.

I am particularly indebted to Messieurs Dénes and Berchtold for personal assistance as well as for their own research. | offer special gratitude

to Mrs. Charlotte Blensdorf MacJannet, former President of the International Society of Dalcroze Teachers (UIPD), who provided me with a wealth

of information, who guided me through numerous problems, and who arranged contacts with many persons who had been friends, students and followers of Jaques-Dalcroze. I offer thanks to Samuel Baud-Bovy, Director of the Geneva Conser-

vatory, and Marguarite Croptier and Dominique Porte, former and present Directors of the Dalcroze Institute in Geneva, for the special privileges afforded me in the use of their libraries, and to the Bibliothéque Publique et Universitaire of the city of Geneva for its services. | express my obligation for the special photographs herein contained to the photographic firm Gad Borel-Boissonnas, to Monica Jaquet, Charlotte MacJannet, and the Radio Télévision Suisse Romande—all of Geneva. I also thank the publishing house of Foetisch-Fréres of Lausanne for the inclusion of the Jaques-Dalcroze Chansons. XV

RHYTHM AND LIFE

I acknowledge with gratitude the more than six score friends, associates of Dalcroze, and practitioners from all continents whom | have interviewed and who gave me valuable information, many of whom graciously allowed me to observe their work at first hand. Special thanks I extend to Maitre Gabriel Jaques- Dalcroze, son of the composer and great educator, who read my manuscript and whose valuable suggestions I have happily included, and to Professor Richard M. Ludwig

whose sharp eye and editorial experience made for as smooth a text as | could wish.

XV1

Introduction

One fortuitous day | joined two colleagues in the University Union coffee shop—members of a committee preparing a report on curriculum revisions in the physical education department. They raised questions such as, “Why do we teach a child to bounce a ball?” That impressed me because they were considering rudimentary ideas upon which a more solid development in the field could be achieved. Such deliberation placed them far ahead of those in the area of music, where elemental reflection was nonexistent. Indeed, progress in music education was in a state of deterioration; studies which

had been done decades earlier were the limit of professional progress. Schools produced inferior teachers who, in turn, produced like students. For a long time I had been expressively critical of the situation. I now made a decision to undertake a study in the field that would be a model of in-depth research, analysis, and enlightenment. There were popular practices in vogue—those of Orff, Kodaly, and Suzuki— yet | searched further. Years earlier, | recalled, | had participated in a Dalcroze course; | had enjoyed it for the exhilaration of the movement

involved, and admired the instructor for her pleasing personality and improvisatory prowess, yet I experienced no lasting result, not even a proper understanding of the important points of the course. As I further examined the Dalcroze subject I realized that there was work to be done to overcome a lacuna in the field, that this was my opportunity to fulfill an obligation to

provide an abundance of little-known facts, and to correct various misunderstandings. The university offered me a sabbatical leave, the Swiss government responded to my need for financial assistance, and the project

was soon underway. Fortunately, my trip to Geneva (where the whole subject began) coincided with the centennial year of Dalcroze’s birth, a year in which a reexamination of his work was in progress.

XVil

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CHAPTER I

Prologue: Youth, 1865-1892 “He set out to find an island and discovered a veritable continent replete with richness.” Bachmann No man is a prophet in his own land—or so thought Jaques-Dalcroze in his moments of depression. Yet honor came to him long before his eighty-five years (many of them engaged in pioneering unknown areas) were expended. Triumph and adversity alternated while his work was in its formative stages. However, recognition came to him largely in countries other than his own Switzerland.

In the musical world Emile Jaques-Dalcroze is known as a minor composer of operas, but also as a significant folklorist, one of the originators of the folk idiom in his native region, Suisse romande. In the latter capacity, as composer of festivals and of more than 1000 songs, most of them set to his own texts, he is remembered for numerous pieces which touch the hearts of his compatriots and continue to be sung with love and fervor to this day.

Jaques-Dalcroze ranks as one of the world’s great leaders and innovators in music education, even in universal education. His pedagogical system, first proposed as an aid in musical study, became accepted as a basic

discipline for all arts, and later as an important contribution to general education, for children and adults as well. It was held in high regard for its special qualities which aided the physically infirm and the mentally handicapped as well as the able person. All of Jaques-Dalcroze’s accomplishments emanated from a single

genesis: his qualities as a teacher. Coupled with this, however, was his strength as a musician. From the concept that students of music needed to become more sensitive to inner feelings and more capable of outer expression came a means to bring these elements together, hence, a method. The l

RHYTHM AND LIFE

“Method,” Jaques-Dalcroze’s most noteworthy work, summarized in the word “Rythmique,” as the term eventually evolved, had its beginnings in the classrooms of the Geneva Conservatory. Largely due to their novelty, as compared to traditional teaching, his ideas were not wholly accepted, and

he was obliged to develop them privately. The method featured three interdependent elements: movement, ear training, and improvisation. Local

and regional demonstrations from 1903 displayed the efficacy of the students’ training and a major demonstration at Soleure in 1905, before the Society of Swiss Musicians, overwhelmed the profession. The public urged him to publish his ideas so that they would be generally available, and one year later the method appeared. From this point on there were believers and doubters, supporters and antagonists, genuine promoters and frauds. The stuggle was difficult, lasting a lifetime. In spite of triumphs and rebuffs, Jaques-Dalcroze continued to

work, to refine, to expand, until recognition came to him, first in foreign countries, and later at home. The climax of Jaques-Dalcroze’s career occurred through his work at the Jaques-Dalcroze Cultural Institute established in 1910 at Hellerau, a hamlet near Dresden, Germany, as part of a benevolent social enterprise, a planned industrial city modeled after a similar project in England. Here Jaques-Dalcroze displayed his practical training and extended it to the point where it was incorporated in related arts of theatre and dance. Acclamations

for his rythmique demonstrations, opera productions, innovations in theater and dance, came from every corner of the globe, and visitors flocked to this mecca of artistic rediscoveries to witness the essence of ancient Greek

drama, its beauty and depth, heretofore lost for millenia. Here also was evident the novelty of modern dance, the freedom from classical restraints— inaugurated by Isadora Duncan and expanded and systematized by Dalcroze

and his followers. The glory of Hellerau was unfortunately terminated by

the advent of the great war, and Jaques-Dalcroze and his work never regained the same posture. After the master’s death his method was developed no further, at least not as Dalcroze himself might have wished, yet under the careful guidance of his cohorts and followers his work prevailed, and proof of its lasting value today lies in the presence of practitioners in such widely removed cities as New York and Adelaide, London and Buenos Aires, Stockholm and Toronto, Moscow and Tel Aviv. When Jaques-Dalcroze died on | July 1950, only five days before his

eighty-fifth birthday, there was great mourning in his adopted city of Geneva. Special honors were rendered him in the city council, in the schools 2

PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

throughout the area, in the great Cathedral of St. Peter’s, and by numerous concerts arranged in tribute to him and to his work. The city had previously bestowed upon him the distinguished title of Bourgeois d’Honneur, had awarded him first prize in the arts for musical composition (1946), and in

1958 had renamed one of its prominent thoroughfares, a main street running from the Rue Pierre Fatio to the Boulevard des Philosophes, Boulevard Jaques-Dalcroze—a truly visible form of recognition and esteem. To honor his memory on the 100th anniversary of his birth, a year-long celebration took place, not only in Geneva, but in other cities in Switzerland,

and in many other countries as well. Most of these activities were coordinated by the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, which he founded in 1915, and which stands proudly today on the Rue de la Terassiére, the center of world-wide Dalcroze activity. The city again honored him and his disciple and co-worker Adolphe Appia (who maintains a position in his own right as one of the most significant contributors to the twentieth-century stage), by establishing on the Boulevard Jaques-Dalcroze a museum housing important relics of the master and his pupil, a permanent Exposition DalcrozeAppia. Visitors who come to Geneva are attracted to the area of Place Neuve, on which stands the Conservatory where Jaques-Dalcroze’s career formally began, where he created his first ideas and exercises in gymnastiques-rythmiques, a technique, which, when further refined and elaborated, he called La rythmique. Opposite the Conservatory is the Grand Théatre where some of his larger compositions and operas were performed with resounding success. Just to the east is the University of Geneva which Jaques-Dalcroze attended in his formative years following graduation from the Collége de Genéve, also

located on the Boulevard Jaques-Dalcroze. In the yard behind the main building of the university stands the famous Reformation Statue, erected in 1917, representing the great Reformation leaders who settled in sixteenthcentury Geneva: Jean Calvin, Théodore de Béze and Guillaume Farel, from France; and John Knox from Scotland. Contemplating the figures, the poet Paul Budry proposed that a statue of Jaques-Dalcroze be erected opposite

those of the reformers with the simple inscription, “This did away with that.”! The ascetic qualities for which the Reformation stood were strongly opposed by Dalcroze’s teaching of freedom and zest for life.

Very close to Place Neuve is the Victoria Theatre, home of the Orchestre de la Suisse romande, whose inaugural concert in 1918 included 'This anecdote was recalled by Henri Gagnebin. See Alfred Berchtold, La Suisse Romande au Cap du XX° Siécle (Lausanne, 1963) 518.

3

RHYTHM AND LIFE

a work by Jaques-Dalcroze, and whose succeeding concerts gave his music deserved attention. By going a short distance in the opposite direction one comes to the Salle de la Réformation where some of the early demonstra-

tions of Dalcroze’s ideas were presented for public view, and where he conducted his early classes after being denied continuing use of facilities at

the conservatory. Crossing the Pont Mont Blanc over Lac Leman (Lake Geneva) in the heart of the city, one finds on its shores the celebrated restaurant, Perle du Lac, on whose grounds Dalcroze’s historic pageants were presented. The family of Emile-Henri Jaques (the family surname was Jaques; Dalcroze was added later) came from the Canton of Vaud, near Yverdon,

where the second, third, and fourth generations before him were local pastors. This part of his background—the severe aspect of the Reformation— never became a part of the composer’s character, which was not at

all stiff and pious. Music entered into the lives of his ancestors, who participated in string quartet playing and in chamber and choral singing. Emile’s father, Jules-Louis-Lucien-Auguste Jaques, grew up in SainteCroix, a quiet little town nestled in the foothills of the Jura. Sainte-Croix, since 1397, was known for the manufacture of Swiss music boxes. The family

of his mother, Julie Jaunin, came from Yverdon. Sainte-Croix still claims Emile Jaques as a native son although he was not born there and, except for passing some vacations in the village, he actually resided there only for a two-year period.’ His father represented two small watch manufacturing firms, Mermod Brothers of Sainte-Croix, and Audemars of Sentier, for whom he served as an itinerant salesman. Because his journeys took him as far as Poland and Russia, as a matter of convenience he made his home and business headquarters in Vienna fora time. The closest Emile came to direct family musical associations was through his uncle, also named Emile Jaques (1826-1880), a violinist who studied in London and later served as instruc-

tor at the Conservatory of Lausanne, where he had been a student in his youth. This uncle later became godfather to the young Emile. Emile-Henri Jaques was born in Vienna on 6 July 1865. This was the year the Civil War in America had ended. Hawthorne had recently died and the short story by Mark Twain “The Celebrated Jumping Frog,” was just beginning to be known. An American painter, James Whistler, then living

in England, had just finished his Arrangement in Grey and Black, better known as Portrait of the Artist’s Mother. Corot was at the height of his fame, “Letter from the Municipalité de Sainte Croix, 4 August 1965. In 1952, this village renamed one of its streets in honor of its famous citizen. In commemoration of his 100th birthday the community erected a monument in his honor. See Tribune de Genéve, 7 July 1965, 14.

4

PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

Manet’s Olympia caused a scandal in Paris, and Rodin’s early masterpiece, Man with the Broken Nose, was rejected by the Paris salon. During this same time Debussy, Sibelius, and Richard Strauss were born. The Jaques-Dalcroze family resided in Vienna in a large house situated

on a square called Am Hof. The fascinating thing about the location was its proximity to the fire-house; the antics of the firemen in their colorful boots and fire helmets stirred the imagination of young Emile who, like most boys, enjoyed playing fireman. Emile’s boyhood was, indeed, a happy one— lively, friendly, and even contemplative for a child. Playing was something that he did all his life, for fantasy was innate to

his being. The question might well be asked: where the division between fantasy and reality is in a person’s life. Emile always felt the combination of both elements as a necessary attribute to healthy living. His father told and retold the folk stories from his native Vaud. Emile also saw plays, operettas, and operas in his native city. Snow White and Cinderella made deep impres-

sions on him, as did the stories of Jules Verne; even those of Schiller. He also attended a presentation of Aida conducted by Verdi himself. He read stories and books, especially those considered advanced for his age, and loved to dramatize them. He gathered his young playmates about him, assigned them roles, and put them through rehearsal, assuming the leading characterizations—sometimes several at a time— for himself. His sister Héléne, five years younger than Emile, became an imposing actress at the age of three, thanks to his able directing. When he was six Emile received his first formal piano lessons, given by a neighbor woman whom he later described as old and ugly. He exhibited

excellent progress and much interest in the piano although scales and pedantic studies tended to bore him. He preferred to play what fleeted through his mind, and he begged his mother to intercede for him to relieve him of the tedious finger exercises, of which he needed only a minimum. Emile’s first composition, a march, was written at the age of seven for a young admirer, Sylvia, who was five years old.

His interest in music led him to the concerts of Eduard Strauss (1835-1916), the youngest brother of the immortal Johann, given every Sunday during the season at the Volksgarten. These concerts impressed him deeply. Sister Héléne, who became one of his fiercest champions, liked to. tell the story of Emile going to one of the concerts, sitting in the front row with a ruler hidden in his sleeve. After the first intermission Emile stood up

and moved the ruler through the air as did the conductor, thus attracting the attention of those around him, including Strauss. After the concert

5

RHYTHM AND LIFE

Strauss remarked to the Jaques family, “This child will become a great musician if you make him work.” It was a perceptive prophecy. In the summer of 1875 his father decided that he had had enough of Vienna and that it was time he pursued his vocation from his own country. Therefore, in July the family moved to Geneva. They occupied an apartment in a large building on the Place des Alpes just across from the newly erected Brunswick statue. They were only one hundred meters from Lake Geneva

and fifty kilometres from the majestic Mont Blanc, on a clear day quite visible from their street. To go to school on Rue d’Italie Emile had to follow

the historic Pont Mont Blanc over the lake. This was where he tended to dally, to exercise his thoughts, to release from his imagination ideas and projects that he intended to develop, either alone or with his sister or some playmates. Here he imagined great theatres, grand productions, even a vehicle (not horse-drawn) that would go merely upon the push of a button. Gradually Emile forgot his Viennese environment and the new locale continued to make deeper and deeper impressions upon him. He attended a private school for two years, then transferred to the Collége de Genéve.

At the Collége he had the advantage, though he did not know it, of obtaining a solid education in one of the most exciting educational systems of the world, the same system that produced a Rousseau and a Pestalozzi.

To say that Emile Jaques even then was in the process of formation to become a successor to these eminent Swiss educators would not be far from

the truth. Emile had little to say about the value of this portion of his education

except that he made and treasured good friendships among his fellow students. At a later date, however, when he was already contemplating his educational principles, he referred to his collége training wherein his teachers stressed factual knowledge and did not seek to train the spirit or to stimulate emotional reactions in their students. While in the third class—the third year from graduation—he and some friends inaugurated a publication, Cricri,

but it was suppressed by the administration for its critical attitude and “subversive” character. He regretted that at no time could he have fun with his friends, sing, dance, or make any joyous expression. In the fall of 1881, having finished the course at the collége, he was admitted to the gymnase. This was actually the turning point in the young man’s education. He matured appreciably, thanks to his valued instructors and, to an even greater extent, his comrades, among them Philippe Monnier, who became an important poet, and who collaborated with Jaques in many of his important musical enterprises, including his very first. His career as a composer also began in this year, when wrote an opera, La Soubrette, 6

PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

to a text by Monnier, after the novel by Berth Vadier. The work was presented only one time, two years later, by the club, Amis de I’'Instruction.

The gymnase, the institution established in Europe for a curriculum based on classical education, consisted of students between the ages of approximately fifteen to nineteen or twenty. It would be the equivalent of the upper classes of the American high school, plus about two years of college, preparing its students for university attendance. A great influence on Jaques in these days was Emile Redard who sponsored a student society, Belles-Lettres. The organization did much for Jaques, as it did for some of his classmates, among whom were Philippe Monnier, Charles Bally, the future organizer of stylistics as a French language discipline; Horace Micheli, a future director of the Journal de Genéve; another future director, Charles Patru; Albert Roussy, who became Secretary of the University of Geneva;

John Copponex, a poet; Henri Pehr, later Rector of the Université de Genéve; Henri Barbier, achemist, and one of Jaques’s most intimate friends; and August Borel, among the students, the veritable “life of the party,” who undertook but did not finish his medical studies until forty years later.

Jaques entered Belles-Lettres at the age of sixteen. As a member he attended meetings, soirées and theatricals. Later he wrote, "It was in BellesLettres, my student society, that I began to write songs in the popular style.” The society published his first songs, Refrains bellettriens, in 1891.3 As far as Emile Jaques was concerned, it was the right group for him at the right time. It recognized him, flattered him, encouraged him, and became a vehicle to satisfy his growing talents in humor and expression. The spirit of Belles-Lettres remained with him throughout his life. This jolly association had its activities of a less serious nature also. One New Year's Eve a group of friends was at the old Grenier du Blé, drinking

punch and waiting for midnight to arrive. They left to make a tour of the old huts situated on the Grand Quai, where only a few persons were around. However, Jaques mounted a platform and made a crazy speech consisting

of nonsense and mimicry, which attracted and amused a crowd. With displays like this he, too, was a very popular fellow. Emile was not above practical joking in a more elaborate fashion. A traveling circus and a wealthy

oriental potentate arrived in Geneva at the same time. Emile and some friends opted not to purchase tickets for the circus performance. On Stationery from the hotel at which the prince was staying, he wrote a note to the circus management to the effect that the royal party would attend a performance the following day. Jaques and his fellow students, in improvised 3Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Refraine bellettriene (Vevey, 1891).

7

RHYTHM AND LIFE

robes and turbans made from bedsheets and other common items, passed the ticket takers and proceeded to the best seats, all the while jabbering animatedly in pig latin. The ruse succeeded without a hitch.‘ For many years there was no important meeting of Belles-Lettres without Jaques, nor a significant theatrical show without his collaboration as actor or musician. They accorded him recognition for being a fine actor and assigned him such parts as Gringoire, the half-starved poet-hero, in the one-act comedy of the same name by Théodore de Banville, and of Mascarille in Moliéres Les Dépits amoureux. He loved to participate in the theatrical soirées.° When the family moved from Vienna to Geneva, Emile’s piano studies continued. He enrolled at the conservatory at the same time that he entered the collége, and was placed in one of the upper divisions because of his unusual ability. At the conservatory he greatly admired his instructors—

Oscar Schulz, Henry Ruegger and Hugo de Senger—and he worked diligently for them, gaining prize after prize. He especially appreciated Senger, one of the great musicians of the country, whom he succeeded as Professor of Harmony some years later. As piano study continued, so did his interest in making music come to life. He was already composing for the piano and organizing performances with his young friends. As enterprise ran

rampant he organized an orchestra of other youthful musicians—calling themselves Musigena—they actually gave a public concert at the Salle de la Reformation. Emile also served as conductor and arranger of the orchestra. The kindly humor which pervaded his entire life sometimes got him into trouble with some unappreciative authorities. At the end of his first semester at the Conservatory, Emile was the victim of a gross injustice at the hands of one of the committee members who would not allow him to be awarded the Prix de Ferney in sight reading. On the occasion of the distribution of the prizes, Emile was on the program, scheduled to play the Chopin A flat Impromptu. During the reprises in the piece he incorporated a melody quite popular in his day to the words Du bist verriickt, mein Kind. This boldness brought with it a severe remonstrance from the director, Ami Girard. Emile might have received some solace, however, if not encouragement, from his major professor who thoroughly appreciated the trick.

(tana Clarke, "Dalcroze: Rhythm in a Chain Reaction," Musical America 70 (15 Nov. 1950) "Henri Barbier, Revue de belle-lettres 27, no. 3 (May-June 1952) 7-17.

8

PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

In the fall of 1883 Emile enrolled in the University of Geneva with no special career in mind and took only general courses. The university held

no special attraction for him. After the first year of studies he spent the summer traveling with a summer stock company directed by his cousin Bonarel Jaques, who was director of the Lausanne Théatre and stage manager at Aix-les-Bains. The invitation to work with them, and the experience he gained served to whet his appetite for more. He did not return to the university for his second year. Instead, with his parents’ blessing, he went to Paris to pursue a course in dramatics. He shared an apartment with a friend on Rue Sainte-Anne, in Montmartre; two small rooms and primitive

kitchen equipment. He enrolled at the Comédie Francaise to work with Denis Talbot, a superior actor who specialized in comedy. Talbot, known as Stanislaus Montalont (1824-1904) outside his professional life, studied at the Paris Conservatory for only one year, in 1850. He debuted in Othello at the Théatre de l’Odéon and at the Comédie-Francaise in 1856. There he played in classic and modern repertory, including Henri Murger’s Le Bonhomme Jadis, which Emile later was to make into an opera. He developed a

great reputation as a private teacher and, in 1879, he retired from the company to devote full time to teaching, turning out many famous actors

and actresses. Talbot was financially independent and he refused his deserved pension because there were comrades less fortunate than he.° Emile’s progress, particularly in diction, was good, but as there was not enough activity to fill his time he decided to study music as well. From the Geneva Conservatory he had letters of recommendation, and with these and some scores he sought out one of the important leaders in French music, Gabriel Fauré (1845-1924). He played several excerpts from his student opera, La Soubrette, for the master. Fauré was not particularly impressed and

although he did not offer to accept Emile as a pupil, he was polite and

encouraging to the extent that he advised the youth to go to Albert Lavignac (1846-1916) for work in harmony, to make up for a lack of discipline. Jaques worked not only with Lavignac, but also with AntoineFrancois Marmontel (1816-1898), and did a lot of work on his own. It was not long before a case of homesickness set in. In a letter to his sister he wrote of his boredom. He described his usual day: up at seven, milk brought to him by the concierge, sometimes a letter accompanied it. He had no friends, so after a lonely breakfast he worked at declamation, followed by a solitary lunch and more work until 6:30. Then came the bright spot of SHenry Lyonnet, Dictionaire de comédiens francaise (Genéve, 1969) II, 654f.

9

RHYTHM AND LIFE

the day—off to the theatre. A part of this time he served in the claque at the Comédie-Francaise. He spoke of sadness and of having no appetite. Little by little, however, things began to change. He found friends and new places to go, and absorbed himself in composition. A favorite hangout was the lively café Chat Noir, whose entertainment consisted of a pianist who played popular songs, interspersed with witty commentary. One eve-

ning, to the management’s consternation, the pianist did not show up for his duties. Emile’s friends suggested that he go to the piano and fill in for the absent musician until he appeared. He proceeded to improvise, much to everyone’s satisfaction, then resorted to one of his tricks, something that he had often done in entertaining friends. This involved the selection of some simple, irrelevent, sometimes innocuous text to which he added music.

One of the patrons at the cafe that evening was the well-known theatre critic Francisque Sarcey. On hand was the daily newspaper which contained Sarcey’s comments on a performance of the previous evening. Jaques proceeded to use this text upon which he humorously and quite cleverly improvised. The room was in an uproar; Monsieur Sarcey seemed to enjoy the antics most of all. As a result, Jaques entertained on other occasions when the regular pianist could not be present. Emile was never a regular employee of the Chat Noir, but another musician, Erik Satie (1866-1925) worked there in the late 1880s as well. as in other night spots in the area.’ A frequent visitor to the club was the music critic Henri Gauthier- Villars, who in later years wrote a number of articles concerning Emile’s work. There is no information, however, as to the two men having made acquaintance in these early days. Meanwhile his work at the conservatory was progressing satisfactorily. In addition to his formal work he attended sessions of Francois Delsarte, an influential vocal teacher who could capture, even enthrall, his listeners with his small but exquisite voice and excellent elocution. He coached numerous

actors in the art of suiting word to gesture, and none could rival him in declamation. Among those who came to Delsarte’s classes were Saint-Saens and Gounod. (Delsarte also happened to be the uncle of Bizet.)§

Emile encountered problems, and with them some disappointments. He was receiving a monthly stipend from his father, yet attempted to earn some extra money on his own account. He had a piano student who usually “James Harding, Ox on the Roof, (New York, 1972) 27 3James Harding, Saint-Saéns and his Circle (London, 1965) 32. Also, see Camille Saint-Saéns, Musical Memories, tr. Edwin Gale Rich (Boston, 1919) 180-88.

10

PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

failed to appear for lessons. A singer who was about to perform one of his songs departed for another engagement, leaving the work unperformed. A

post as second conductor of one of the local orchestras was to become vacant, for which Emile was promised the position; but the man decided to stay on. But a singer known as Juliani engaged him as his accompanist and from him Emile learned much that stood him in good stead. He was also befriended by a violinist named Gavés, with whom he participated in regular

chamber music sessions. On one occasion he played with Gavés for a concert before the Queen of Spain during her visit to Paris. According to the account of Mme. Brunet-Lecomte, the pre-performance protocol was clumsy and embarrassing and, as a result, the music came off poorly. Jaques completed his operetta Riquet a la Houppe during this period. Although it never received a performance it was accepted for publication by Foetisch Fréres of Lausanne—a firm which later became Jaques’s main publisher—and was issued in 1883. The score was for voice and piano.® He

could now be considered a professional composer and pianist, and was admitted to the Society of Authors, Composers, and Publishers (SACEM) in 1885. This organization grew out of the original Authors and Dramatic Composers Society (SACD), founded in 1777 by Beaumarchais. SACEM was a prestigious organization; acceptance into it was difficult to achieve. A candidate had to be sponsored by two persons, one of them a member of the society, and had to earn 200 francs per year in royalties.'!° The latter requirement was extremely hard to meet: in fact, Gabriel Fauré, Director of the Conservatory and Commander of the Legion of Honor, could not raise from his composer’s royalties a sum sufficient to admit him to permanent membership in SACEM."!

At this time Emile had no confidence in his ability to write for instruments for, except for his having organized a group of instrumentalists as a youth, he had had no experience with them. He proposed to overcome this difficulty by taking up the viola, but it never came to pass. He had heard *The story concerns a young princess, bewitched by an evil fairy who has made her ugly. She must remain so until she receives the first kiss of love. No man in the court will have her. Riquet a la Houpe appears. He is even uglier than she, but the ladies of the court tell her that after 21 years of marriage he will seem handsome to her. Riquet pleads his case: the princess is touched. After their first kiss they both lose their homeliness. Love transfigures them. In 1935 the score was reprinted by Foetiesh Fréres and by the Parisian firm Rouart, Lerolle.

lOHugo Riemann, Musik-Lexikon, ed. Alfred Einstein (Berlin, 1919), 9th ed., II, 830. "Arthur Honegger, 1 am a Composer (New York, 1966) 36.

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

that the only instrument Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931) played was the timpani, having served with the Colonne Orchestre as chorus master and timpanist for five years. Emile ventured out to the extent that he purchased for himself a pair of timpani sticks.

Again, that idea went no further. Could the possession of a pair of timpani sticks suggest the beginning of rhythmic interest above and beyond the usual student’s occupation with that element? Possibly. Emile and his

friends may have indulged in simple exercises, such as beating multiple meters at one time, duple with one hand and triple in the other. Or he may have become proficient in more complicated rhythmic problems at this time. Ifso, it could not have been anything more than curiosity. Later in his career,

making use of the entire body in response to rhythmic problems was certainly more consuming. By this time Jaques’s interests shifted more definitely towards music rather than drama. Still, his compositional efforts favored working within the dramatic idiom, for which he had a more natural feeling.

During the summer of 1886 Emile was again homesick and wished to return to Geneva, to the closeness and comfort of his family. He had spent almost two years in Paris, had benefited from formal study and from intense application of work by himself. He had come into contact with musicians

approximately his own age, particularly Pierre de Bréville (1861-1949), Gustave Charpentier (1860-1956) and Emest Chausson (1855-1899), an experience which is necessary for all developing artists. As Emile approached the age of twenty-one certain personality traits seemed fixed for life: kindness, understanding, humor. Relaxation with his family in Geneva was short-lived. He heard about

an opening in Saint-Gervais for a pianist to play afternoon and evening dinner music at the spa. He accepted the position against the advice of his parents who did not wish to lose him while he was engaged in such menial musical activity. However, life at the spa was agreeable. He had comfortable living quarters and a piano for practice. In the course of arranging musical programs he asked his sister Héléne, who had just completed her examina-

tions at the Geneva Conservatory, to participate, often doing four-hand music with her. The summer wore on with difficulty, the result of boredom.

He used some of the time to go through the harmony text of NapoléonHenri Reber (1807-1880), an Alsatian who served as Professor of Harmony

at the Paris Conservatory. A pleasant turn of events occurred when the composer Léo Delibes (1836-1891) spent a short vacation at the spa. Delibes mentioned that he liked a little piece that Jaques had played, only to learn that it was not a “piece,” but a free improvisation. Nevertheless, he 12

PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

surmised that the young man had talent and suggested that, should he be in Paris, he get in touch with him. This gesture of encouragement caused Emile to think more seriously about a musical career. Towards the end of the summer the Saint Gall musician Ernest Adler offered him a position as assistant conductor and chorus master at the Théatre des Nouveautés in Algiers, which Emile accepted. It was his first professional engagement of duration; a position of respectability that afforded good experience for a young man at the start of a career. Conscious of his youth, he grew a mustache and beard, a trait that stayed with him for the remainder of his life. In September he left for North Africa. It was 1886, the year Van Gogh moved from Antwerp to Paris to make his home with his brother Théodore, and where he met Toulouse-Lautrec and other Impressionists. The year marked the appearance of Seurat’s masterpiece, “A Sunday Afternoon on the Isle of Grande Jatte,” the first Pointillist technique of the Neoimpressionists. Stevenson had published The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr Hyde.

The year in Algiers was a probationary one in Emile’s life. His keen ear

caught the minute distinctions of sound between the various Arab native instruments, and he was intrigued by the their execution of complicated rhythms. Algiers, unlike the part of the country consisting of desert, was fairly well westernized, so far as music was concerned. It was originally Berber

country and remained so even after the spread of Muhammadism. Spaniards came to the area in the early 16th century, but were soon expelled, having had little to no influence on the area. Algeria became a vassal state of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, but it was not well unified. Even after it was taken

by the French in 1830 it still lacked unity. Resistance to French rule manifested itself periodically. As a result of such dissidence the French decided to complete their conquest of the area and colonize it. This was done in 1847, although small elements of resistance persisted until 1884. From this time until the eventual secession after World War II the area was oriented completely toward the French. In music, Arabic influences were felt to the east, south and west, yet not so in the capital city itself. Melody was the main constituent in Arabic music rather than rhythm or harmony, which was virtually non-existant.

Again, it would be tempting to surmise that Emile studied Arabic rhythms carefully, thus establishing a base for his later rhythmic developments. Apparently this was not the case. His method of employing rhythm as an important element involving physical response to music made little

reference at all to the prevailing concept of Arabic rhythm. The native technique employed various divisions of a unit into smaller units. Jaques’s 13

RHYTHM AND LIFE

system was basically the opposite: he considered the unit, whatever its size, as a whole. Thus, in his concept, ° meter meant five pulses per unit. In the Islamic sense it would be felt in various combinations totalling five pulses:

2+3,3+2,1+ 2 + 2, and soon. It would be safe to say, however, that at least the Algerian experience taught Emile to think in different terms than he had been trained to do as a matter of habit. It was in Algiers that Emile Jaques changed his name. Now, as well as during the latter part of his sojourn in Paris, Jaques’s works were filtering

through to the publishers. In order to avoid confusion between him and another musician of the same name who resided in Bordeaux ( a composer of polkas),a change was advised. This most likely came from the Parisian publisher, A. Poulin, who printed his opus 5 in 1890 and who, together with the better known house of Rouart, Lerolle, did his Deux Piéces, opus 2, for violin and piano. This same opus 2 was printed one year later by the Parisian firm of Buttner-Thierry. In Algiers, Emile ran into an old friend from his days at the Collége de

Genéve, the Frenchman Raymond Valcroze. The two continued to associate socially throughout Emile’s stay in this African city. With his friend’s

authorization Emile adapted his name, changing the letter V to D. From this time on he always signed his works Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. Later the name was officially recorded in the city registers in Geneva, not only for him, but for members of his family as well .2 Although the name Jaques-Dalcroze was Official, for the rest of his life he was called Jaques by his old and new

friends. For years his students and all others who wished to use not only a friendly expression but one of affection addressed him as “Monsieur Jaques.” In England and in America the new surname proved to be cumbersome and in these countries the name Dalcroze sufficed.

Work in composition continued. His next dramatic piece, the first of several written upon texts of his boyhood friend Philippe Monnier, was completed during the sojourn in Algiers. It was a lyric comedy in one act, L’Ecolier Francois Villon. On the last page of the score he wrote, “Completed today, Wednesday, 19 January 1887, in Algiers. E. Jaques-Dalcroze. Hurrah Monnier!” Like its predecessor, it was neither performed nor published. The most notable part of this work was its rather lengthy overture, in fast-slowfast form, which was quite lively and spirited, from which other parts of the

play are taken. He also introduced passages of melancholy along with his The verbal process of the Council of State of the Canton of Vaud, 28 August 1924, officially recorded the change of name of Emile, also that of his wife and son. See Théodore Bret, Les Bourgeois d'honneurs de Genéve de 1814 a nos jours (Genéve, 1929).

14

PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

customary bright activity. His other significant score was completed; a large orchestral suite, Printemps, which unfortunately failed to achieve success.

Towards the end of the season difficulties arose during which the theatre manager was unable to pay his musicians. To recoup funds they organized an ensemble which included Jaques-Dalcroze and they set out to

give concerts in other areas. The tour took them to Medea, Hamman, Khiva, Miliana, Blida, and Constantine, and included a return to Algiers for an additional concert. The itinerary covered an area 60 miles to the south of the capital city and almost 200 miles to the east.

When the season came to an end, Emile was offered the position of director of the conservatory and he was tempted to accept. He liked the country and its people, and the work would not be too difficult. He was discouraged, however, by a friend in the city, the pastor Rocheblave, who insisted that the position could not possibly utilize his talents to the fullest, that the position in itself was a dead end, and that he would be wiser to pass it up. “If you stay in Algiers,” Rocheblave contended, “you will not find in this lazy city the means to perfect yourself in your career and you will feel your creative faculties diminishing. Return to the continent to continue your studies.”!? Upon this advice, Emile turned down the offer. With the experience in Algiers behind him Emile returned to his family

home in Geneva with the determination to further his studies. He decided to work at the conservatory in Vienna with the renowned composer Anton Bruckner (1824-1896). In the fall he traveled with his father, who was going east on business, and they stopped in Vienna. The elder Jaques planned to

stay just long enough to see the results of Emile’s entrance examinations. Although it was late and the classes were already full, the examination results were good and Emile was admitted to Bruckner’s classes in composi-

tion. He also registered for theory with the well-known Robert Fuchs (1847-1927). Emile professed that he owed much to Bruckner. It was not his actual teaching but his personality that was effective. A veritable taskmaster, having no consideration for the individual, his ideas, or his technique, Bruckner insisted that his students restudy their harmony and counterpoint. He demanded that his students pay attention only to music and not dilute their work with him by reading or by discovering the other arts, as well as objecting to the students’ romantic interests. Yet he was respected

for his originality and his genius, if not for his tolerance, musical and '3Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Notes bariolées (Genéve, 1948) 20f.

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

otherwise. From time to time Emile clashed with his master. Bruckner seemed to have little regard for him and spoke of him as der dumme Franzose,

eventually throwing him out of his class. His attempt to have him entirely removed from the conservatory, however, did not succeed. The difficulty arose when Bruckner insisted that Emile take Bruckner’s

course in harmony from the very beginning which he refused to do. He agreed to drop Bruckner’s courses and to take composition from another professor. Bruckner objected, claiming that Emile could not qualify even for

an elementary course in composition. Two days later they arranged an audition before a jury consisting of four professors and the Director of the Conservatory, Joseph Hellmesberger (1828-1893). For the audition Emile played an etude from the Gradus ad Parnassum of Muzio Clementi (17521832), a Beethoven sonata, read at sight some works presented to him, and ended with two of his own compositions. At the completion of the audition there was silence. Bruckner smiled, believing that the young man had failed. Presently Adolf Prosniz (1829-1917), one of the jurors, rose and said to the others, “I will take this young man into my class. He evidently is lacking in technique, but he is definitely talented.” Emile was ever grateful to Prosniz for saving him on this occasion and proving to be a valuable influence on his studies for the remainder of his stay in Vienna.

With Prosniz he studied piano, and composition with Herman Gradener (1844-1929), both excellent musicians and competent instructors. It was Prosniz who said, after Emile played a Beethoven work for him, “That was nice, but now you must really get into it.” This observation might well have been the summation of all of Dalcroze’s problems in his lifetime: lack of depth of perception. Some of his greatest ideas could not be sustained

because he failed to penetrate their profundity. At times the issues were shrouded in an immense compilation of detail, yet he still needed to “get into it.”

Viennese life benefited the young musician greatly. In the city of Johann Strauss he studied Bach and attended all sorts of concerts, including a most illuminating performance of Wagner's Tristan und Isolde. And again he enjoyed friendships with other students. Among these he cherished the friendship of Friedrich Klose (1862-1942), a favorite student of Bruckner’s,

a German who studied in Geneva before coming to Vienna, and who devoted his career to composition and teaching in Germany and Switzerland. Social life here was similar to the Paris student days, but Emile was now older, more experienced, and he had a more definite view of his life and work.

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PROLOGUE: YOUTH, 1865-1892

During the winter he received a communication from Belles-Lettres, his literary-dramatic club in Geneva. Philippe Monnier had written a play, Par les Bois, based on Shakespeare’s As You Like It, and they requested a score for this work. He accepted the responsibility even though he was hard pressed to keep up his work at the Conservatory. Working feverishly, he completed the music and sent it on to Geneva. It was performed at a soirée preceding the offering by the Society of a bust of Marc Monnier, the distinguished writer (Philippe’s father), to the University of Geneva, the first bust to adorn the aula. Hugo de Senger, conductor of the subscription concerts, conducted it in Dalcroze’s absence. The piano part of the ensemble was assigned to Héléne Jaques, now a competent musician with much professional performance experience. The music, like the text, was characteristically rustic, light, melodic, and whimsical. The performance was a great success. Before the spring semester of 1889 was to begin, Emile decided to take

a vacation in Geneva. Again, the visit was a brief one, but instead of returning to Vienna, he decided that it would be more interesting for him to get back to Paris for more formal study. The twenty-four-year-old Jaques-Dalcroze who made his appearance in Paris for the second time was a far different student from the young man who first came to study almost five years earlier. He took the examinations at the conservatory; this time he was admitted to the classes of Fauré, who remained a sympathetic colleague throughout his lifetime. Not forgetting Delibes’s invitation, made at Saint-Gervais-les-Bains two years before, Emile visited him, and also participated in his classes. Jaques-Dalcroze now moved

into the foremost circles of modern French musicians, the leader of whom

was César Franck (1822-1890). Older, riper in experience, wiser as a student, and more competent as a musician, Emile found this second episode of Paris study much more fruitful.

Emphasis must be placed on the discipline Emile derived from his association with the Swiss musician Mathis Lussy (1828-1910) who introduced him to the ways of scholarly expression. He learned to recognize problems, to approach them in a scientific way, and to devise methods of solution. Lussy had gone to Paris in 1844 to study medicine, but instead became a piano teacher and writer. His first significant book, Exercises de mécanisme (1863) was highly praised by Franz Liszt and other teachers of piano. Lussy recognized that expression in music was a specific element which had never been adequately explained and he sought a way to establish

principles and organization for this component in his book, Traité de l’expression musicale (1873). Of this work the Westminster Review said the following: 17

RHYTHM AND LIFE

...M. Lussy had made one of the most valuable contributions of music. His work takes up ground which no other essay fills; it deals clearly and forcibly with a subject comprising all that gives vitality and significance to musical sounds; and it is based upon natural laws which, though they have always been in force, were never before tabulated so to be of general service."

The problem of dissociating elements, of analyzing and organizing them into the whole became the life work of Jaques-Dalcroze, and he could

not have had a better introduction into the matter than through the teachings of Mathis Lussy. The section on rhythm in Lussy’s book, which was later printed by itself, was of special interest to Dalcroze.” One of Jaques’s earliest literary expressions occurred about this time. He pleaded in 1890 for a national conservatory, pointing out that in France and Germany they try to make progress; but in Switzerland “we remain stationary, complacent in our ignorance, while admiring passionately all that is not Swiss.” He regretted the fact that music was considered hardly more than an agreeable pastime and that Swiss musicians tended to leave the country to make their careers elsewhere. '® During the next two years Emile spent in Paris he was very active as a composer. He contined to perform his little chansons, sketches inspired by customs and silhouettes of the day. He also wrote larger, serious pieces, which were beginning to be performed: a quartet, suite for cello and piano,

and stage works, in addition to organizing a substantial series of free concerts.

In 1891 he returned to Geneva to supervise the production of some of his compositions. At the same time, while living with his family, he continued to compose at a fast pace. The conservatory made use of his availability and gave him a course to teach in music history, on which he also lectured in other cities in the area. The next year his beloved teacher from his student days at the conservatory, Hugo de Senger, died. Three months later the conservatory appointed Jaques-Dalcroze to replace him as Professor of Harmony. Shortly afterward the conservatory curriculum was revised, and Emile was also assigned the higher course in solfége to teach. One of the most arduous and most fruitful periods in his life had now begun.

Besides devoting himself wholeheartedly to his teaching duties, he threw himself into a feverish spell of composition—seeds of la rythmique were inadvertantly being sewn. "Laws of Musical Expression,” Westminster Review, 49 (Jan. 1876) 218. Mathis Lussey, Le Rythme musical, son origine, sa fonction et son accentuation, (Paris, 1884). '°Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, "De I’Enseignement musical en Suisse," Académie de musique a Genéve (1890) 19.

18

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* : iS oe 4 - ; Darehetias it 5c Letter from Joseph Szigeti, 14 May 1965. Mozart made the commentin a letter to his father, which included a passage penned by the composer’s mother also, 23 and 24 October 1777, from Augsburg. See Emily Anderson, The Letters of Mozart (London, 1938) II, 497. SF Jaques- Dalcroze, "Eugene Ysaye quelque notes et souvenirs,” Revue musicale 188 JJan— Fev. 1939) 30.

Tbid., 33. *Mbid., 31. *“Thid., 29.

36

MATURING COMPOSER, 1892-1908

The works which I had the happiness to reveal constituted for me the esthetic and spiritual nourishment without which I would have remained exclusively in my shell as a virtuouso...Franck, Saint Saéns, Fauré, Debussy, d’Indy, Dalcroze and others were for me guides and teachers without, perhaps, their suspecting it.”

A direct result of the experience with Ysaye was the composition of

the “Violin Concerto in C Minor” which the violinist featured in his concerts. Marteau also played this work with success. Of his playing the concerto at the Beethoven Saal in Berlin, with Jaques-Dalcroze conducting, Marteau wrote in Musique en Suisse (October, 1901) of the public reaction to the piece. Its success was colossal and justified, something of which the

composer could be proud. The press was divided into two camps, as is frequently the case. The most enthusiastic of the critics was Otto Lassman,

whose judgment over a thirty-year period of astute criticism was justly admired by Marteau. And among the dissenters he spoke of a curious article by one whose name he chose to “ignore,” who commented on the horribly sensual quality of the finale.

Karl Storck, still the romanticist, regretted that the work was called simply a concerto. He found it more like a symphonic poem for violin and orchestra, more like Berlioz’s Harold in Italy, with the program left to the fantasy of the listener. He projected it as the “Life of an Artist”: Ist movement: agitations of the world which preoccupy the soul of the artist until love comes to dominate the soul. 2d movement: the soul is riper, richer with ideas, it sees outside of life, but the artist knows his way in life and follows it with energy.*4

The Hungarian violinist Steffi Geyer®> played the Concerto in 1919. Her performance was discussed in the Neue Zuricher Zeitung (9 October

1919) as being in the French style, with pathos and happiness, yet occasionally a little brutal. In spite of a finer technical form and a warm, full,

temperamental expression, her playing lacked the inspiration and personality of Marteau. Marteau, who left Geneva to serve at the Berlin *Emest Christen, Ysaye (Genéve, 1946). Jaques-Dalcroze wrote the preface of this volume. *4Karl Storck, "La Musique a Berlin,” La Musique en Suisse 7 (1 Dec. 1901) 79. Storck quotes from his article in Deutsche Zeitung 16 Oct. 1901.

Steffi Geyer (1888-1956) was a pupil of Hubay. Bart6k composed his Second Violin Concerto at her request, but the work was dedicated to Zoltan Szekely who gave its first performance in 1939. Bart6ék was madly in love with Steffi and when she broke off the affair

in 1909, it shattered his life to the extent that he even contemplated suicide. Later Miss Geyer married the Swiss musician Walter Schulthess. See Hamish Milne, Bartok his Life and Times (Turnbridge Wells, 1982).

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

Konigliche Hochschule from 1908 to 1915, succeeding the great Joseph Joachim (1831-1907), was still remembered for his renditions of the concer-

to. Miss Geyer may have been the last to play the work in its complete version until it was done by Ruggiero Ricci with the Orchestre de la Suisse romande under the baton of Ernest Ansermet, as a tribute to its composer in the centennial celebration of 1965. Joseph Szigeti considered programming the concerto; however, he never managed to perform it. He recalled Jaques-Dalcroze coming to his apartment in Geneva in 1917, ringing his doorbell before 8 o’clock in the morning, with eight manuscripts in hand, begging that he give public performances of the works.*6 When a new collection of his Chansons romandes appeared in December, 1901, it recalled the earlier collection and attracted warm comments

from a number of writers, locally as well as in Paris. Colonel Edouard Secrétan who at a later date became director of the Gazette de Lausanne now

wrote an article on Jaques-Dalcroze, calling attention to the area’s own poet-musician as a man of the land who loved his country and the people with whom God put him to live.*”? Edouard Combe attested to the genuine quality of the songs of the Alps: no artificial gaiety, no made up rustic dance

qualities, but a certain depth without sadness, serenity without frivolity, qualities which make up the mountaineer character, which Dalcroze caught so sincerely.2 The chansons were especially popular in France and in Germany. Translations had been made into other languages, including an African tongue. Professor Eugéne Pittard, visiting a national education centerin Asia Minor, heard Dalcroze’s songs sung in Turkish. “This proves,”

he said, “that the children of our grandchildren may forget his name, but not his songs.”

Even as Jaques-Dalcroze’s notoriety spread abroad so did his popularity increase at home. Thus, with confidence in the local musician and with memories of the notable Jeu du feuillu still alive, the people of his area entrusted him with the writing of a festival, which subsequently became the most successful work of his career, the Festival vaudois of 1903.

The Vaud festival of 1901, organized hy Eugéne Couvreau, was presented on 4 July at Vevey. It was planned on a modest basis and consisted

of orchestral works of Justin Bischoff, Edouard Combe, Gustave Doret,

*6Szigeti letter, loc. cit.

7Eduoard Secrétan, "Poete nationale," La Semaine Littéraire 10 (18 Jan. 1902) 148. *8Eduoard Combe, "Chansons de l’Alpe,” Gazette de Lausanne (14 Aug. 1902). Eugene Pittard, untitled article, Radio Actualités 52 (s.d.) 1640.

38

MATURING COMPOSER, 1892-1908

Alexandre Denéréaz, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Pierre Maurice and Henri Plumhof, and was performed by the orchestra of Mulhouse under various conductors. It was regretted that an orchestra had to be imported from France, but since the Swiss towns fostered bands and wind players, they lacked string players for orchestras.” In 1902 Gustave Doret was summoned from Paris to prepare the Festival vaudois for the celebration of the next year. The poet Henry Warnery

had already been charged to do the project. He prepared the work for an ordinary closed theatre, however, when the promotion committee decided to do an open-air project his work was considered unsuitable. Immediately another committee was formed which, on [5 February 1902, commissioned

the poem and music from Jaques-Dalcroze without the least regard for Warnery’s new work, Le Peuple vaudois. Doret wrote the score anyway, and

he enjoyed eighteen performances of Le Peuple vaudois before packed houses. Warnery, on the other hand, was woefully disappointed, his health

failed, and he died in the spring before any of these performances took place.*!

The saga of Swiss festivals is not widely known. The country’s history began in 1291 with the confederation of three cantons, Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwald. The remainder of its twenty-three cantons joined the confederation over time, the last ones being Geneva, Valais and Neuchatel, in 1815, making twenty-two. The Canton of Bern, divided almost equally between a French and German speaking population, after generations of controversy, split into two cantons in 1974; further recent divisions have brought the total to twenty-six. The country is small and, although well united politically, has no complete cultural affinity. The country has three official languages, German, French, and

Italian, recognized by the Constitution of 1874, and an additional fourth language, Romansh, spoken in the inner Alpine regions, and recognized in 1938. Swiss characteristics are best defined by the language of the major countries they

represent and which the speaking zones border. Thus, in the French-speaking area life is more aligned with French habits than any other quality that could be called Swiss. This is true only to a slightly lesser degree in the German-speaking zone where, in actuality, any cultural association with Germany is spiritedly denied by the chauvinistic Swiss natives. Within the limitations of language the Swiss are fiercely patriotic. They have grown up under prosperous conditions— namely a system of small business establishments, as well as a number of large

1 a Musique en Suisse 1 (Sept. 1901) 14. 4IGustave Doret, Temps et contretemps (Fribourg, 1942) 128f. Dalcroze’s commission was announced in La Musique en Suisse (15 Feb. 1902).

39

RHYTHM AND LIFE

international complexes in industry, banking, and insurance. Even so, the people have learned to live and to think in small realms. Their ideas of political neutrality—actually isolationism—tends to enhance this quality. In general, the Swiss do not emerge as important world figures; with few exceptions, they tend to range in importance only within their own borders.

Together with the Swiss love for dramatic display is their historic love for singing. It is the singing of a happy people, with unanimous sentiment

in group singing. This feeling is spontaneous, and it incites from heart to heart. The most popular theme involved in group singing is their love of country.” The people are attracted geographically. The air of mountain mystery is essentially Germanic; the French have mountains too, but the people are not drawn together to sing. Thus they are monodists or soloists; in a group they sing in unison. The Swiss, however, sing in harmony. Choralism is in their blood.* Performances in large numbers, with thick textures and much volume, became more important than the quality of the piece sung. Zurich, in 1843, held a huge choral festival. In 1870 Neuchatel staged one. The Mdnnerchor (male choir) became an institution of German Switzerland.

Jean Bernard Kaupert (1786-1863), a German pastor, farmer, and

musician, came to Vaud in 1911 and established a large chorus at Tolochenaz. In 1833, he went to Geneva where he organized a chorus of 4000 persons that gave a concert in the open air at Plainpalais. Johannes Niederer and Johann Georg Tobler, disciples of Pestalozzi, formed a choral society in Geneva, the Société du Gritli, which later became more important as a political discussion group. Branches were formed all over the world. They operated until 1925, at which time they were absorbed by the Socialist

Party, therefore having no further need to exist by themselves. Other important choruses were established by Hugo de Senger in Geneva, Gustave-Adolphe Koélla in Lausanne, and by Henri Plumhof in Vevey. The romand, however, is actually a monodist like his French ancestor. For him, folklore in parts was created by Gustave Doret, the Abbé Joseph Bovet and, of course, Emile Jaques-Dalcroze. The Swiss spirit of togetherness resulted in the forming of patriotic societies which emerged during the 1830s: shooters, gymnasts, students, the Zofingue Society,“ and so on. Singing societies came along only after the patriotic societies. Various areas Charles Troyon, "Avant propos,” Paul Budry, La Suisse qui chante (Lausanne, 1932) 3-8. 43Paul Budry, "Le Chant et le peuple,” idem., 9-11. “4Zofingia was a Swiss student literary society founded in Zofingen in 1819. See Schweizer Lexikon (Zirich, 1945) VII, 1614.

40

MATURING COMPOSER, 1892-1908

developed their own type of songs, e.g., the farmers songs from Appenzell— chansons de bouse (literally ox or cow dung). From Valais came the traditional songs of Doret, such as Allons ramasser les épis laissés (Let us go gather the left-over corn), Bovet’s La-haut sur le montagne l’était un vieux chalet (Up there on the mountain there was an old chalet), and from Jaques-Dalcroze a fun song of sorts, Le coeur de ma mie (The heart of my loved one).

The original primitive song is the jodel, reported as early as the fourth century by Emperor Julian the Apostate, who heard barbaric songs which resembled the singing of birds. The cries of the yodlers, also known as Lobe, Dreckler, Léchl, Kiibereiben and Schnetzler, emit the pure exuberance and exaltation which possess one in the thin air of high altitudes, the air which literally tears a whoop from the throat—the vocalization of dizziness.

Before the Reformation a mystery play was performed in the area which praised the “red wine of Valais.” Players and plays came to the little

country from other parts of Europe—from France, Italy, Germany, even from Hungary. In the 16th century the vine growers in Switzerland formed an association. They had inspections, and every three years they awarded prizes. Accompanying the distribution of the prizes was a cortége which they called the Bravade. By the 18th century the citizens of Neuchatel, Canton

of Vaud, showed a definite preference for the performances of amateurs rather than the work of professionals. It was more on their own level—the kind of thing they enjoyed and could do themselves. It was a type of freedom

that they understood and practiced in their daily living. The free exercise of imagination led to a vital expression in the form of festivals devoted to some aspect of daily life. Love of their country and of their liberty sparked so many of their spectacular entertainments that Rousseau said, “Plant in the middle of a place [public square] a peg crowned with flowers, then assemble the people and you will have a festival. Better than that: give the viewers a spectacle.” The festival, Festspiel, became a big event in the lives of the people of the country. They frequently featured parades or processions, acrobatics and shooting contests. The plays at Coppet, Ouchy, Geneva and Unspannen, near Interlaken, inspired the painters August Baud-Bovy (father of Daniel, Jaques-Dalcroze’s librettist), Charles Giron, and Ferdinand Hodler, who featured these exploits in their paintings. Pestalozzi, in his expression of freedom as an educational reformer, wrote, “For my part, destroy all the theatres which have stages and create for me popular festivals under the open sky.” He loved to organize festivals among his students and to see the joy which accompanied the execution of original scenes.

41

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By 1706 different procedures were used, including a banquet of the vignerons (wine growers) at Vevey. In 1730 Bacchus figures were introduced into the cortége, and in 1747 they added Ceres, the Goddess of the Harvest,

which normally was played by a young man. The first time the part was played by a woman was in 1762. Eleven years later four men, representing vignerons preceded the cortége. This was the first demonstration of the future practice of representing various groupings by occupations. In 1778 Bacchus was followed by Silenus, God of Sleep, who was mounted on an ass. Noah’s ark was also mounted on a platform and was drawn by hand. The cortége stopped at various places to present popular dances. Later the seasons were represented in the cortége. In time the dances and certain popular songs, such as Ranz des vaches and the Valse of Lauter-

bach, became traditional. In 1851 anew procedure was established. A single composer, this time Francois-Gabriel Grast (originally Gras), wrote the music, as he did again in 1865 at Vevey, with a triumphal march and with Switzerland symbolized at the head of the procession. Then followed three allegorical processions, each entering from a single area. When all were in place, three soloists, the priests of Bacchus, Ceres, and Pales, were introduced. After the crowning of the first vigneron the four seasons filed through; in succeeding presenta-

tions the order of the seasons varied. Each group had its own allegorical chariot with a divinity upon a throne, and each divinity had its own priest Or priestess.

Other than Grast, only two musicians had composed for major festivals: Hugo de Senger in 1889 and Abbé Joseph Bovet in 1905 and 1927. These festivals had thousands performing and audiences of 10,000 or more. Except for specially composed festivals it was usual to adapt the spectacle tosome existing music. The first patriotic festival began as a cantata in 1869, the cantata on the theme of Sempach by Gustave Arwold— Siegsfier der Freiheit, subtitled the Winkelreid Kantata. It was performed in Lucerne in 1873 with nine numbers for male chorus, soloists and orchestra. It was again

presented in Lucerne in 1886 for the 500th anniversary of the Battle of Sempach.

In 1891 the city of Bern féted the seventh centenary of its founding with the Griindsfier der Stadt Bern, 1191-1891, a dramatic Festspiel in six eroupings. In this presentation each group was costumed and recalled a particular historical event, with animated dialogue and music, composed by

Carl Munzinger. In Geneva the long history of international existence Edouard Combe, "Le Festspiel," Budry, op. cit., 198.

42

MATURING COMPOSER, 1892-1908

tended to preclude the development of native style up through the 19th century. This is also true of the other romand cantons. Then along came Jaques-Dalcroze who, by his intense activity, revived the folklore of his area and established a spirit in music comparable to the efforts of Hans Georg

Nageli, the leading musician of Zurich and the founder of the Singing Society of that city. With a real pedagogical instinct, Jaques-Dalcroze composed at first for children, but adults took equal pleasure from his songs.

The Chansons romandes and the Rondes are authentic products of the romand territory and gave it a high mark of culture which until then had, for the most part, to do with translations and foreign songs.* The next step in the evolution of the Swiss Festspiel was in Swiss Romand in 1896. The Poéme alpestre of Daniel Baud-Bovy and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze presented a new fusion in the art. They used singing almost exclusively, supressing the spoken dialogue. For the first time the spectacle was given in aclosed and covered locale, with curtain, stage, and large area for chorus and orchestra. The chorus was everywhere: before the stage, on

it, and behind it; divided into groups of costumed singers. The whole spectacle was music and dance. The only professionals in the performance,

besides the orchestra, were a tenor and a soprano, while the remaining performers consisted of the “people.” Act One was pure fantasy. Act Two

passed in review all forms of the nation’s activity—a kind of national exposition. In the history of the Swiss Festspiel, 1896 is the decisive date, for the Neuchatel Suisse was an inferior performance.”

In 1903, the centennial year of the entrance of the Canton of Vaud into the Swiss Conferation, a great celebration was in store. On 14 April, Warnery’s historic play with music by Doret was performed at the Lausanne Theatre. But in July, at the Place de Beaulieu, a greater event took place— the famous Festival vaudois, in which Jaques-Dalcroze served as poet and composer, stage director and conductor. It was a spectacle of grand propor-

tions, and it attracted huge crowds. At age thirty-eight Jaques-Dalcroze was at the height of his career; well known nationally as a composer of intimate songs beloved by the people. They could hardly have called upon anyone else to produce their spectacle, for Jaques-Dalcroze had merely to allow his heart to speak. More

than 2500 actors, singers, and participants were called upon from all sections of the canton to display, in five acts, the history of their country. 46K arl Nef, "Le Chant choral du mayen age a nos jours," idem., 175. 47Combe, in Budry, idem., 212.

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

Over a period of six months each act was prepared by a group of districts. Teachers and choral directors worked feverishly for the entire period under the direct supervision of Jaques-Dalcroze. On 3 July they all assembled in Lausanne, together for the first time, under the supervision of a professional stage manager, Firmin Gémier, director of the Théatre de l’Odéon in Paris. In twenty-four hours he gained control of the movements of all 2500 persons

and the first of three performances came off the following day without a hitch. (At the rehearsal, however, the scenery of the church of Moudon fell over, but it was quickly repaired.) On Place de Beaulieu a monumental scene had been assembled, facing a graded platform seating over 13,000 persons and with room for 5000 to

6000 standing spectators. The stage had an area of 600 square meters, framed by pylons which were as tall as the churches. The admission charge was from two to twenty francs for the seats. Standing room was available for one franc, the same cost as a bottle of festival wine. Act One, The Vine, features a pagan ceremony at the foot of the slope of Lavaux, a bare and desolate scene. A cortége of workers and priests is introduced, followed by a procession of women and girls. All ask God to save them from drought and ruin. The apparition, “La Vigne,” appears and sings an effective solo.

Act Two, Moudon, 1368 (date of the truce in which the Hapsburgs acknowledged the admission of Zug to the Swiss League), the Green Count and his good city of Moudon enter to the solemn Marche vaudois. ‘They are

accompanied by a glistening entrance in rich costume and armor. They enact the renewal of the franchise between the Chancellor of Savoie and the Bishop of Lausanne. The scene of the Court of Love is presented with Paul Boepple, Sr. singing the role of the clown. The girls of Moudon perform the Dance of the Biberli. The act closes with the beloved Patriotic Prayer. Act Three, Lausanne, 1556, opens with the Bernese March. Presently the Jeu du Feuillu unfolds with the king and queen of May, preceding a scene of students’ merry making, of the belaboring of the watch, and the joyous wine. A ravishing ballet follows, then the moving cortége of the old men. Pierre Viret, who brought Protestantism into Vaud from France, quiets the rebellious students. A muted variation on the Marche bernois ends the act. Act Four, Rolle and the Blue Leman, 15 July 1791. Enter the Bouébes.

The stir of the French Revolution gives to the Vaudois the will for independence. For the shooting festival and other manifestations of freedom come shooters from Morges, Lausanne, and Aubonne, then the riflemen of Nyon who enter the scene on a raft by way of the lake, to which the back 44

MATURING COMPOSER, 1892-1908

of the stage opens. A delicate barcarolle is sung. A toast by Amédée is sung and then the riflemen of Joux arrive carrying a wolf suspended from a pole, humming La Carmagnole. There is a brilliant close with bands playing the Marche vaudois. Act Five, The Alps, more specifically Swiss than Vaudois, gave JaquesDalcroze scope for richness in the domain of fantasy and rhythm. There are songs of the flowers and fruits of the Alps, a ballet of mountain dwarfs, and native love songs of the shepherds. A marvelous succession of dances rises

to a finale with all participants on the stage in front of the scene. On the mountain appears Helvetie. People sing the Cantique Suisse, taken from the Poéme alpestre, among moments of true splendor. Jaques-Dalcroze brought in ninety professional musicians from a German military band, and two other bands—the Jurassiennes from Sentier, and

the Harmonie Lausannoise—served as stage musicians for the acts of Moudon and Rolle. A great success was the staged choral part, sung by the 350-voice Choeur vaudois, and also the singing of large groups of children. No one could make children sing as could Jaques-Dalcroze.

After the first performance the participants formed a merry parade through the city. During the third performance a storm broke out, forcing the public to run to the canteens for shelter. However, Jaques-Dalcroze, undaunted in his dripping, white linen suit, continued at his conductor’s post. Luckily, the storm soon blew over and the last two acts revealed an enchanting spectacle, never to be replicated.

The actors and other figures, recruited from the entire canton, achieved such a comprehension of the art—of artistic feeling—that the Vaudois people showed in this spectacle a new and unexpected spirit; a spirit that has been long sustained. In 1961 many fragments of the perfor-

mance done by their great-grandfathers continued to be popular and remained in the local singers’ repertory. In that same year a presentation was given on the radio three times in one day. Among the pieces played were those which were used in the national school song books; Let Us Plant the Vine, March of the Green Count, Song of (Queen Bertha, and a dozen more.

Such a glorious, artistic triumph has not been seen in the Vaud since that memorable production. A year later, still glowing from the success of the Festival vaudois, Jaques-Dalcroze attended a symposium of Swiss composers held in Berne on 25-26 June. He spoke on the question of a Swiss national art, emphasizing that “Swiss musical art in the proper sense of the word can only arise when composers work out a style tying together, mixing and joining, the 45

RHYTHM AND LIFE

technique and inner expressions of the German and French schools stemming from Swiss folk music or from themes grown out of it.” He mentioned that Joseph Lauber and Otto Barblan came close to attaining some vestige of a national style, and he stressed the need for native composers to hear more of each others’ works in order to draw together and to unify styles, thus more quickly approaching a national art.* Meanwhile, Jaques-Dalcroze’s songs were enjoying continued success. One group of songs had their 500th public performance in Basle under the direction of Paul Boepple. He was experiencing artistic accomplishments as

well as ample financial renumeration, while he was intensifying his work with rythmique. At the conservatory he had enlarged his experiments with his classes and had asked that regular classes be instituted in the curriculum to test his new ideas. Although his principles were not entirely popular with the staff, consent was granted and officially recognized courses in rythmique were begun.

On 21 October 1906, the Gazette de Lausanne reported that Dalcroze had departed for Berlin to attend the debut of his opera Le Bonhomme Jadis. This was rather a disappointment for the composer, as the debut of this work had been scheduled for Paris but was delayed due to illness of the singers

portraying the leading roles—Mme. Mathieu-Lutz and the talented baritone Fugére. Also on the Berlin bill, with Dalcroze’s work, was Doret’s two act opera, Les Armaillis. The Paris presentation of Le Bonhomme Jadis, took place at the Opéra

Comique on 9 November under the direction of Albert Carré. The Doret piece was also given, and a third work, a one act opera of Saint-Saéns, Princesse Jaune, completed the bill. On the day following the performance the Paris newspapers had much to say for the works of the two Swiss composers, but little comment for the Saint-Saéns opera. Alfred Bruneau wrote in Le Matin: Le Bonhomme Jadis is full of heart, has a rare frankess, an irreducible loyalty.

It says neatly and deliciously what it wants to say. It adapts itself to the text (subject of Henri Murger) with ease and with an extraordinary agility. It is rightly and spiritually in the key of comedy and does not seek to rise above it

or to puff itself up. It is discreet without timidity, gay without tumult, modulating without pedantry, melancholy without darkness, rich without ostentation.” Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Das funfte schweizerische Tonkunstler-Fest (Bern, 1904) 29.

Alfred Bruneau in Le Matin (10 Nov. 1906).

46

MATURING COMPOSER, 1892-1908

He also compared Dalcroze with Doret as an “active and devoted propogandist for our young composers.” Jean d’Udine in the Gazette de Lausanne and Paul Londay in L’Elair also had praise for the Dalcroze work.

Writing in Gaulois, Jean-Louis Fourcaud indicated that he knew Dalcroze from his String Quartet and from the Violin Concerto. Of the opera he said:

I regret that they allowed to be performed for the first time at the Opéra-Comique the most outdated play and the least tuneful in the world. Assuredly, even attached to such miserable vaudeville, his score is of a brightness to interest us. It shows a musician gifted for the theatre. But why did he not pick a story befitting his qualities? Imagine a beautiful dress on an absurd model. The model spoils the dress.

The very astute Willy, in Echo de Paris, said that the opera “has verve, very

correct musical sense of humor, constant joviality in the orchestra, and ironic instrumental swiftness. The dialogues are old fashioned and savoury.

The bassoon rails the inflections of the Bonhomme while the clarinet comically plays the ends of the phrases. The whole orchestra gives forth bursts of laughter making an infinitely light and pretty show.” Gabriel Fauré, in Le Figaro, reiterated Fourcaud’s remarks by saying that it was a miracle that Jaques-Dalcroze could dress the poor qualities of the work with music

that was always interesting, spiritual, moving, often inspired, and full of rhythmic feeling and orchestral activity. Unlike Fourcaud, another writer, in Le Figaro, who signed himself “Monsieur de | Orchestre,” said, “I do not know the musician, M. Jaques-Dalcroze, but I would be quite astonished if he did not have also spirit to the end of his fingers He found a way to make us laugh at the burst of the bassoon or oboe.” Performances of a major work in Berlin and in Paris, almost at the same time, are a great boost to the career of any composer. It should have signaled

a rise in fame—the opportunity that occurs only rarely in a composer’s career. In Paris during the period of rehearsal, there was much interest in the opera, and M. Carré gave assurance that this was the composer’s step to certain fame. As it turned out, however, Jaques-Dalcroze continued to devote attention to his other interests as well as to composition, and this certainly must have limited his powers and progress as a composer.

»® Additional commentary appeared in other journals: Georges Gaulis and Catulle Mendés in Journal de Géneve, Edouard Terradin and Adolphe Jullien in Journal des Débats, Albert Dayralles in Annales Politique et Littéraire, Pierre Lalo in Le Temps, and Jean d’Udine in La Suisse. Jean d’Udine, pen name of Albert Cozenet, became a devoted follower of rythmique.

47

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- per’ Seve wy es ee ey . tes, Marie Adama van Scheltema

RYTHMIQUE: EXPERIMENTATION, 1893-1906

He asked three basic questions: 1. Shall we keep music education in the school curriculum? 2. If so, is the way we teach it right? 3. If it is not, how shall we replace the method? He lamented the fact that the good ideas of Pestalozzi and of Froebel were taught only in isolated places, and that the rhythmic ideas of Matthis Lussy, from whom he got most of his inspiration and method, were not taught at all. Another complaint was that professional musicians were not called in to advise on music teaching. The spirit of music, he continued, is expressed in a special language which educational authorities do not know how to read. Unfortunately, it is they who choose teachers and methods, and that is why music does not progress like other branches of instruction; why students cannot sight read, phrase, notate, or sing. He asked, can fifty percent of the primary students, after three to five years of instruction, read with words the first and second parts of a popular song? Can they sing by heart twenty or

more national songs? After five or six years of study do fifty percent of secondary school and older students have this proficiency? And, in addition to that, can they write from dictation an easy melody sung to them the first

time, or a more difficult melody which they know but have not seen in notation? Can they improvise four bars in a single key? Appreciate a modulation? Discuss and put into practice a single rule of musical prosody? A single rule of phrase and nuance? Can they name three celebrated composers and their most important works? Explain differences between song, sonata, and symphony? These questions are not unreasonable. A foreign language student, for example, is expected to perform comparable tasks in his specialty.

Further, he observed that education authorities were incompetent in musical matters, that teaching personnel were not professional musicians and not applying themselves to the duties of their jobs, that gifted students were

hampered by being taught in association with poorer students, and, most important of all, that methods were incomplete. He then proceeded to discuss each item separately. The main tenet of his discourse was that all music teaching should be based upon hearing, not upon imitation or digital proficiency. The demonstration featured examples of ear training, improvisation, and rythmique. Those attending, most of them competent musicians, were amazed at the proficiency of his large group of students, especially when they learned that these were not selected individuals, merely the ordinary pupils. They were further delighted by an exhibition of plastique animée, a four-part fugue of Bach, realized in motion before their eyes. By this time Dalcroze’s ideas and practices had already spread beyond the confines of his immediate surroundings; certain

alert musicians and teachers knew about them as well. On this particular 19

RHYTHM AND LIFE

occasion the universality of his methods was proven. He was urged to publish the ideas that grew out of his experiments in order to make his work more widely known. One should not assume that the success of the demonstrations was due entirely to the talents of the students or to the soundness of the method, or even to the combination of the two. Dalcroze’s personal involvement also played an important part. A portion of the triumphs came from his special charm and ability to entertain the audiences, innate qualities directly related to his dramatic experiences. Dalcroze continued his classes in Geneva for children, mostly between the ages of five and nine, as well as his classes at the conservatory. Occasionally, in his classes of rythmique, older persons, even adults, participated, and he arranged special classes of short duration—for one, two, or three weeks. In the summer of 1906 he inaugurated the first summer course at the Salle de la Reformation. He then began to think of developing courses to train teachers, in order to perpetuate his ideas.

One of his most efficient candidates was Annie Beck, a native of Holland. Her work at Geneva was so competent that Jaques-Dalcroze eventually took her to Germany with his new staff and gave her important teaching responsibilities there. She later helped him in staging the Féte de Juin in Geneva in 1914, and she became one of the early teachers in the London school when it was opened. With Miss Beck came her friend Marie Adama van Scheltema." Marie was not a musician in her early girlhood; she thought she would venture

into the field of dance and pursue the Duncan ideas, not having heard of Jaques-Dalcroze. But Annie had witnessed a demonstration, was fascinated by it, and wished to take the plunge. She suggested to Marie that they both go to Geneva to try out the work and see if they would find it worthwhile. Marie agreed, and it proved to be the beginning of a new career. Elfriede Feudel, another devoted disciple—one who was largely responsible for the propagation of the Dalcroze method in Germany—also received her introduction by way of a demonstration. Frau Feudel (née Elfriede Thurau) was a serious piano student and instructor at the Hochschule in Berlin. She lived in the home of Rudolph Christians, a friend of the Crown Prince, and she served

as a tutor in English for Mr. Christian’s two daughters. Her employer had witnessed a demonstration which he felt was astonishing, and he gave her a '8Adama van Scheltema is the family name. Marie’s brother Carel (1874-1924) was a national poet. His book Foundations for a New Poetry (Rotterdam, 1908) is a major contribution to the field. See Adriaan J. Barnouwt "Adama van Scheltema, Carel Steven," Horatio Smith, ed., Columbia Dictionary of European Literature (New York, 1947) 6.

80

RYTHMIQUE: EXPERIMENTATION, 1893-1906 ticket for the program of the following evening. Elfriede watched the demonstration in amazement; its impression so vivid that she could not get it out of her

mind. Wandering about the city most of the night thinking about it, she wondered how she too could follow the path of rythmique. It was not until 2:00 in the moming that she returned home, still in a daze, but determined that this was the career for her.

Later in the morning she went to the office of Hugo Kretzschmar, Head

of the Hochschule to request a leave of absence to permit her to study “something.” “What is it you wish to study?” he asked. “I do not know. It is something I cannot explain,” Elfriede replied. She proceeded to tell him about the demonstration of the previous evening, how it affected her, and her desire to delve into its secrets and to improve her own teaching through paths which had been revealed to her. Herr Kretzschmar asked her to come before the school board to discuss the question since it was their approval which was required.

It was the greatest ordeal of her life, Frau Feudel said; standing before twenty-five “beards” and attempting to explain something which she herself

did not understand. For the second time she said she wanted to learn “something” from a man named Jaques-Dalcroze, and she found that any further explanation was futile. She described some of the exercises that she witnessed, and tried to beat a duple meter in one hand and triple meter in the other, as she had seen the students do the evening before. The board members tried it in turn. They found that they could not do it either, were amused by the exercise, and eventually gave their approval for a two-year leave to learn that elusive “something” that she seemed to be seeking so earnestly. One of the first persons of influence to recognize Dalcroze’s work was Paul Boepple—singer, choir director, and teacher in a girls’ school in Basle; later, professor of solfége at the conservatory of that city. Boepple worked

incessantly to further the use and development of Dalcroze’s system. He translated into German several of Dalcroze’s works and incorporated his ideas in his teaching in Basle. Boepple was instrumental in influencing the conser-

vatory to offer Dalcroze a position so that he could transfer his work there,

where, Boepple thought, it might prove to be more effective. Dalcroze, however, did not accept the position. Boepple’s son, Paul Jr., earned his diploma at the Geneva Dalcroze Institute in 1919 and became a distinguished choral conductor, as well as probably the ablest of Dalcroze’s disciples.

In 1908, Otto Blensdorf came from Jena in Germany to Geneva and, like Boepple, matured into an important teacher of the method. Among his students was his daughter Charlotte who later became one of the most notable forces in the movement in Germany, and one of the founders and president of the International Society of Dalcroze Teachers (UIPD). 81

RHYTHM AND LIFE

Another father-daughter team was not so mutually enthusiastic. Joseph Marie Erb, composer and director of the Strasbourg Conservatory, gave this advice to his daughter Jane: “You may enjoy rythmige as a career, but you will also lead a life of starvation.” Nevertheless, Jane Erb made it her career, the high point of which was her appointment as director of the ballet of the Paris Opera.

Joseph John Findlay, Professor of Education at Manchester University, recognized the value of Dalcroze’s work as an educational force. When he served as Dean of the Faculty of Education of the university and as a member of the Teachers’ Registration Council, he instituted the first Dalcroze courses and eventually a degree in teacher training at Manchester University. Findlay wrote articles on rythmique and invented the phrase “the body as a musical instrument,” an expression used by many other devotees. He encouraged his daughter Elsa to follow a career in rythmique. Elsa Findlay studied at Hellerau and for many years was a lively force in sustaining Dalcroze’s ideas in the United States.'9 A few other family teams who figured prominently in Dalcroze practices in the years which followed may be mentioned. Emile’s sister Héléme (Mme.

Brunet-Lecomte) took her training at the Dalcroze Institute at the age of forty-five and became a professor there; his cousin Laure Wagner practiced rythmique at her private studio in Lausanne. Adolphe Appia’s brother Théodore

worked at Hellerau and taught in Brussels, the United States and elsewhere. The Braun sisters, Lili, Jeanne andLéonie, were very talented artists but they made their mark in the dance world. Daniel Baud-Bovy wrote texts for some of Dalcroze’s larger works. His son Samuel, conductor and director of the Geneva Conservatory, acknowledged the values he received from rythmique as a child. When the organist and composer Henri Gagnebin became director of the Geneva Conservatory in 1925 he reinstituted Dalcroze courses, and when Monsieur Baud-Bovy succeeded him in 1957 the courses were continued. Ernest Ansermet, long-time conductor of the Orchestre de la Suisse Romande, was on intimate terms with Jaques-Dalcroze and very sympathetic to rythmique. His

understanding, however, may have come by way of his sister, a qualified thythmician. In England there were the sisters Natalie Tingey and Joan Bottard,

Ethel and Ann Driver, and Vera James and her daughter Patsy. More will be said later of the Inghams of London, the Dohrns of Hellerau, and the Couvreux of Paris.

We have noted that the most significant demonstration Dalcroze ever gave was the one at Soleure, accompanied by a lecture, for the meeting of the Association of Swiss Musicians. This program resulted in the demand Information relayed by Elsa Findlay in a letter 5 October 1966. Also see Who Was Who, 1929-1940 (London, 1941) 445.

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for the publication of his method, which led to its adoption in several conservatories and in some public schools. It attracted the attention of numerous persons, including the German educator Karl Storck, who wrote positively about Dalcroze’s work. Yet another demonstration may have had an even greater impact, for it lead to an important expansion of the training and another dimension to its effect. Dalcroze received this letter from Trolaz, a suburb of Geneva: Trolaz, May 1906 Monsieur, After your demonstration of Saturday evening I would have wished to come to see you. Not having done so, do permit me these few lines. The exteriorization of music—(that is, after all, to restore it to its original state)—is an idea which | envisioned for many years. Each of us has his point of departure and his special faculties—yours allowed you to seize possession of the idea and the normal course towards its realization through pedagogical means, and that with quite necessary tenacity and with grace, which is equally indispensable. It is impossible for you

not to feel (success notwithstanding) the almost immeasurable force of your influence. While suppressing my emotion I followed you at the Casino—always saying to myself, “Does he suspect what he is doing!” You will better understand my enthusiasm if I] express my profession of faith: Music, in developing its technical resources without measure, when the purpose of its expression remains stationary, becomes something which strongly resembles a solitary vice. Nothing can save it from this sumptuous decadence if it is not its exteriorization; it must be dispersed in space with all the salutary limitations which that process allows for it.

On the other hand, life of the body extends to confusion, consequently to ugliness; and it is music which has to liberate it while imposing upon it its discipline.

Your instruction makes music a thing which concerns the entire body, and thus resolves the problem in the most practical way. No more do you consider the body and its posture: you seek out unity. In this sense your idea will succeed, after

several generations, in altering the brain, and one can expect from this a real renaissance. To you we owe the good fortune to perceive this future—and you, Monsieur, have the responsibility of making it a greater future by your constant efforts. May you also discover along the way the means to do it. | remain entirely devoted to you.

With my warmest regards.

s/ Adolphe Appia’

20Edmond Stadler, "Jaques- Dalcroze et Adolphe Appia,” Martin, op. cit., 417f.

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Adolphe Appia (1862-1925) studied music in Geneva, Zurich, Leipzig, Paris, and Dresden. Eventually his interests turned to the theatre, particularly to the work of Richard Wagner in whose dramatic pieces he saw the stage of the future. He witnessed some presentations at Bayreuth, where he made the personal acquaintance of the master; he then devoted a great deal of thought

to the ideas which Wagner introduced. Following some essays written in 1891-1892 on the Ring, he wrote a great work, La Mise en scéne du drame wagnéien,! and followed this with his masterpiece, Die Musik und die Inszenierung,” four years later.

In Wagner the desire to create in a homogeneous form the integral expression of human drama and all its purity and depth, was many times more

imperious than the influence of the opera itself. But he could not embrace everything. He could not achieve the ultimate until the idea of sacrificing a little of his prodigious musical powers was accomplished. Thus, he did not know how to dominate the cruel conflict in which he was involved (more or less subconsciously), between music, which found neither its adequate exteriorization in the living body of the actor nor this kind of expression under penalty of suppressing itself, and the necessity, nevertheless, of simultaneously presenting both this music and this body. Wagner, in freeing music from its egotistic and perverse isolation—in unifying it with the poet, who should give

birth to it—made the first step, the decisive step. He neglected the human body, however. He considered the body as the visible carrier of the dramatic action, without questioning the break which separates rhythm and musical duration of the body, conserving, in spite of all, its own life outside of this rhythm and of this duration. He made of it all, from the beginning to the end,

a manifest violence. In liberating the body we simultaneously liberate the music. This necessary stage is now behind us: the poet will become a rallying point, one which consecrates the divine union of music and the body.”

Eleven years after his first pronouncement Appia discovered in the rythmique of Jaques-Dalcroze, which was in its early stage, the synthesized answer to his passionate desire. In closely following this body-musical discipline he discovered the living germ of a dramatic art. Here the music, without further isolating the body in illusory splendor (at least during the performance, and without serving it), directs it towards an exteriority in space which confers upon it the very first rank and supreme scenic expression to which all other ‘1A dolphe Appia, La Mise en scéne du drame wagnérien (Paris, 1895). 2 Adolphe Appia, Die Musik und die Inszenierung (Milnchen, 1899). ’3Stadler, "Preface," La Mise..., op. cit.

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factors of the presentation would be subordinated. The discipline of rythmique, he found, was the only one which first awakened the will and the most dominating aspirations of the human being in order afterwards to give them the means to expand them with joy and freedom in space. Beauty is not its objective but its result; it assures us of the purity of our objective. We see that the harmonious culture of the body obeys the profound commands of a music

intended to conquer our passive insulation and thus be responsible for collaborating in some implicit way to effect the demands of the production. Appia’s publication, L'Oeuvre d’art vivant, is dedicated to “Emile Jaques Dalcroze [sic] / the faithful friend to whom I am indebted for providing me with an aesthetic realm.” On the second page he gives homage “to you Walt Whitman, who will understand me since you are LIVING—always.”4 Movement, mobility, is the controller which regulates simultaneously on a given point on the dramatic art, and as it manifests itself singularly and indispensibly it will regulate hierarchically these forms of art, subordinating one to the other, to the end that one looks in vain for that which it alone has. The problem is how to do it—how to apply movement, words, music—things which are immobile in space. Movement is not in itself an element; it is a state, a way of being. We accept the fact that the supreme work of art is the union of all arts—the stage. The body of the actor is the representative of movement in space. He carries the text (with or without music). On the one hand he is master of the text; on the other he holds in one bundle the art of space which he reunites and creates the integral work of art. It is the living and plastic body from which we have to start out in order to return to each of the arts and to determine its place in the dramatic art.”

Dalcroze responded to Appia’s letter and the two lunched at Dalcroze’s home shortly thereafter. Their meeting and subsequent collaboration was a stroke of fate which benefited both parties. Rythmique as a stage technique was one of the important developments that grew out of the alliance. In his work, seeking musical solutions, Dalcroze had an instinct which was drawing him closer and closer to the final truth; it is doubtful, however, that he would ever have achieved it. His genius kept him searching without really understanding what he was seeking. A less devoted person, a less inspired person, would have given up before implementing any major breakthrough. Appia recognized the

fact that Dalcroze had the ability to work out the details which he himself identified as being important. As one of the seventy-seven participants in the first summer course of rythmique that year, Appia offered his new idea of working

4A dolphe Appia, L'Oeuvre d'art vivant (Geneve, 1921), dedication page.

Thid., 19.

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et

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a - ¢ al 2 See i sepk ee. a Ah aPL ae | a@ on Bg —

£2? mS : | Jaques-Dalcroze family in space, a concept of resistance. Taking his suggestions, Dalcroze experimented with placing blocks of differing sizes on the floor, as well as staircases. A way had to be found to work around the obstacles, or to move over them. This became an important manifestation of Appia’s ideas on staging, thus enabling the work

in rythmique to proceed more meaningfully. Through his own interests he inspired excursions into realms equally important but outside the direct sphere of music.

As Jaques-Dalcroze was working out his ideas of rythmique at the conservatory there was, indeed, opposition to the activities. He had been forced to move the experimental classes to another meeting place because the conservatory could not afford the space and facilities that were required.

Nevertheless, when it came time to renew the lease for the Reformation Hall, where the activities then took place, the board of directors told him he would again have to seek other space for his classes. They were reluctant

to discuss the reasons for the decision. Eventually the discomfort was identified: they objected to the costumes worn by the young people who had recently presented a public demonstration of their work. The staid Genevans were horrified by the children’s bare arms and legs.

Nina Jaques-Dalcroze, who was present at the negotiations, asked directly, “What seems to be the difficulty? Don’t you like the bare arms of the young ladies?” Sheepishly, the men replied that, in fact, they did like 86

RYTHMIQUE: EXPERIMENTATION, 1893-1906

them. “So, why is there a problem,” she asked. Silence. There was no problem; the lease was renewed. There were, however, other obstacles towards his developing program.

On 13 July 1905, less than two weeks after the important lecturedemonstration at Soleure, he wrote a letter to the newspaper complaining of the lack of publicity for that venture. The letter had no effect at the time, but it was acquired by Nicholas Rauch, a collector of autographs, at a public auction in 1957. It stated: I would like to know for what reason the Joumal de Genéve disdains to announce certain musical events under the pretext that it does not wish to make publicity while announcing with emphasis, without taking the least trouble to hide from the world all the events of the progress of the Christian Union, of the Consistory, and of the Blue Cross; why it reports all the religious brochures and no musical works, why it gives 10 columns to the Unionist Congress and two lines to the Congress at Soleure— and why, finally—while admitting that the publishers do not love music and suppose consequently that no one else is interested in it—refuses to mention an absolutely new course, originated in all aspects by a local man for the first time in this world, while devoting 25 lines to announce that the Garde Répubicaine and all that are going to do a fantasie on the Féte de vignerons, to say nothing of all the notices on plainchant, of the Madeleine, and of the Christian Union already mentioned. Meanwhile, let’s have a little justice, which even the devil [is due].

Dalcroze’s pique with regard to inadequate publicity can readily be understood. The Gazette de Lausanne carried an item in the 24 September 1906 issue

under the heading, “At the Institute of Music,” which stated that Mlle. de Gerzabeck was to give a course in gymnastique rythmique after the remarkable

method of M. Jaques-Dalcroze given at the conservatory. In addition to its utility for all ages, this course was especially addressed to children between the ages of six and eleven. It had as its aim the development of musical rhythmic

mentality and to give the child control of his whole body so that he could realize spontaneously and automatically any rhythm or combination of rhythms. It went on to mention that all who had seen the work of the students of Jaques-Dalcroze were astonished at the immense progress realized by this

’6This letter was preserved by Mooser and was printed 4 July 1965 in La Suisse as one of three

items he wrote in conjunction with the Jaques-Dalcroze centennial. At first Mooser was critical of Jaques-Dalcroze, both as a musician and for his new educational system. Later, probably through his friendship and professional relationship with Prince Wolkonsky, a devoted Dalcroze follower, his ideas changed and he became less vehement in his opposition.

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method of musical education for the young generation. The same issue announced the foundation of an independent institute for gymnastique rythmique by Mlle. Louisa Roos and Charles Troyon, Charles Mayor and Paul Bally

at the Ecole de Commerce, opening the following day at 4:15 p.m. There would be classes for children of the ages six to ten and age twelve and over, and the public was invited to attend. The following day the Journal de Genéve announced a course of gymnastique rythmique to be given at the Petite Salle

de la Reformation (instead of the Casino), from 3 October to 15 May on Wednesdays and Saturdays for children, girls and adults.

Amidst this flurry of commercial announcements there also appeared

an article by Adolphe Appia and his cousin Henri Odier entitled “L’Expérience du rythme.” It said, in part: In the words of certain physiologists, the excess of muscular development

works to the detriment of the intellect; this assertion can be argued in the question of sport or athleticism; gymnastique rythmique, on the contrary, has for aim and for result to bring this perfect possession of itself which is fixed in the adage: mens sana in corporo sano (asound mind in a sound body). Sportive gymnastics is a virtuosity which has its end in itself: beauty is only accidental.

In gymnastique rythmique it is an educative virtue which predisposes the individual to a wise economy of forces. The realisation of beauty is always the

natural consequence of it... As one communicates to the body a musical problem, it [the body] is transfigured.?’

Other instructors of Jaques-Dalcroze’s method were identifying special attributes of rythmique. Anne Morand, offering a course in Lausanne, stated:

“The committee of the Ecole Vinet is persuaded that the teaching of the method of Jaques-Dalcroze, which concentrates on the formation of rhythmic

and musical feeling, presents a marvelous edification of volition and will become a general practice in all schools with the same validity, as singing or drawing.’®

Paul Gennaro, one of the method’s early antagonists, printed an announcement: Coming soon / Paul Gennaro / Battle against the ideas / of M. Jaques-Dalcroze / net price .75 fr / [to be] sold at Foetisch Fréres /at Lausanne,

and in all music stores. He further pursued his quarry in the Gazette de Lausanne wherein he disputed Dalcroze’s explanation, in the same issue, as to why music instruction should begin with the study of rhythm. Under the headline “Gennaro against Jaques-Dalcroze,” the writer said that he had to ‘Adolphe Appia and Henri Odier, "L’Expérience du rythme," Journal de Genéve, (25 Sep. 1906). *8Gazette de Lausanne, (3 Oct. 1906).

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repudiate because of the immensity of the enterprise, the columns of the paper which contained errors in his brochure Combat contre les idées de M JaquesDalcroze,”» the sale of which had been previously advertised. He said he would defend his ideas in another method, by giving a series of lectures on the subject which was so close to his heart: the rational basis of musical instruction.

Gennaro’s comments were personal and sarcastic. Occasionally he referred to specific points, but his manner of disputing them was not convincing. For example, he mentioned that Dalcroze, in arriving at some of his ideas

conceming technical approaches, consulted such musicians as Joachim, Weingartner, Schillings, and others—men, he asserted, who had made no contribution to the teaching of music. On the statement of Dalcroze, that music education tends to divide elements and to.destine each one to teach something in particular, he (Gennaro) had said the same thing twelve years ago. On other questions Gennaro based his opinions on current practices or prejudices. For example: Dalcroze: Frequently mothers allow the child to play the piano before he understands or appreciates music. Gennaro: Of course. How can one know music without having played the piano?

Dalcroze: The child should not begin to play the piano until he has developed a feeling for music, can analyze to some extent and can coordinate some movements. Gennaro: Impossible. Can you analyze a sentence before you learn to read?

Dalcroze: Before playing the piano the child must understand and experiment with natural laws of meter and rhythm. Gennaro: Can a child after one month know more than a man of 26 years (his teacher) with 20 years of piano study? Dalcroze: The child will like scales when he knows how each one differs from one another. After he plays, for example, a scale in A-flat have him play “J’ai du bon tabac.” Gennaro: Jaques-Dalcroze should hang out a sign reading “Pharmacy for little souls and spirits.”

Dalcroze expressed the thought that when a pianist thinks of the key of A-flat, it evokes certain responses which cause the second finger to reach

for A-flat, the third for B-flat, and the thumb for C. No, said Gennaro, himself a pianist, the key evokes no fingers; yet he hears A-flat whether it 28Gennaro, Paul, "Combat contra les idées de M. Jaques-Dalcroze.

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is produced by the piano, the orchestra, or by any instrument or a singer. Gennaro stated some of his own theories based on the educational principles of others—Herbert Spencer, for example. Open criticism, such as Paul Gennaro’s, did little to harm the growth

and expansion of Dalcroze’s work, and it did nothing to irk him either.

Dalcroze was bothered only by quiet, insidious criticism due to misunderstanding or misinterpreting all he was attempting to accomplish. He was proud of his ten years of work and experimentation and especially of the demonstrations he had been conducting for the last three of these years. The apex of his achievement was, of course, the publication of the complete method.

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CHAPTER IV

La Rythmique: Ear Training, 1892-1906 The years Jaques-Dalcroze spent at the Conservatoire de Genéve (18921910) saw him engaged in three activities, each one equivalent to full-time production. First, he was Professor of Harmony, Solfége, and later, Composition; secondly, composer of numerous large scale works which were performed locally and abroad in very distinguished circles; thirdly, the most

important operation, the concept, development and propagation of his method, which came to be known as la rythmique. These were not separate accomplishments but integrated functions, any one of which led to incorporation of the other two practices. By this time the conservatory was well developed. Francois Bertholoni

had founded it in 1835 and on its first staff was Franz Liszt, who was responsible for organizing the piano department. The program, based mainly

on the techniques established at the Paris Conservatory, makes it even today one of the strongest on the continent in musical training. The Bavarian musician Hugo de Senger (1832-1892), after completing his musical studies in Munich and Leipzig, arrived in Switzerland as a

choral director in 1860. He came to Geneva in 1869 to conduct the symphonic concerts and, in 1872, he replaced Ermst Wehrstedt (17951876) as director of the Sacred Music Society. Appointments as Professor of Theory and director of the male choir at the conservatory came in the

same year. This sincere musician had much to do with the training of numerous Swiss musicians, including Jaques-Dalcroze. His death in January 1892 left a void which was filled in April of that year by the almost unanimous vote of the appointments committee in favor

of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze and Otto Barblan (1860-1943) to share the courses in theory. Barblan also took over direction of the Sacred Music

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Society and the teaching of organ.! Born in the Grisons, Barblan, along with Jaques-Dalcroze, made major contributions to the productions of important Swiss Festspielen. In a short time a reorganization of the theory program at the conservatory took place, and Dalcroze was also assigned the advanced course in solfége. Originally the term solfége (Italian solfeggio) meant a work to be sung without words, primarily for the sake of vocal training and as such came to

be composed for this special purpose. This type of music is now more popularly known as “vocalise” (Italian vocalizzo). In singing without words, either a neutral vowel, aoro (ah, oh), or the solmization syllables were used. At present the term solfége is used to denote special exercises, even Courses, in the rudiments of music, advancing to work of considerable difficulty. The nearest equivalent in American musical training would be courses in sight

singing, or music reading, where the goal is to develop the ability to sing unfamiliar music at sight. In Europe the training goes much further. Solfége is a course designed not only to enhance the student's ability to read music but also, through it, to improve his hearing ability (ear training) and to improve his harmonic, melodic, and rhythmic skills, i.e., to “hear” the music inwardly. Solfége in European conservatories may take as long as four years of study. It may also

be a fundamental course given prior to the student’s exposure to other musical study. In Geneva, for example, a child in a public school who wishes to join the violin class is not given his instrument until he has completed a

certain level in solfége, a course which normally takes two years to accomplish. In American schools no similar system has been adopted; schools use methods of their own which are supposed to produce the same results, to enhance the student’s facility in handling musical elements and advance

his skill in music reading (sight singing). Sometimes these exercises are included in theory courses, but more often the subject is presented by itself without relating to an overall, or integrated, musical concept. Both methods have advantages depending upon how deeply involved

the subject becomes and how skillful the instructor is who trains the students. Although the teaching of solfége is widespread in Europe there are questions as to its suitability in terms of interest to the student and what he accomplishes as compared to the time taken to learn the technique and the usefulness of the training by itself. For the most part it is conceded that 'Under Barblan’s direction the society gave first performances in Geneva of such important choral works as Bach's "Magnificat," "St. Matthew" and "St. John Passions," "B Minor Mass," Beethoven’s "Missa Solemnis,” and Brahms’s "German Requiem," Franck’s "Beatitudes," oratorios of Handel and masses of Mozart.

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European training in solfége is superior to American training in that European students generally seem to be better prepared to inwardly hear harmonic and melodic passages as well as to express these passages outwardly, vocally.? This result is apparent even with students whose interest lies in

instrumental performance.

Karl Gehrkens (1882-1975), a leading figure in American music education, claimed to have incorporated many of Jaques-Dalcroze’s ideas even before the Swiss educator systematized his method. Gehrkens, however, did not agree with the stress on solfége, probably because it was too disciplined an element for American practice. He also believed in accepting parts rather than “all or none” of the method. Prior to his formal appointment at the conservatory, Jaques-Dalcroze was well known in Geneva. A full program of his works had been given at the conservatory in 1889, and earlier, in 1885, he had given a formal piano recital in Lausanne.‘ He had been called upon to do part-time teaching in music history and he had lectured on the subject in other cities in the area. His courses were substantial and well attended. Comfortably established in his parents’ spacious quarters, he settled down to teaching and composition, as well as accepting private students in diction, solfége, harmony, and composition. At one time or another in every composer’s career, including that of Jaques-Dalcroze, one encounters neutral or negative reactions to his work.

When he exhibited his first ideas on rythmique, and even when the techniques were highly developed, disagreements and objections were thrown into his path. As a teacher, however, there never were questions raised concerning his ability. In fact, the actual teaching qualities which he possessed found in rythmique a vehicle for further producing the results he sought in the classroom. Foremost among his pedagogical attributes were his personal characteristics: kindliness, understanding, humor, sincerity, and honesty. Next came devotion to his task and energy sufficient to face the problems and to solve them. His own professional background and understanding of musical “Frederick Louie Ritter (1834-1891), choral conductor, composer and writer, commented on the situation. See his Music in America, new ed. (New York, 1895), particularly the chapter "Survey of the Present State of Musical Activity," 475-506. Ritter had moved from his birthplace, Strasbourg, to Cleveland in 1856 and then settled in New York in 1861. *Karl W. Gehrkene, "A Page or Two of Opinion,” Educational Music Magazine 29 (Sept.-Oct. 1949) 8. 4Edgar Refardt, Historisch- Biographisches Musiklexikon der Schweiz (Leipzig, 1928) 148.

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and artistic difficulties, combined with a rare sense of integrity, drove him to seek solid, uncompromising results. Recognizing differences in each student, he sought means to reach the individual person and his unique circumstances. Never did he seek to throw the entire student group into a mass and project his line of instruction to the average, or to any single level, of that mass. He was never lax in his own attitudes and he would not permit laxity in his students’ work. He knew that he had the ability to meet any teaching situation without specific preparation for that encounter, to “wing it,” as the modern academic expression is understood. Yet he made extensive notes and gathered a quantity of information relative to the objectives of each class he approached. By being thoroughly prepared himself for his lessons he set a fine example for the students to follow. Emile’s ability to play, at the piano, just about anything that a situation required was one of his greatest assets. If it was a Strauss waltz or a Chopin prelude it came out deliciously. Be it a Bach fugue or a Mozart sonata it also came out with distinction. And if it were an invention of the moment, an improvisation, there was that inimitable facility for which he was so greatly admired. He was able to demonstrate any mood, any technique, any idea that needed to be produced. The ability to do this was not limited to music alone; he could do the same with words or with sketches. Even if the problem

was one of harmony, he could, at the spur of the moment, turn out a verse of topical interest, perhaps referring to a student in the class—Marie’s new shoes, or Anne’s red dress—clever in itself, yet furnishing an illustrative

example to highlight the particular problem in harmony. The students reveled in such demonstrations of spontaneity and skill. One of his students habitually came to class late. As she entered the room one day, Emile was pointing out a particular figure at the keyboard. Immediately he picked out her footsteps and put them into his left-hand rhythm, accelerating just as did the student’s steps, until she reached her

seat and sat down; even that motion was indicated in suitable musical language. This student, it is said, never arrived late again.

On another occasion Emile was writing notes on the blackboard, illustrating a problem of the moment, when the janitor, believing that the

room was not in use, opened the door and was about to come in. He immediately noticed that he did not belong there; a look of consternation

overcame him, and he quickly withdrew and shut the door. Scarcely stopping the motion of the chalk, Dalcroze sketched the man’s face with that momentary look of bewilderment, definitely recognizable, which served again as asingular entertainment for the class. Such acombination of talents as Dalcroze possesssed was rare indeed. 94

LA RYTHMIQUE: EAR TRAINING

Sometimes, when examining students’ papers, along with formal remarks, he would include a small sketch, a limerick, or a similar eye-catching device which would make a lasting impression by way of criticism. These

little tricks caught and sustained the students’ interest and enthusiasm, helping to underline certain points most effectively. In fact, his gift for sketching caused him to join a club of painters, Sapajou, in 1895, where he served as caricaturist. One unit in the solfége course dealt with the sound and other qualities

of the various orchestral instruments. He arranged for students of the conservatory, proficient in performance on their instruments, to come to the class to demonstrate their instruments and to comment on their characteristics, range, fingerings, limitations, effects they could produce, solo literature, and passages from the orchestral repertory. For his own major

contribution, he assigned Beethoven’s Eighth Symphony for study. Each student was given an instrumental part to study, memorize and learn to sing. A conductor was appointed from the student group, and then the score was put together in the classroom, each student singing his assigned instrumental part without a score before him—a novel and effective exercise. Later,

in demonstrations of rythmique, Emile used the same idea with body movement, each instrumental part of the symphony being performed in person, on the floor, instead of by singing the part. For the unit on instruments, Jaques-Dalcroze demonstrated another timely accomplishment. He composed a set of variations for orchestra on the popular Swiss melody La Suisse est Belle, each variation featuring a

particular instrument, demonstrating the special characteristics of that instrument. The formal composition, XIII Piccole Variazioni Orchestrali/Sulla canzone popolare/La Suisse est belle,> turned out to be one of the composer’s more popular works, predating by about fifty years Benjamin Britten’s Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra. In this case it showed that the teacher could do as well as teach.

Throughout the conservatory, but particularly in Jaques-Dalcroze’s

classes, the emphasis was on musicianship. To develop the quality of musicianship to a high degree, he concentrated on the use of the ear, certainly the most useful musical attribute one possesses. This premise was

not new. To produce a tone vocally one had to hear it, or to think it, internally. To sing, play or write harmonic progressions one had to exercise his capability to hear, even to use his capacity of anticipatory hearing. All "In English the melody is known as "Life let us cherish,” in German, "Freut euch das Lebens.”

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problems in music—whether they are practical or theoretical, producing a tone with the voice or an instrument, recording a symbol which represents a tone, distinguishing differences of meanings even within a single sound— involved the use of the ear and emphasized the need for ear training in its various manifestations.

By 1893, the second year of his tenure at the conservatory, JaquesDalcroze had already developed ideas concerning the approach to improvement of the students’ hearing in the solfége classes. This ear training method was published under the title Exercices pratiques d’intonation in Paris, Leipzig and Neuchatel by Sandoz, Jobin in 1894. Then, an improved and expanded edition, Scales and Keys, Phrase and Nuance, divided into three volumes, became the third part of his method, published in 1906. In the opening paragraphs of Exercices Dalcroze emphasizes the fact

that the method is based upon the hearing of music as much as upon the production of it. The instructor’s first aim is to have the child thoroughly understand the difference between the tone and the semitone. He also stressed the value of “perfect pitch,” the ability to recognize a tone by its sound, similar to the recognition of a color or an object by viewing it. Perfect pitch is not inborn, as is often believed, but can be learned if study is begun early and if it precedes the study of an instrument. Learning the tone-semi-

tone difference begins with the comparative study of scales. In common

practice, each scale was formed by the same succession of tones and semitones, always in the same order. Thus the scale of A-flat is only the melody of the scale of C, transposed, and the relationship of the two scales escapes one. But if one follows the sequence of notes in the A-flat scale,

°It is not only the difference in size between the tone and the semitone but also the placement of these intervals that constitute a system, whether it be the 18cth—19th-century major-minor system, the hexachordal mutation system generally attributed, to Guido d’Arezzo (c. 9951050) or the 9th-century church modes. These are western tonal organizations; numerous eastern systems are based on other considerations. Recognition of the semitone, the heart of western systems, was noticed early in musical history with the development of notation.

About the 11th century a line was drawn above the written text. This line was a pitch reference. The various signs (notes) placed on the line, above or below it at different levels on the page indicated higher or lower pitches in relation to the line, the equivalent of F, normally the center of the average melody compass. Thus the E-F semitone was clearly established. Even without staff lines the the single line F may be regarded as a clef sign. Presently a second line drawn above the F line came to be used. It designated the pitch C, also highlighting the semitone B-C. Later, letters were written on the lines (F and C) and, with the addition of more lines, in between (A), above or below, a stable staff came into use. By shifting the clef sign (letters F or C—it was unneccesary to use both signs), a fairly wide compass could be accomodated by the notation.

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beginning on the note C, tonic of the scale of C, one finds that the melody differs from that which characterizes the C scale and that the tones and semitones are not in the same place. In a relatively short time the student thus learns the scales, and the fundamental tone C becomes engraved in his memory. Taking dictation, i.e., naming notes, either orally or by writing, as produced by the instructor or another student, is also important. The study of scales requires a long period of time—two to three years or more—but must not be neglected. All other musical studies, except the study of rhythm, are associated with scales and will become childs-play: intervals—parts of scales; chords—superposition of tones of the scale; resolutions—satisfaction accorded suspended notes of the scale as they continue their movement; modulation—joining of one scale to another. All that concerns melody and harmony is contained implicitly in the study of scales and it is only a question of terminology and classification. Before beginning the practical exercises to develop hearing, JaquesDalcroze expounds on the importance of teaching nuance and phrasing, as exemplified in the important writings of Mathis Lussy. They are necessary and desirable steps toward developing the student’s creative instincts and improvisatory facility. Four drills are initially proposed:

1. To coordinate the sound of a note with the name of that note. Each day the student sings a number of notes and speaks out the name of each note. To enhance concentration this is done with the eyes closed.

2. Each day, upon awakening, the student attempts to sing the pitch C and then checks his accuracy with a pitch pipe, tuning fork, or an instrument. He repeats this as frequently as possible during the day. 3. The student tries to name pitches of everyday nonmusical sounds (automobile horns, the tinkle of glasses, a door bell) and checks with a pitch pipe or other means. 4. The student strikes C on the piano and attempts to pick out the tones of the resulting harmonic series.’

2 ST oa _— & -

"In this report, reference to a general note is made by the capital letter. Designation of pitch by letter will be made according to the following method:

oS Cl o C C c! c! b! c2 re Qva 97

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Exercises to develop agreement between hearing and vocal presentation:

1. Instructor plays, on piano or other instrument, tones outside the singing range. The student responds by singing that tone in his octave.

>o°

—$—- ry

instructor plays sj student sings [= 2. Instructor writes on board a melody using skips of one to three octaves ona treble staff, wider skips with treble and bass ranges; student sings in his octave

instructor plays student sings

LY oe oo == = GPs ee oo

= e@ ©

Exercises to practice memorization follow. In one of these the instructor dictates a melody, measure by measure, verbally, i.e., naming the notes and giving the rhythm, but without singing. Next he connects the measures, l and 2, 2 and 3, etc., then the students sing back the complete melody.

Dictation is given, with the instructor singing a melody one note at a time (each note of equal rhythmic value), and the students write each note as it is sung. Then the students sing the entire melody, still in equal note values. The instructor then indicates the meter by singing the melody with strong accentuation on the first beat of the measure while the students write in the bar lines ahead of each accented note. The instructor verifies the bar line placement, then sings the melody in rhythm, measure by measure, as

the students write it. Three-and-a-half pages of melodies are given for dictation drill, to be completed in this way. Progress seems to be slow, but one notices intense concentration on each element which exercises hearing ability. Sufficient drill is included not only for expanding hearing capacities but also to exercise the process of visual symbolization for what is heard,

recognition of individual notes, their movement in series and rhythmic

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isolation—the complete process. Emphasis on a single technique at a time further enforces the training. The next chapter introduces the all-encompassing system of scales

and their differentiations, again at a slow but thorough pace. JaquesDalcroze designates the degrees of the scale by Roman numerals as well as by their harmonic names: I = tonic, I] = supertonic, and so on. He explains

the appellative and resultant qualities of the semitones which occur between the degrees III and IV and between VII and VIII of the major scale. He also explains the alterations of the degrees by single and double sharps and flats. Special names are given to the alterations. The new exercises commence with the singing of the C major scale in

simple, even rhythms of two, three, four, six and nine notes to the beat, ascending and descending. Then instead of even rhythms some arbitrary

patterns are given, e.g., J. ) } J . The scale of C and other keys are sung in this rhythm, extending the range to d* ascending, and to b descending, to accommodate the rhythm pattern so that c! is sung on the

strong beat. An additional 40 rhythmic patterns are given for drills in ; meter, 32 for , and 30 each in . and rn and 60 for practice in °. At this point he turns attention to drills in musicianship, as a rule of nuance is presented:* make a crescendo in an ascending passage, a decrescendo in a descending passage. Melodies featuring scaler groupings are given for the purpose of drill, observing this rule. Another type of melodic exercise appears indicating rhythms with note values, but scale degrees are given by Roman numerals only. With the completion of the foregoing practices and the scale tones 3—4, 7-8 (III-IV, VII-VIII or | in text language) semitone relationship firmly

impressed, the raised fourth degree, still built upon c! is introduced. The instructor sings the scale of C, ascending and descending, then again with the fourth degree, F, raised to F- sharp. He repeats one or the other; the students indicate whether F or F-sharp is sung. Now he sings a number of

scalar melodies with either F or F-sharp and the students respond by identifying the III-IV interval as being either the semitone or the whole tone.

The two scalar successions are then compared: three tones, semitone, two tones, semitone—scale of G; two tones, semitone, three tones, semitone—scale of C. Then the students sing, beginning on the V degree, the 8The succssion of rules occurring in this and succeeding volumes will be stated at the end of the chapter.

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former succession. They recognize the satisfied feeling of the note G as the tonic feeling, and thus they note that F-sharp has become the appelative note instead of the note B, and the tonic is now G. Continuing, the students

sing the scale c! to c? interpolating the sharp for the fourth degree, and complete the exercise by appending the note G, the new tonic. They learn that, as a convenience, the sharp can be put into the signature instead of writing it in place on the staff for each F which is to be altered. Previous exercises for the key of C, with the many rhythmic and metric

variations, are repeated, this time interpolating the sharp on the fourth degree. For the purpose of interest, one or two students may replace the instructor in singing the studies. More melodies in Roman numerals are presented for realization in varying rhythms in the key of G. The scale of D is introduced by altering C to C-sharp in the G scale, still in the usual range except for the C-sharp alteration. For the new key similar drills are added to those studied previously. Several additional rules of nuance are presented along the way, and also a new series—trules of phrasing—is introduced. The insertion of these

rules and the examples and accompanying drills serve to bring into play attention to artistry and interpretation. These are tailored to provide further work in scalar theory but are a welcome and valuable divergence. In similar fashion the other sharped keys are learned. Before going into the study of the flatted keys, Jaques-Dalcroze offers two rules which apply to changes of measure by virtue of the positions of accented notes. The examples illustrate his point by presenting melodies

barred in measures of two, three, or four beats, without indicating meter signatures, but wherein each measure is correctly constructed according to accent—strong or secondary—but without syncopation. He allows for differences according to interpretations by competent musicians, and states that verbal texts best determine proper accentuation. For practical work along these lines the instructor offers various verses to which the students will determine accentuation of the syllables and set the verses to melody. By this time (1906) Jaques-Dalcroze had become a keen observer of rhythmic principles, astute enough to cite a fallacy in the notation usually found

6 SS SS Sa

in the popular song Au claire de la lune.

Au claire. de la lu- sine, Mon a mi Pier100

LA RYTHMIQUE: EAR TRAINING

(ee

-Tot, Pré- te- moi ta plu- me, Pour € crire un mot.

which, more correctly, should be barred as follows:

———— = SS \ } ——— —— ——— | Au claire de la tu ne, Mon a- mi Pier-

ra’ 5 ——k —h~

‘rot. Pré- te- moi ta plu- me, Pour €- crire un mot.

To introduce the scale with a flat, the instructor sings the scale in C, descending and ascending, then he repeats it, but lowers the seventh degree to B-flat. Various exercises are given, concentrating on the B-B-flat problem

and, as in the case of the earlier exercises developed to learn F-sharp, the students now learn where the flat occurs. A series of melodies is sung, sometimes in C, sometimes in F. The students note the altered seventh

degree and whether the last note of the scale (C), offers the quality of completeness, finality, and tonic feeling.

Following this are systematized presentations in the flatted keys, treated similarly to the exercises previously studied, again using given rhythmic patterns, melodies notated and also indicated by Roman numerals.

The octave scale is extended when required and, to avoid confusion, the figuration is clarified: I®, II’—the superscript indicates extension above the usual octave—and VIII,, VII,—the subscript indicates tones below. Jaques-

Dalcroze resorts to an interesting expedient. As part of the exercises for flatted scales he refers to previous drills, written in C, which had been employed with F-F-sharp alterations, which now are to be sung in E-flat or A-flat by altering the appropriate notes. He frequently acknowledged the writings and teachings of his mentor Mathis Lussy. Now, feeling the impor-

tance of Lussy’s 1903 publication, The Anacrusis in Modern Music,’ he concentrates on the anacrusis (upbeat, note or groups of notes preceding the initial downbeat) in connection with one of his rules on phrasing. The SMathis Lussy, L’Anacrouse dans la musique modeme (Paris, 1903).

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exercises involving the anacrusis at first contain breath marks to delineate the phrase, but later these are omitted, thus allowing the student to find the place for the breath or phrase distinction. Double flats are briefly discussed before giving a table of all sharped and flatted keys, written c!-c? with the proper key signatures indicated, and with the positions of the semitones marked. The last section of volume one offers review: all of the scales; questions

asked of the students by the instructor with answers to the problems; and scales in any key to be sung by the instructor, repeated by the student, but with an ending on the key tonic. There are additional changes for emphasis,

such as prearranged responses of the students, and singing with varied rhythmic patterns. A short section treats melodic sequences, with examples, and exercises to be sung with displacements occurring at various intervals. This is followed by drills employing melodies sung, not in sequence, but

transposed to other keys. The final thirty pages consist of melodies to be sung in observance of all of the preceding rules—and exceptions to the rules—of nuance, phrasing, double sharps and flats, metrical measure changes, and anacruses. The concept of drilling on scales and keys within a singable range—always the same range—is noteworthy. It constitutes a tremendous contribution to the area of teaching music theory; probably the most significant idea of the century, because it stresses hearing, the most neglected aspect of musical training. The care and attention devoted to the numerous single elements to which each problem is reduced is a tribute to Jaques-Dalcroze’s devotion to detail and to thoroughness. Each of the hundreds of melodies given for the various drills applies to a single problem

on hand and allows for interesting variations to further emphasize the solution to the problem. One is amazed to observe the distinct musical quality of the melodies and exercises as well as the many original, unusual, resourceful, and effective devices employed as drill techniques. Throughout

the volume there is attention not only to the techniques of the moment, but also to the pursuit of complete musicianship. Jaques-Dalcroze performed, as did Mathis Lussy, a particular service in delineating certain qualities of musicianship inherent in performance, in analyzing them, and then verbalizing them in scientific order. The second volume of Scales and Keys, Phrase and Nuance studies the major scale in portions of varying distances: dichords, trichords, tetrachords, pentachords, hexachords, and heptachords. There are additional “rules” of phrase and accent, as well as instructions to review the work of volume one.

Exercises are to be sung by the student, not played at the keyboard nor written, thus intensifying the hearing and the learning process. He devised 102

LA RYTHMIQUE: EAR TRAINING

2 og. . |

a special symbolization for a part of the work now presented, indications of

the starting note of the scale, the extent of the scale fragment and its direction.

i= ascending dichord (two conjunct steps) on the tonic

V1 = descending trichord (three conjondthe h 3 = descending trichor (three conjunct steps or degrees) submediant. The symbols apply to all keys.

The instructor varies the types of exercises: he sings a series of dichords, students identify the degrees of the scale upon which they are sung; students sing a series called for by the blackboard symbols; the

instructor sings, in any key, a series inscribed on the board, students determine the key: the instructor sings a series in one key, students repeat the series in another prearranged key. The drills point out major and minor dichords (whole tone, whole tone-semitone respectively), ascending and descending. The system of symbols is altered for the trichord drills with a staff replacing the Roman numeral idea.

3.

—— = 5

Major (tone— tone) and minor (tone— semitone, semitone — tone) trichords are carefully studied in all keys and from each degree of the scale. The drills once more are varied and quite intense.

As the scale fragments become longer, and thus more complicated, the exercises have more variation, provoke more thought, and delve more deeply into tonal constructions. To expand the process of musicianship and to relieve the disciplinary tensions Jaques-Dalcroze periodically inserts additional exercises with spelled out “rules” in vocal improvisation upon given rhythmic and melodic formulas. From volume one, he continues the rules of nuance and phrase, and now presents a series of rules of accentua-

tion, another technical device of musical and aesthetic significance. Chromatic alterations previously became familiar passages through scale formations. Now the chromatic scale is introduced very systematically—a

chromatic insert between each diatonic interval, one at a time. This 103

RHYTHM AND LIFE

deliberate approach, rather than exposing the complete chromatic octave all at once, is commendable.

The study continues with tetrachords and pentachords—pertect, diminished or augmented, according to their positions within the scale. Studies of inverted tetrachords, pentachords, hexachords and heptachords (major, minor, or diminished) evoke further insights pertaining to scalar construction. As the study of portions of the scale proceeds to include larger and larger fragments, the student feels the position of the various degrees in ever increasing relationships. Whereas at first he concentrated on tones and semitones, he now has acquired the relative attractions of all of the

intervals, the significance of the leading tone, the dominant and the mediant.

The third volume continues the analyses of heptachords and hexachords, then proceeds to the study of minor scales and modulations. Jaques-Dalcroze classifies the heptachord into four species according to the conjunct trichords and four species according to the organization of the pentachords. This concept is entirely original and constitutes a penetrative

study much more profound than anything attempted before, or since, including in this aspect of musical theory, Lussy’s studies. Not only are there ample exercises to be done here, but additional material is employed from volume two.

In the heptachord study the first species is always constructed on the dominant; and trichords, in order, are major, minor, minor. A table indicating the various species follows.

é Minor Major See ~ eeQe eo eae | —— ?= —— = —— = —— eee aA

Ist species (on V) 2d species (on VII) Major Minor Minor ; jy Minor Minor.;———r Mor , —_ eo-— -~-aJ———_—____________. 3d species (on IJ) (on III) (on VI, key of F)

Minor Major Minor Minor Major Minor Minor Major Minor

Ces he ae 4th species (on I, key of D) (on IV, key of B-fiat).

Major Minor Major Major Minor Major

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LA RYTHMIQUE: EAR TRAINING

Drills are performed in all keys, ascending and descending.

SSS ee —

Another organization within the heptachord is the pentachordal progression, one built upon the lower five notes of the heptachord, the other upon the upper five notes. Minor trichord

Major pentachord Diminished pentachord

The following chart summarizes the four species:

Species On Lower pentachord — Upper pen- Connecting tachord trichord

Ist V major diminished — minor 2d VII diminished minor minor 3rd IT, IV, VI minor major major

4th I, TV major minor minor

.6

Dalcroze develops still another innovative concept in the inversion of the heptachord according to the position of the trichords of which it is made.

a) 2d tric. b) .s hexachord ———— 3rd tric. 2ndtric. 3rd tric. dic. Ist tric.

, 3d tric. dic. — Ist tric. dic. Ist tric. 2d tric.

a) heptachord composed of three trichords

b) Ist inversion: Ist trichord is inverted, the 2d trichord being the lower; hexachord (the two trichords) and a dichord, the latter being an inversion 105

RHYTHM AND LIFE

of the heptachord. The Ist inversion is figured . which represents the position of the dichord, the 5th and 6th degrees. c) 2d inversion: The 2d trichord is inverted. The figuration is ; d) 3d inversion: The 3d trichord is inverted. The figuration is 2, the dichord is on the 2d degree. (The dichord is the inversion of the heptachord.) The study further expands the * hexachord into four species according

to the make-up of the various trichords and dichords, or pentachord and dichord.

Ispecies _— _ ae 31 ——9 —° ——

min. tric. dim. pent. maj. dic.

ae min. tric. maj. dic.

Whereas the Ist species heptachord is constructed on the 5th degree, the Ist species hexachord, which actually is its Ist inversion, being made up of the upper two trichords and a dichord, is constructed on the 7th degree. Thus, in the key of E-flat.

Sara =e SS Oo pe 9p-0— —o — . oO — : —, min. tric. min. tric. maj. dic. dim. penta maj. dic.

(One always sings the tonic tone at the end of the exercise.) In its descending form, on D, the hexachord is realized as:

maj. dic. min. tric. min. tric.

The 2d species ° hexachord is constructed on the 2d degree.

min. penta. Nee min. tric. maj. tric. maj. dic. min. tric. maj. tric. maj. dic.

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LA RYTHMIQUE: EAR TRAINING

The 3d species : hexachord is constructed on the Ist, 4th, or 5th degrees.

maj. penta. min. penta.

inE,degree F =o eedegree th SC Fee Ist aehea min tric. maj. tric, maj. dic. maj. tric. min. tric. maj. dic.

.6

Inasmuch as the 5 chord may be constructed on several degrees ot the scale,

more exercises are presented for the study of the 3d species.

;;4

The 4th species ; hexachord is constructed on the 3d or 6th degrees.

or din min. penta.

min. tric. maj. tric. min. dic. — _. g — In C, iy ————— d ; ) 5 a

ce ae =~ on ‘6th, 2 =

on 3d degree - = CBIce “e min. tric. Maj. (ric. min. dic. min, penta.

The 2d inversion of the heptachord produces the , hexachord of which there are also four species according to their inner construction. These are summarized: Ist species, on 2d degree: minor trichord, major dichord, major trichord; or perfect tetrachord and major trichord 2d species, on 4th degree: major trichord, major dichord (= augmented tetrachord), minor trichord 3d species, on 3d, 6th or 7th degrees: minor trichord, major trichord

(= perfect tetrachord), minor trichord 4th species, on Ist or 5th degrees: major trichord, minor trichord (= perfect tetrachord), major trichord The four species of hexachord 2 are summarized thus: Ist species, on 4th degree: major dichord, major trichord, minor trichord; or major dichord and major pentachord 2d species, on 6th degree: major dichord, minor trichord, minor trichord (= diminished pentachord) 3d species, on lst, 2d and 5th degrees: major dichord, minor trichord, major trichord (= minor pentachord) 4th species, on 3d or 7th degrees: minor dichord, major trichord, minor trichord (= major pentachord) After dealing with theory and practice of scales in major keys for more

than two whole volumes, Dalcroze now addresses the minor scale. He explains similarities and differences between these modes, especially the augmented 2d, the 6— 7 dichord in the minor scale. His exercises, however, 107

RHYTHM AND LIFE

(aaa ees @ Ft jan pe | ee

do not attack the augmented 2d directly, but its position in the scale is studied by noting its attraction to the tonic.

33

==

The scales, ascending and descending, in flatted, then in sharped keys are written out and the instruction is given to sing the major scale first, then the minor scale. All examples are given in the usual octave c!— c2, with the exception of D minor, written from B-flat. The text advises ample drill in studying the octave scale prior to undertaking the fragments, trichords to heptachords. Another effective point is made in order to understand the distinction between major and minor scales. Emphasis is placed not only on the tonic (C) of the major and on the tonic (A) of the relative minor, but also on the dominants where the 5th degree in the major mode agrees with the 7th degree in the minor, which is altered as required. The trichord is studied both within and outside the context of the minor scale: first as a major third with three possible infixes: tone — tone; semitone — tone and a half (augmented second); tone and a half— semitone. The examples ascend and descend. Each successive trichord in the minor scale is studied, noting the interval size in each of the six cases. A rubric advises a restudy of all the exercises given for the major scale. The remaining scale fragments are studied in the same way. He still takes pains to illustrate each aspect of the various fragments, their makeup and their positions within the scale. Again the student is reminded to review the preceding major scale fragments. Additional exercises are presented for the studies of tetrachords, pentachords and heptachords. Elaborate groupings of scales are to be sung connectedly, key by key, as indicated in this section of more than eight pages, within the range c! — c? (C- sharp or C-flat as required).

1. Major scales ascending and descending, beginning on C-sharp, proceeding counterclockwise around the circle of fifths (dropping one sharp each time, or adding one flat).

2. Major scales, beginning with C-flat, circling clockwise (dropping one flat each time, or adding one sharp). 3., 4. Harmonic minor scales, same patterns.

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5., 6. Minor scales, same patterns: relative (pure) minor, then harmonic minor, in every key. All scales are done again preceded by the major scale.

7. Major scales followed by their parallel harmonic minor scales in every key, clockwise around the circle in sharped keys: C major, C minor; G major, G minor, etc. The exercise is repeated in the opposite direction, i.e., descending, ascending. The final grouping commences in F major,

followed by F minor harmonic, and proceeds counterclockwise through the flatted keys. This group is also repeated in opposed direction, and also by reversing the order—minor scale followed by major.

Modulation is introduced through a statement of six rules with appropriate illustrative examples and exercises. These rules do not differ from most theoretical concepts except in one respect. Jaques-Dalcroze bases his

rules, and the accompanying material, on melodic lines rather than upon harmonic considerations. Thus he leads one to think of the tones 1, 3 , or 5 of the pentachord rather than the tonic (or dominant) chord. The idea fits his method of deepening the aural aspect of musical training through vocal expression. The first exercises require the student to repeat a two- measure melody in a neighboring key after the instructor sings it in his choice of key. Fourand eight-measure melodies follow. Melodies are organized in groups. In the first group the melody ends on the tones 1, 3, or 5 of the tonic; in the other the melodies end on 1, 3, or 5 of the dominant.

A three-part musical form is then employed. The instructor sings a melody of period length ending on 1, 3, or 5 of the dominant pentachord, the students improvise the second period in the dominant key, ending on 1, 3, or 5 of the dominant pentachord, and then they complete the third period in the tonic key. Longer melodies are now employed, ending on 5 of either the tonic or the dominant, the students continuing by improvising a

period in the dominant key and then another in the tonic key. The instructor sings a three period melody, tonic — dominant — tonic, and then indicates his starting note; the students determine the initial key and express the dominant key.

The next process in modulation observes the common tone principle wherein the last note of the initial melody, the 4th degree for example, may be considered the 6th degree in the next key, and the melody so continues. In the following drill the instructor sings a modulating melody and indicates

the initial key; the students announce the common tone and the key to which he has modulated. The practice of modulating to remote keys, e.g., 109

RHYTHM AND LIFE

from G to G-flat, using the common tone method, continues. Another method of modulation is presented whereby the last note of the initial period is the 1, 3, or 5 of the key in which the melody continues. There is a brief discussion of melodic and modulating sequences, the modulations being of one or two degrees higher or lower. Drill in this technique is required using exercises proposed previously in volume two. Further drill follows, employing trichords, tetrachords, and the other scalar fragments, singularly, and in combinations, to affect modulations as required in the exercises using a figuration system. There is some drill for

the augmented dichord which is sung as such and also sung with two chromatic infixes within the outer tones. So far, references to minor scales

have not used terminology to distinguish between the harmonic and the melodic genera. Work with harmonic minor has been given and now treatment of the melodic genus is introduced. There is a rubric which merely states that the term “harmonic” will be explained in the next volume.

The ascending melodic minor scale, with the raised 6th and 7th steps, and the descending minor scale, containing unaltered tones (actually the tones of the relative scales), are studied next, then exercises requiring the singing of descending minor scales, followed by their tonic tones. With these scales, and with scales in D, D-sharp and D-flat (descending from C, Csharp and C-flat respectively), the instructor plays a chord reinforcing the leading tone as it proceeds to the tonic. The next series of drills asks for melodic minor scales to be sung ascending and descending, all beginning on c', altered when required; the harmonic minor scale sung ascending, the melodic descending (the model gives the lowered 7th degree) ; the harmonic scale descending followed by the melodic ascending. As usual, the tonic is sung after each scale. There is a return to the Roman numeral system, with

indicated rhythm patterns, in the next scalar exercises—harmonic and melodic—in all keys. Besides providing ingenuity in rhythms they contain melodic drill also, employing conjunct tones and skips of varying intervals. The final sixty pages of volume three contain melodies of great variety, minor modes, chromaticism and modulation, and sixteen additional pages of simpler heterogenous melodies. Since no universal “method” for studies of the more modern theoretical systems, such as serialism and microtonalism, is extant, the ear training ideas developed by Jaques-Dalcroze within the major-minor system remain the most extensive and the most valid technical studies produced to date. In commenting upon her master as one of the greatest educators of all times, Elfriede Feudel, one of Jaques-Dalcroze’s esteemed disciples, explained it simply: “He was a musician.” Her statement recognized the universality, 110

LA RYTHMIQUE: EAR TRAINING

sensitivity, and discipline inherent in musicianship of high calibre. In un-

derstanding his powers as a theoretician and as a pedagogue, one can account for his excellence by acclaiming, in like manner: “He was a composer.”

For convenience, the various “rules” interspersed throughout the three volumes are here summarized. Rules of Nuance

1. All ascending melodies must be sung with a crescendo, descending melodies with a diminuendo. 2. In astrongly accented rhythmic passage the nuances of crescendo and diminuendo must be lessened. 3. A prolonged note in an ascending passage receives a crescendo. If the

note following descends, there is a crescendo followed by a decrescendo.

4. A crescendo occurs when a note is repeated several times.

5. When a repeated note passage brings back the initial melody, the crescendo also has a rallentando. 6. If a rhythmic and melodic group is repeated the second time, it should be sung with a different nuance.

7. The preparatory figure which leads into the return of a melody must be done rallentando.

8. Where a melody ends with a conjunct series of notes of the same duration, the last of these notes must be dotted (shortened). If these notes precede the return of the melody they must also have a rallentando. 9. When a succession of notes of equal value leads into the return of a melody whose first notes are of double duration, the rallentando of the connecting passage must be great enough so that its last notes become of double duration.

10. If a series of ascending notes of equal duration occurs, in a section composed of unequal notes, it is necessary to accent each of these notes. 11. When a descending melodic passage brings in a powerful theme, the passage is sung with a crescendo. When an ascending passage brings

in a gentle theme, the passage is sung decrescendo. (Contrary to Rule 1) 12. Ina piece ending with a series of isolated notes in measures containing

rests there must be a rallentando in the rests. 111

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13. In a pattern of two different slurred notes of equal value the notes are in an order of strong—weak. Rules of Phrasing

1. When a rhythmic group is repeated one must observe a slight break before the repetition. (Combine with Rule 6 of Nuance) 2. The final note of a figure, period, or phrase is followed by a rest, a breath, or a short pause. The sonority of this final note is lessened unless it is the final note of a crescendo passage. 3. A break precedes and follows a group of notes which serves only to fill in the measure after the end of a period or phrase. 4. There occurs a break between a note and its repetition. Exceptions are: a) when the two notes represent a feminine ending of a figure, period, or phrase; b) when the two notes do not occur in a feminine ending; are not the beginning of a figure, period, or phrase; or do not represent the final note of one and the beginning note of another of two figures or of two consecutive periods.

5. When the continuation of a series of conjunct notes or of small intervals follows a large interval (five or six degrees) it is necessary to

breathe (break) before the second note of that interval. This rule applies only in slow passages and not at all at the beginning of a piece. 6. If a series of conjunct notes (or small intervals) ends in a large interval

whose two notes constitute a detached feminine ending, and are of longer value than the preceding notes, one must breathe after the last note of the large interval.

, 7. When a melodic or rhythmic group of notes forming a pickup (anacrusis) recurs in a melody, it is necessary to precede it with a break.

8. When a series of notes of a certain value ends on a note of much greater value, break after this last note or after the note of lesser value which follows it (corresponding to a feminine syllable).

9. Break after the first note, or beat, of a measure if the following note constitutes a wide melodic skip. 10. Make a slight break between several groups of two notes when the first note is longer than the second. 11. With few exceptions, take a breath after the note of a phrase which has the feeling of repose (tonic) or semi-repose (dominant, or even subdominant).

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LA RYTHMIQUE: EAR TRAINING

12. Break after the first note which follows a run or a gruppetto (equal note values) if it is of longer value than those of which the preceding group is composed. 13. Break between each repetition of a two-note group where the first note of the pair is of shorter value than the second. 14. Break before and after a group of notes whose role is to fill in an incomplete measure by an imitation, echo, or a transitional run. Rules of Accent

1. Accent strongly the last note of a measure if it is tied over to the first beat of the following measure. 2. Accent the first note of a group which falls on a weak beat when the preceding notes each take up a beat throughout the measure. 3. Accent a note preceded and followed by a rest, even if it falls on a weak beat. 4. Accent more strongly the first note of a measure if it is the same as the last note of the previous measure. 5. Accent strongly, even on a weak beat, the highest note of a descending rhythmic group. 6. A neighboring tone or appogiatura is slightly accented, even on a weak

beat, if it is affected by an accidental. The accent is stronger if the altered tone is the upper neighbor. 7. An altered note introducing a modulation is accented even if it is on a weak beat. Rules of Melodic Improvisation

1. In a well-constructed melody, ascending and descending motion, as

well as static passages, alternate in equitable proportion without becoming monotonous. 2. Avoid too frequent repetition of the same rhythm in a melody. 3. In general, do not use two consecutive intervals larger than a third, either ascending or descending. 4. The 4th or 7th degrees following each other must proceed to the note

a semi-tone next to it (F -B > C;B-F- BE). 5. Two intervals encompassing a 7th may not be used unless one of the intervals is a 2d.

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6. Following the classic ideal, a melody should consist of an even number of measures. This is especially advised for first-year students. 7. To give the first half of the melody the quality of a “question,” the last

note should be the dominant of the scale, or the 3d or 5th of the dominant pentachord.

8. A period of eight measures should consist of two groups of four

measures, the first group being a “question,” the second an “answer.”

9. A six measure period also should be divisible into a question and answer of three measures each.

10. In a regular four-measure period, if the first beat is preceded by a pick-up, it is advisable for a beginning student to repeat the pick-up at the end of the second measure, preceding the first beat of the second two-measure group. If a four-measure period with a pick-up is to be repeated omit the rhythmic value of the pick-up in the last measure.

N.B. For a clearer understanding of the above rules it is necessary to examine the examples provided in the text illustrating each one. In connection with these stated rules of nuance, phrasing, accent and

melodic formulation, Dalcroze offers another “rule,” perhaps the most important of all: although following the given rules will produce correct expressive interpretation, from the standpoint of art and personal feeling, mere exactitude of obeyance may not suffice.'

“Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Méthode Jaques- Dalcroze..., part 3, vol. 1, German ed. by Paul Boepple (Paris, 1906) 23.

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CHAPTER V

Rythmique: Body Movement, 1906-1917

Under the imprint of Sandoz, Jobin in Paris , Neuchatel and Leipzig, the formal appearance of the complete method was advertised in 1906: Méthode Jaques-Dalcroze. Pour le dévéloppement de l’instinct rythmiques, du sens auditif et du sentiment tonal, en 5 parties. Part I—Gymnastique rythmique, known in English as Rhythmic Movement—was the most widely accepted and univer-

sally practiced portion of the method because of its genuine novelty. Although the word “Method” is contained in the title, Jaques-Dalcroze denied that this was indeed a “method.” He felt that he was offering a guide for teachers and students to use as they wished. He advocated the invention

and the use of individual, original ideas and exercises to supplement, or displace, those which he had set down. This was a procedure which he himself always practiced. It might be surmised that an idea or an example not specified in the method, but felt to be necessary, would be an improvement, or at least an advisable technique to use for the moment, according to whatever problem the ongoing class might be encountering. The master’s ability to alter his plan by reason of the dictates of the live situation was a key to his effectiveness as a teacher. To a large extent it is these variations

in his approach—spontaneity rather than the strict compliance with the method—that are remembered in the minds and hearts of so many of his students. In evolving this educational system, Jaques-Dalcroze thought in terms of making the pupils better musicians. An important dictate was to teach the practical side before embarking on the theoretical side. He soon found that the development of hearing was not enough to make the student feel and love music. In music the most forceful element is rhythm. It is most closely allied

to life, and offers the greatest appeal to the senses. Of the musical ele115

RHYTHM AND LIFE

ments—sound, rhythm, and dynamics—the latter two depend entirely on movement and find their counterparts in our muscular system. JaquesDalcroze found that simple walking or marching with arm and body movements was not enough; to grasp rhythm mentally was not enough. There is a lapse between conceiving an idea and carrying it out through the nervous system. Rythmique aims at strengthening the power of concentration; of keeping the body under control while awaiting orders from the intellect; at turning conscious action into unconscious action; to create more motive, habits, new reflexes; to obtain the greatest result with the least effort. It establishes order and clarity in the organism. The system is based on music because music can influence all our vital activities and can express our varied nuances of feeling. The system agrees with the Greek definition of music as “the ensemble of the faculties of our senses and of our spirit, the everchanging symphony of feelings created spontaneously, transformed by the imagination, regulated by rhythm, harmonized by consciousness.”! Rythmique is not only a pedagogic method—it is a force analogous to electricity or to the chemical and physical forces of nature. It has the mission of creating closer relations between body and Spirit.

The purpose of Part I was to develop rhythmic instinct and musical

meter, in other words, the feeling of plastic harmony and balance of movements, and to regulate motor habits. (The French word plastique is not common in English usage in the same sense. When used as an artistic term it means “expressive” more than “pliable” or having the quality of being able

to mold into a form.) Part I contains 120 photographs by Boissonnas, 80 drawings by Artus, 10 anatomic plates by Cacheux, and 160 rhythmic marches for piano and voice. There are 30 lessons in each volume, each lesson containing:

1. general exercises: breathing, balance of movements, strength and flexibility of the muscles

2. rhythmic walking exercises in simple musical values 3. rhythmic breathing exercises 4. walking exercises accompanied by rhythmic arm movements.

5. exercises to develop independence of members (head, arms, trunk, legs, etc.)

6. exercises to develop spontaneous will and control of unconscious movements and also those without special purpose or objective ‘Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Méthode Jaques Dalcroze... (Lausanne, 1917) II, viii.

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/.exercises d'arrét ( of stopping) to teach the separation of time, mentally, into equal parts 8. exercises of alternation of measures

9. listening exercises: melodies used in walking and in other rhythmic

movements |

10. march rhythms with piano accompaniment followed by a series of studies of gestures and attitudes broken down in slow rhythmic move-

ments accompanied at the piano. There is also a special chapter concerned with hygienic care of the body and the use of massage.’

Dalcroze states that the method is founded on certain elementary principles:

1. All rhythm is movement. 2. All movement is material.

3. All movement requires space and time. 4. Space and time are tied anew by the matter which turns them in an eternal rhythm. 5. Movements of small children are purely physical and unconscious. 6. Physical experience forms the conscience.

7. Perfection of physical means produces clarity of intellectual perception. 8. To control movement is to develop a rhythmic mentality.

To put these into practice we add to the formula the following

conclusions: , ,

1. To regulate and to perfect movements is to develop rhythmic mentality.

2. To perfect strength and flexibility of the muscles while regularizing proportions of time is to develop rhythmic musical feeling and a sense of symmetry.

3. To perfect strength and flexibility of the muscles while regulating proportions of space (combined movements and stationary positions) is to develop the sense of plastic rhythm.

? All discussions concerning movement in this chapter are from Part I of the Méthode, volumes

| and 2.

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4. Rhythmic gymnastics (i.e., rywthmique) has for a goal the perfection of the strength and flexibility of the muscles in proportions of time and space (music and plastic).

In his introduction, Dalcroze cites two quotations which reinforce the spirit of his ideas. From Francois Delsarte, who set down rules for the actor

even before Stanislavski, he borrowed the following thought: “To each spiritual function there responds a function of the body; to each big function of the body corresponds a spiritual act.” Putting this into the action of music he reasons that if a child has difficulty with rhythmic body movements he will have rhythmic musical trouble also. While a child is singing, he says, one can recognize faults in his walking. From Duc Francois de La Rochefoucauld, the 17th- century essayist, he borrowed a phrase that would ever be within his sentiments: “We have more laziness in the spirit than in the body, and good body habits can create good habits of the spirit.” La Rochefoucauld, in his famous Maximes (published in 1665), revealed what is now known as the subconscious. Dalcroze developed a system of symbols to convey physical actions. Signs for Movement

Beat

3 Left foot on the beat L Right foot on beat

7 Left hand on beat r Right hand on beat 7 Left hand and left foot on beat ( Right hand and right foot on beat 118

RYTHMIQUE: BODY MOVEMENT, 1906-1917

S Right hand and left foot on beat Lb Left hand and right foot on beat Signs for Breathing

= Sudden tension of the abdominal muscle

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35 Decontraction movements E Enlargement of the chest by sudden contraction

3 Sudden decontraction of intercostal muscle c—3 Contraction, decontraction of muscle

‘ Short aspiration, not filling chest Short aspiration, not emptying chest

(-——) Short aspiration followed by short expiration

< Short aspiration filling chest 119

RHYTHM AND LIFE

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Dance of the Furies, Hellerau, 1912, sketch by Béttinger

HELLERAU: 1910-1914

We go to Hellerau to see two things: 1. Music, alive and visible in the human body.

Between music and the body there is a common element, movement, a common measure, time, and a common expression, rhythm. The aim of E. Jaques-Dalcroze is not to teach his pupils dancing or gymnastics. He teaches them to listen to music, not passively, but participating with their whole being,

their whole body. For instance, while their steps follow the melody as it quickens or diminishes its speed, the movement of their arms marks the essential rhythm. The musical phrase animates and is itself animated; it follows, governs, inspires, unfolds, and develops the gestures, attitudes, and steps which come naturally to our bodies, but which in daily life have no chance to find more than timid, random and stilted expression. I have seen girls conduct a choir or an orchestra, not with a baton like the usual blackcoated gentleman, but with their whole bodies, every movement following and leading at the same time, listening to every part and sweeping the whole thing forward. When the body has completely submitted itself to music, it is sometimes as though it had been created by it. Such training probably corresponds to what the ancients meant by music, and

its educational advantages are many and great. It teaches concentration, proportion, self-possession, the control of our impulses, and harmony with all the other movements around us. The body grows pliant and obeys the soul, which in its turn respects the instrument which has to give it visible life.

There is no need to stress the aesthetic results of this method, particularly from the point of view of the theatre. Choruses are no longer rows of miserable lifeless dummies, but become great sentient beings, utterly filled and animated

by the life of the drama and the music. From this point of view, the performances of Gluck’s Orpheus at Hellerau were incomparable. It was the first time since the days of Greece that true beauty had been seen in the theatre. 2. The theatre.

The theatre of Hellerau, built and equipped by an artist of genius, M. de Salzmann (who is Russian) had no pretensions to be a salon, or a temple like Bayreuth, but a workshop, giving the artist extremely flexible and adaptable resources he needs. It is a vast rectangle, with no fixed stage. The walls and ceilings are of white material behind which battens of lights are placed at regular intervals. There is no visible source of light. All the lights are controlled at the end of the hall by aswitchboard by means of which one person can produce any variations of light and shadow he requires. The ceiling, divided into movable screens, forms a series of projectors, where the light either shines through or is reflected as desired, giving all possible combinations of intensity, movement, and direc-

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

tion. Instead of the harsh glare of the footlights, which flattens the actors against the backcloth and makes the scene look like a color print, washed-out and flashy at the same time, we have a milky, Elysian glow, which gives the

much despised third dimension back its glory and turns each figure into a statue, with shadows and highlights modeled as though by the hands of a perfect sculptor. Like music in the Dalcroze system, light brings to life the being it envelops, and works together with him. Instead of the sickly beam or the twopence-colored semblance of light we see on most stages, it is a living creature, fine and free.

The stage is not fixed. It is made up of movable sections each in the form of three steps, which fit into each other to make a rectangular prism. These can be joined to form every possible combination—terraces, walls, columns, staircases, etc. In a few minutes you can have a stage with several levels, like those of the old mystery plays. Shape, height, and depth can be altered at will. Every combination is possible. Painted backcloths, flats, and all the ridiculous paraphernalia of the old-fashioned theatres are done away with, and their

place taken by architectural shapes which it is to develop. It is, in fact, a framework prepared for it in advance. It is easy to see how this kind of conception could make possible, for example,

the performance of classical drama, for which modern stages are so illadapted.°°

At the suggestion of Granville Barker, George Bernard Shaw, who was already familiar with Dalcroze’s work, made a special trip to Dresden to see the city, but particularly to witness the activities at Hellerau. Two letters he

wrote to Mrs. Patrick Campbell, the famous English actress, reveal his interest. For one thing, he was struck with the “meter beating game.” The children can beat 4 in a bar with one hand and 3 in a bar with the other simultaneously, and they can change instantly in marching from 4 and 3 and 6 (and such rhythms as you and | can manage) to 5 and 7... . Tots as high as your... {sic} take a stick and conduct like Nikisch, only better, each making their own favorite rallentandos and rushes.*!

Inasecond letter he mentions “one of the best performances of Gluck’s

Orfee {sic}... . All the pupils at the school, heaped on the floor in a dim light and tossing their arms and legs about looked like heaps of snakes in hell.” He comments, then, on the lighting installation and the “acres of white linen.” As for rythmique: “Jacques Petit and Jean Pierre Kempf, Claudel on the Theatre tr. Christine Trollope (Coral Gables, 1972) 17f. *!Alan Dent, ed., Bernard Shaw and Mrs. Patrick Campbell, Their Correspondence (New York, 1952) 137.

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HELLERAU: 1910-1914

Also we saw an examination—two examinations. Both examinees confronted

the examiners, a row of elderly gentlemen, not in the above voluminous costume,” but in a bathing singlet without an inch of sleeve or leg drapery. Each had to take a class of other victims in singlets, and to play rhythms for

them on the piano and make them march to it. Then they had to pick up impossible themes written on a blackboard, and harmonize them; to modulate into all keys on demand of the examinees; then to listen to Dalcroze modulating wildly and name the key he had come into. Finally they had to conduct a choir, first with a stick in the ordinary way, and then with poetic movements of the whole body. This was extraordinarily effective. I foresee the day when there will be no more Richters and Nikischs, but instead, beautiful figures bowed to earth or raising their hands to heaven, and generally, as the wretched

William puts it “making their bends adornings.” One of the examinees, a French-woman, began on her knee, with her head bent to the floor. This produced pp. When she wanted a ff con esplosione, she shot up to her utmost reach, tip toes on the floor, finger tips to heaven; and her crumpling up for a dim, was lovely: the singers did what she wanted without thinking of it. Yet I am told that this was a wretched display of second raters, and that we must go again when the examinations are over and see Dalcroze give a lesson.”

Shaw intended to write a small book on his 1913 visit to Germany, with particular emphasis on his thoughts concerning the educative method of Jaques-Dalcroze. Unfortunately, he never completed it.34

Theatre directors Gordon Craig and Konstantin Stanislavsky had growing admiration for the work done at Hellerau. Craig’s contact came in

1914, after he had become interested in the work of Adolphe Appia, particularly his stage designs. The two men became acquainted in Zurich in February of that year. Craig had first seen reproductions of Appia’s work in

Florence in 1908. At the time he had thought that Appia was no longer living and so the thought of an actual meeting did not enter his mind. However, at a dinner party given by Prince Wolkonsky in Moscow, during the preparations for Craig’s Hamlet, he realized his error. After Wolkonsky sent for a dozen photographs of Appia’s designs, Craig asked that a meeting between the two be arranged. Later, in 1915, Carl Van Vechten remarked that Craig’s ideas were taken from Appia, and, more strongly, that had it not been for Appia neither Craig nor even Stanislavsky would have enjoyed the respect that they were The reference is to costumes shown on some illustrated postcards Shaw had sent to Mrs. Campbell by mail.

op, cit., 138-40. 34"Claudel homme de théatre," Cahiers Paul Claudel 5 (Paris, 1964) 244.

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

given. In a letter on 8 February 1916, to Van Vechten, Appia modestly denied that all that credit was due him. Craig’s interests stemmed from the fact that he regarded design from the actor’s point of view, and he was not particularly interested, as was Appia, in space.*>

The role Adolphe Appia played in Hellerau cannot he underestimated. It has already been mentioned how, trained in music and the theatre, he recognized the possible developments of rythmique, and of his work with Jaques-Dalcroze in the expansion and uses of the latter’s ideas

and techniques. Appia’s ideas on the revolutionary facilities that were applied to the Hellerau theatre were relayed to the builders, sometimes directly and sometimes through Dalcroze himself. In the actual operations of the Hellerau Cultural Institute his influence is more difficult to assess.

Could it be that the tremendous achievements in the dramatic presentations were largely due to his efforts? Did he control the forces that resulted in the magical effects? Could Jaques-Dalcroze have been the front man, the

one who did the work in the classroom and who met the public and the ‘préss, while the fine details were worked out by Appia in his quiet, unobtrusive manner? These questions have been put to persons active in the Hellerau scene

who understood the problems, particularly Edmund Stadler, Adolphe Appia’s principal biographer and investigator before the work of Walther Volbach appeared.* Stadler’s impression was that Appia—an alcoholic, a drug addict, and a homosexual—was not the leading force, and that it was Dalcroze, indeed, who was responsible for carrying out those sensational ideas and techniques which were legendary for generations. Appia’s ingenuity produced the means of portraying feelings on the stage. His sets were in the spirit of the ideas and emotions that had to be carried out, and which brought to the audience who came to see and to hear, understanding through feeling and a veritable participation in all facets of the production it was witnessing. Appia used his powers to the best of his ability but the successful combination of all these forces was due to Dalcroze’s genius for organization of details, for understanding the complex elements of the mis en scene.

The perfection Dalcroze achieved, seemingly on the stage, was actually accomplished in the classroom. In a word, it was discipline, the kind of *-Denis Bablet, Edward Gordon Craig, tr. Daphne Woodward, (New York, 1966) 194-99. *SWalther Volbach, Adolphe Appia, Prophet of the Modem Theatre: A Profile (Middletown, 1968); See his article, "The Collaboration of Adolphe Appia and Emile Jaques-Dalcroze," John Glowacki, ed., Paul Pisk: Essays in his Honor (Austin, 1966) 192-202

174

HELLERAU: 1910-1914

discipline that was inherent in rythmique and in the drills and exercises that his study entailed. Graceful movement was first learned and expressed in the classroom. There students learned control of the body and its members by reason of the rhythmic intensity in the music and by training the body to be ordered by the demands of the living forces which surrounded it. When Orfeo’s chorus of furies appeared to the audience to be a perfect circle of heads, a circle which remained so through a long series of maneuvers, it was the intense feeling of the music and of the training that came as a result of it that made the stage realization so impressive. When the chorus, its back to the conductor, made its precise moves without a visual sign from the pit, astonishing as it was, it was the rhythm in the music, the rhythm in the air,

the rhythm in the body, that caused the powerful cohesion of effort. The most astonishing effect occurred in periods of rest, either rest in the music or rest in physical movement. Even in the rests the chorus recognized the continuing rhythmic flow and they sustained its pulses to portray the incredible perfection of movement.

During rehearsals the audience, students included, were moved to tears by the sheer beauty of the spectacle. Among the viewers was a former student of Dalcroze in Geneva, Ernest Bloch, who had become a composer of recognized merit. He too was so impressed by what he saw that he felt the need to telegraph his friends in Geneva and in Paris (among them Lalo and Debussy), urging them to make every possible effort to attend a performance

at Hellerau. It would have been interesting to hear what Debussy might have said had he come, in light of his previous statement accusing Dalcroze of being music’s worst enemy.

Paul Claudel, as has been noted, helped to sustain the reputation of Hellerau for years to come. However, Hellerau did as much for him by opening his eyes to new organization in the theatre and by enabling him to espouse new principles for the actor: continuous movement, freed from the residual gestures of our daily feverish activity.” When a real school, so far non-existent, will be founded for the training of actors, the doctrine of Jaques- Dalcroze will play a fundamental role in it. Not

a step, nor a gesture of the actor ought to be done outside of a certain ear inwardly given to measure.”®

Poet, dramatist and diplomat, Paul Claudel (1868-1955) was one of the most active literary figures in France in the first half of the twentieth 1Cahiers, op. cit., V, 64. *8Tbid., 245.

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century. He entered the diplomatic service in 1890, which did not seem to interfere with his literary pursuits; held consular positions in the United

States and elsewhere; and, in 1927, was appointed Ambassador to Washington. He was elected to the French Academy in 1946. L’Annonce fait 2 Marie (in German, Verktindigung; in English, Tidings Brought to Mary), which ranks with the best of his dramatic works, was performed at Hellerau

(the first time in German), beginning 5 October 1913. Claudel had requested that Jaques-Dalcroze allow him to the use his students in the production. Dalcroze explained why he could not comply. He was not yet ready to develop his method outside the field of music “which serves as a

point of departure.”39 Later, in a letter to Lugné-Poe (1869-1940), an important French actor and director, Claudel said that the claim of JaquesDalcroze, that he was evoking forces analogous to electricity and radioactive energy, was absurd.” Soon after Claudel became interested in Hellerau in July, 1913, he published an article on the new theatre.*! Impressed by the presentation of Orfée (“It is the first time I see beauty in the theatre. It is a union between music, plastic, light, as | have never seen!”#), Claudel urged his new friend

Darius Milhaud to come to the Garden City, saying that it would be of “highest interest to him.”# Milhaud arrived during the period of rehearsal for L’Annonce. During his visit to Hellerau Claudel had little contact with Dalcroze, but conducted all of his affairs with Wolf Dohrn, in whose village residence he stayed.

At this point Milhaud had not yet written any music to Claudel’s works, not even for L’Annonce, for which some choruses by the Swiss musician Fritz Brun remain. In 1916, in Rome, Claudel encountered the Boulanger sisters; Lili, who had won the coveted Prix de Rome in 1913, and Nadia, the famous teacher of many of the next generations’ composers. On some occasion he may have asked them to write a score for his play, but at this time, in a letter to Milhaud, he denied it.“ Later, in 1929, Milhaud wrote music for the play and again, at the request of Louis Jouvet, he rewrote the

Tbhid., 251. *Tbid., 127.

41(Paul Claudel], "Le Théatre d’Hellerau, " La Nouvelle revue francaise, 19 (Sept. 1913) 474-77. 42"Correspondance Paul Claudel—Darius Milhaud," Cahiers Paul Claudel 3 (Paris, 1964) 39. BTbid., 40.

“4Milhaud speaks of the Hellerau visit in his Notes sans musique (Paris, 1949) 63-67.

Op. cit., Cahiers, III, 276.

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

score for performances in South America in 1942. Subsequently he composed the opera Christophe Colombe to Claudel’s text, and incidental music to other Claudel plays, Les Choéphores, Les Euménides, Protée and Orestes. The latter two plays were also done at Hellerau.

One could not readily foresee the collapse of the great Hellerau institution, nor did the impending war make an appreciable difference at this time. But catastrophe was at hand. In the middle of the winter of 1914 the guiding spirit behind the lovely garden city, Wolf Dohm, died in a skiing accident. The last person to see

him alive was the noted Swiss critic, R.-Aloys Mooser, who related the circumstances.

While enjoying his holiday in the Glacier du Tour, Mooser encountered two persons, a German man and woman, who were contemplating the risky trek by ski from the Col de Balme in the vicinity of the Vallée de Chamonix to the Vallée de Trient. It was about 11:30 in the morning of

4 February 1914. The skiers asked about conditions on the other side. Mooser replied that they were very dangerous and that the excursion should

not be undertaken. The gentleman indicated that they were experts, and that they were certain they could handle the course. Mooser warned them that he too was an expert, but that he would not attempt the trek that day. The following day he learned that the two skiers were lost in an avalanche and that the name of the unfortunate man was Wolf Dohrn. News of the disaster shocked all of Dohrn’s friends and the entire Hellerau community. His cremated remains were laid to rest at Lausanne

in the family crypt. A brief ceremony was held at Hellerau. Prince Wolkonsky, who first heard about the tragedy in a newspaper in Florence,

hastened to Dresden and delivered the eulogy in the great hall of the institute. Claudel learned about Wolf's death in a telegram sent him by Saltzmann on 5 February. He also participated in the service, most succinct-

ly stating the purpose of the Hellerau Cultural Institute: the workshop of future art, the laboratory of humanity.* Dalcroze’s expression of grief and sensitivity is noted in a letter he wrote to his sister Héléne in Geneva. How death reveals man’s real qualities more so than does life! How separation makes for better understanding of people, and above all, eternal separation. Naturally, here we are completely upset, anguish weighs heavily Paul Claudel, “Hommage a Dohrn,” La Nouvelle revue francaise (1 Mar. 1914) 498f. The tribute is reprinted in Cahiers, III, 272.

178

HELLERAU: 1910-1914 on all of Hellerau and especially on the institute. The work of the instructors is affected; interruption due to paying respect; the necessity of going back to work; for life must go on in spite of this unfortunate death.

And after that, this funeral service at which | had to speak, where death penetrated the walls, where the singing makes the nerves vibrate painfully; the scent of the flowers, so many bouquets and wreaths on the black staircase

as in Orfée on the evening of its triumph. This soul gone, this sweet bit of humanity. And poor Harald, and dear Saltzmann, who has been splendid in his dispensing of comfort, and with his wonderful touch of gentleness! Then life reawakens: there is a brilliant new burst towards work.*

With the passing of Wolf Dohrn, who controlled the business affairs

of the institute, the charge was turned over to his brother Harald. Frau Dohm, the mother of the two administrators, had always been a guiding spirit in the enterprise; in fact, the brothers did very little without her concurrence. But now, without Wolf, the burden was too great for the two of them, and the pall which had settled over the establishment would not dissipate.*

47Héléne Brunet-Lecomte, Jaques-Dalcroze... (Genéve, 1950) 166f. 48In later years Harald Dohrn earned a living as a hairdresser. He met his death in 1945 at the hands of the Nazis.

179

CHAPTER VIII

Geneva and Hellerau, 1914 The festival of 1913 was the last that Jaques-Dalcroze was to supervise at

Hellerau. In the spring of 1912, while he was busy preparing for the presentations of that summer, especially with the composition of his Echo

et Narcisse, plans were being laid in Geneva for a celebration to commemorate the 100th year of the liberation of the city from foreign occupation, which later led to the amalgamation of Geneva as a city, a canton, and a republic in the Swiss Confederation.

As plans for the commemoration were being developed, the City Council of Geneva decided to entrust the writing of a text to Daniel Baud-Bovy, Director of the Art Museum and Director of the School of Fine Arts, and to Albert Malche, Secretary of Public Instruction and Professor of Education at the University of Geneva. For the composer of the music,

however, the city fathers could not agree. They were divided between Jaques-Dalcroze, whom they remembered for the extraordinary Festival vaudois, which he had written and presented in 1903 (as well as several other spectacles and operas), and Gustave Doret, a native of Aigle in the Canton of Vaud, but now a highly respected composer and conductor living in Paris.

In addition to his operas and shorter compositions, Doret was best known in Switzerland for his Féte des vignerons of 1905 and for his collaborations with René Morax in presentations at the Théatre du Jorat in Méziéres. The city fathers, not wishing to take the responsibility for making a choice of

composer, left the decision in the hands of the authors, Malche and Baud-Bovy. The latter had previously collaborated with Dalcroze as text writer for the Poéme alpestre, published in 1896. The authors wrote to Dalcroze in Hellerau and invited him to undertake the writing of the music for the festival; Dalcroze refused. He was fearful

of the venture because of the exceptional pressures upon him at the time,

as well as the problems of illness among his star pupils who were just beginning rehearsals for the forthcoming summer program. He was also 181

RHYTHM AND LIFE

aware of the divided opinions concerning the selection of a composer, and

was reluctant to enter the lists. He remembered what he deemed. unfair alignments of supporters for himself and for Doret when he was working on

L’Eau courrante in 1906-07. And he remembered only too well having shared a bill at the Opéra Comique on 9 November 1906, with his Bonhomme Jadis in apposition to Doret’s Les Armaillis, and the resulting split into camps

of followers for each of the composers. But letters and telegrams came to him appealing to his patriotism. The Dohrn brothers were touched by this appeal and by Dalcroze’s loyalty to Hellerau. With their usual generosity they suggested that he take a two-week holiday in March, and later a month in June, to visit Geneva with his family. He could then make a decision on the matter.

Rather reluctantly, Dalcroze agreed to compose the score on the condition that his ideas of rythmique be employed in the production and that those participating begin training in rythmique at least a year in advance of the production, scheduled for 1914. In Geneva they agreed to these terms. Even so, he was not sure that he had made the right decision. During the ensuing year, 1913, he periodically heard news from Geneva regarding the progress of the commemoration. Subscriptions were not going well; there was doubt as to whether enough money would be raised to support the festival. On one occasion he invited a number of painters from

Geneva, who were attending a convention in Dresden, to come to the Hellerau Institute as his guests. Dalcroze spared no efforts in presenting a fine demonstration with his students and in entertaining his countrymen lavishly. His courtesy, however, was not reciprocated; some empathy with Geneva was clearly lacking.

In June 1914 the Dalcroze family returned at last to Geneva where Emile undertook the final rehearsals for the great spectacle, La Féte de Juin.

It was a pageant that reflected the style and spirit of previous musical celebrations so dear to the Swiss heart. To present the show a theatre had

been constructed on the shore of the lake, where Quai Wilson is now located. It seated 6,000 persons in a classic amphitheatre arrangement, tier upon tier in a slow rise, making the stage perfectly visible to every spectator. A near calamity occurred on the night of one of the final rehearsals: it was discovered that the highest row of seats could not be installed because there

was not enough room for it. To make the roof higher would require additional expense and the managament would not provide the necessary funds. A friend of the authors, and long a devoted friend of rythmique, Dr. Léon Weber-Bauler, newly returned from Russia, pledged the 35,000 francs

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GENEVA AND HELLERAU, 1914

necessary to revise the construction and to pay the workmen who labored through the night to make the adjustments. Fermin Gémier, director of the 1903 Festival vaudois, was again in charge. His ability to bring so many disconnected elements together in a short time was evident from the outset. The basis for the production was the corps of rythmicians, some brought from Hellerau, but the majority of them trained in their own locales—Geneva and the surrounding towns. The two principal soloists were Mme. Nina Jaques-Dalcroze (soprano), and M. de la Cruz-Froelich, (tenor). There were choruses on stage and in the pit as well as a childrens chorus. In addition to the usual orchestra, Gémier had bands and drum corps on the stage. The piece reviewed historical scenes connected with Geneva, including the characters Jean-Jaques Rousseau and Napoléon, and a number of patriotic songs, including Ah! ¢a ira, La Marséillaise, the Ranz des vaches, and the Hyme patriotique by the Zurich composer Hans Georg Nageli (1773-1836). Some of the chansons and marches contained in the pageant became all-time favorites of the citizens of Geneva and they remain so to this day. The climax of the work, the most moving episode, occurred in the last act when the curtains at the rear of the stage opened to reveal the lake itself, with small boats actually moving toward the audience and the occupants leaving them to mount the stage, singing in chorus to the valiant new republic. The Swiss writer Guy de Pourtalés, who authored books on Liszt, Chopin, Wagner, and Berlioz, published a novel called La Péche miraculeuse in which he draws upon this magnificent spectacle. The protagonist, Victor Galland, explains to his wife Berthe, in the winter of 1913, the events which will be depicted in the following year in an historic pageant celebrating the

1814 entry of Geneva into the Swiss Confederation. The festival is to be held at a theatre erected especially for the occasion at the Parc Mon Repos with a cast of Parisians as well as Swiss. Later, at the actual performance, Berthe witnesses the historical tableaux, the bells and the organ of the cathedral, the procession of clerics, the reading of a verse from Matthew, and the grand chorale of Luther.! The author continues his plot, weaving the first ominous events which soon would lead to war, with descriptions of the opening of the historic pageant. Saturday, 4 July from 8:00 in the morning, the crowd bore down en masse on the quay at the end of which arose the theatre presenting the centennial. The canon sounded. The streets, framed by verdant canopies and standards 'Guy de Pourtalés, La Péche miraculeuse (Paris, 1937) 254-58.

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

along the way, intersected like triumphal arches. Above, from the tower of Saint-Pierre, the bells sounded out loudly as it did on the night of the Escalade on 31 December. The entire city vibrated. Then the curtain went up before 6,000 spectators who reviewed once more their Geneva, a Geneva which they really did not know, a city that within itself was changed at length by eternity. Over the high corridor of Saint-Pierre the old night watch, the stars of a winter night, sought to decipher the fate of the city. Midnight was struck. Slowly,

hieratically, the hours appeared at the top of the side stairway like old time-keeping personages of the cathedral. Clothed in short grey-mauve tunics, some of the “rythmicians,” dancers, came out from the night at the call of the

watchman in profound masses, like the centuries. Arms and legs bare, animated by unanimous movement determined by the music, they annotated the past in large silent gestures: the Helvetians at the time of Julius Caesar; terror under the Burgundians; Calvin and the Reformation; the Escalade of

1602 when Geneva repulsed the attack of the Savoyards; Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the revolution. Not history explained by words and costumes, but lived and mimed by young and beautiful beings, symbols of this incessant drama which is the thought and will of a people. Liberty, Progress, Country, these passwords used by civilization, these devitalized words, these rhetorical and institutional words, were suddenly redressed in an admirable but terribly fragile form, the human body. From this new Mirror of the World, War and Peace emerged in long retinues to silent cries, encircling by turns the hunting

song of the Burgundians, the psalm of the Huguenots, the chansons of the farmers, the tanners, the citizens, all the spiritual and civil experiences of a republic, until the Ode of the Old Lake resounded like an invisible chorus of nature.

After numerous other scenes the back curtain of the stage opens, revealing the grand lake and the small craft of the Swiss cantons carrying soldiers to bring to Geneva its long awaited liberty. In an ensuing conversation between Paul and Louise the latter asks what he thought of the Festspiel. Paul, the musician, replies, I found this rythmique, this music of gesture, as wonderful creation. It is a great occurrence, a new art, a possibility for greater expression, all using a technique of movement of groups. . . . The bodies of the girls depicting fear, love, war, joy—I found them to be of a singular beauty, in accordance with our heterogeneous life. .. . | have always thought that the body was necessary for the complete expression of feeling. You cannot have feeling in the pure abstract. . . . Sentiment is incalculable, not only in love, but in art, in ideas,

184

GENEVA AND HELLERAU, 1914 in music, in all physical elements. This celebration of the centennial has been for me a sort of revelation.

The success of the festival was shortlived. Within the month war was

declared. Bosnian terrorists known as the “Black Hand” murdered the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian throne, and his wife, at Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Following a preliminary investigation the AustroHungarian foreign minister presented a drastic ultimatum to Serbia. On 25

July the Serbs responded, accepting most of the Austrian demands, but rejecting the most important one: to permit Austrian investigation on Serbian soil. Austria declared the response unsatisfactory, broke off diplomatic relations, and began mobilization, which the Serbs had already done. On the 28th Austria declared war. As early as 5 July the Germans, recognizing the trouble brewing in the

area—the foundations of the Hapsburg empire being undermined by the Serbs—assured Austria of their support for any action against Serbia, thus emboldening Vienna’s move. Czar Nicholas issued his second public order for total mobilization (a day earlier he had rescinded his first order) after

assurance of support from France. Germany attempted to localize the Austro-Serbian conflict by urging Russia to rescind its mobilization order.

Russia replied that it was too late; therefore, on 1 August Germany too decreed mobilization and followed with a war declaration. France mobilized at the same time.

The French government announced (also on | August) that it would respect the neutrality of Belgium, which had been designated by treaty in 1839 and confirmed in 1870. Germany, wishing to carry out a campaign plan formulated long before the conflict came to a head, requested Belgium to grant them permission to pass through their country without confrontation. When Belgium refused, the German army invaded on 4 August, giving rise to worldwide indignation and a move by the British Parliament which declared war on Germany on 5 August. From their position of neutrality the citizens of Geneva viewed the events without passion, but also without foresight.

The Germans entered Belgium in the district of Herve, proceeded in

the direction of Liége, and also to the north and west. They occupied Louvain on 19 August and on the 25th they began the odious business of putting the city to the torch; this continuing for five days. They destroyed the excellent university library, founded in 1426, which contained some 750 ‘Thid., 261-66.

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medieval manuscripts and over 1000 incunabula.? General von Luttwitz, explaining to American and Spanish ministers in Brussels, said that the population of Louvain fired upon German troops “and of course we have to destroy the city.”4 A report of a Commission of Inquiry was made to the Belgian Minister of Justice on 31 August concerning German atrocities and, in particular, the burning of the city of Louvain. The report was published and drew bitter resentment from all corners.

In reply, a group of German intellectuals issued a manifesto: To the Civilized World It is not true that our troops treated Louvain badly. Furious inhabitants having

treacherously fallen upon them in their quarters, our troops, with aching hearts, were obliged to fire a part of the town as a punishment. The greatest part of Louvain has been preserved. The famous Town Hall stands quite intact for at great self-sacrifice our soldiers saved it from destruction by the flame. . 5

Among the 93 signatures were those of Englebert Humperdinck, Friedrich

Neumann, Max Reinhardt, Wilhelm Roéntgen (Professor of Physics at Munich), Siegfried Wagner and Felix Weingartner.°®

About 120 miles from Louvain, at Reims, another tragedy occurred. The French had opened an offensive into Alsace on 8 August. This and other thrusts were halted and they retreated, along with the British, who had moved up to Mons by the 22d of September. They formed a line for a subsequent attack along the Marne. By 5 September, when the Battle of the Marne commenced, the allies had withdrawn from numerous positions, including Reims, which was now an open city. In the course of artillery

bombardment, which commenced about 17 September, the famous Cathedral of Notre Dame was hit. According to one correspondent who viewed the fighting from the cathedral tower it had been hit eight times in two days. He wrote: Directly the shells began to hit the cathedral in the morning some German wounded were brought in from the hospital near by and laid on straw in the nave, while the Abbé Andrieux and a Red Cross sister pluckily went up to the tower and hung out the Geneva flags.

>The library was rebuilt in 1928. ‘Barbara Tuchman, Guns of August (New York, 1962) 318f. °Ralph H. Lutz, Fall of the German Empire (Stanford, 1932) 74f. “Ibid., 75.

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I believe a shell which hit the building while I was there was a stray shot, for the German gunners could hardly miss so huge a mass, towering as it does, above the town, if they willingly wished to reach it. But the houses close by were not so spared. Shell after shell came whistling toward us and smashed into the houses, one of them just across the cathedral square.

. .. One whole semi-circle of the horizon, edged by the heights on which the German batteries were mounted three miles away, was nothing but an inferno of bursting shells. Those from the Germans landed anywhere within the space of a square mile.’

In Berlin the bombardment was reported but no details were given. The New

York Times carried the news in headlines and reported the German view: “Reims was in the battle line of the French and the Germans were obliged to bombard it. We regret the necessity, but the fire of the French came from that direction. Orders have been issued to save the cathedral.”8 On the same

day, in London, a correspondent reported that the Germans were still bombarding the city “deliberately.”? It was estimated that fifty shells had hit

the cathedral. In Washington, Count von Bernstorff, the German Ambassador, commented that the destruction of the cathedral was neither willful nor premeditated. !°

On 17 September British authors signed a declaration against the invasion of a neutral country. Its signatures included those of H. Granville Barker, J. M. Barrie, Robert Bridges, G. K. Chesterton, Arthur Conan Doyle, John Galsworthy, Thomas Hardy, Rudyard Kipling, John Masefield and H. G. Wells.!! Bitter resentment prevailed everywhere. In Rome the Pope asked for details. The Genevans were incensed and the press unanimously condemned the destruction of the cathedral.' Largely at the instigation of René Morax a protest was composed and signed by numerous men of intellectual bent, artists and political figures: The undersigned, Swiss citizens, violently disturbed by the unjustified attack on the Cathedral of Reims coming after the intentional burning of the historic and scientific riches of Louvain, do condemn with all their strength an act of savagery in one of the most distinct testimonies of its moral and artistic enormity which reaches all humanity. ‘New York Times (21 Sep. 1914). 8Ibid. (21 Sep. 1914). London Daily Mail (21 Sep. 1914). New York Times (23 Sep. 1914).

bid. (18 Sep. 1914). The cathedral was restored in 1938.

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The protest appeared in La Suisse, along with its signatures—93 of them— on 21 September. It was reprinted in the Tribune de Genéve, and elsewhere

with additional signatures. Among the signatories was Emile JaquesDalcroze, who acted without reflecting upon the inevitable consequences. For signing the Swiss protestation the wrath of the Germans fell upon three principal individuals, for they were well known in Germany: JaquesDalcroze, the painter Ferdinand Hodler, and the poet Carl Spitteler. The sympathies of these three, it was expressed, should have been more closely allied with German settlement. Hodler and another painter, Aristide Sartino, were summarily expelled from the Munich society of painters for their claim of atrocities committed in connection with the bombing. (This reasoning was completely unjustified for there was no mention of atrocities in the

protest.) In other artistic circles the brunt of the criticism was directed specifically against Jaques-Dalcroze.

Even more complications were to follow. The Geneva festival was over. Harald Dohrn wrote to Dalcroze stating that he was a reservist and expected to be called for duty in the near future. He asked Emile if they could discuss the future of the Hellerau Institute; some changes would have to be made. Dohrn had already decided to cancel the summer course, and the opening of the fall term was doubtful. That question, however, was soon

settled when the German government decided to transform the institute into a quarantine hospital for the duration of hostilities.’ Dohm then suggested that Dalcroze leave for America to lay the groundwork for a branch institute. Dalcroze lost no time in trying to make plans for the future. He was not particularly keen on going to America at this time. On 16 August he sent a telegram to his friend Percy Ingham asking whether, before he tried to establish a winter course in Geneva, there would be a position for him in England." In succeeding telegrams on the 18th and 24th Ingham informed him that he could have a position as long as the war lasted. In communications with Ingham on the 22d and 30th Dalcroze reported that the contractual agreements were satisfactory and that he could announce plans for his

teaching and giving examinations in London. He preferred to work in London where there was an established school, but he was also thinking about the need to create a branch in the United States. '3Garette de Lausanne (25 Sep. 1914). ''This message and subsequent information relating to the closing of the Cultural Institute are taken from Der Genfer Protest und Jaques-Dalcroze (Berlin, s.d.).

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On 3 September Jaques wrote to Harald Dohrn: [ have no money to return to Hellerau since I cannot deal with the Dresden bank and the banks here can only give 150 francs per week!—The financial situation in Switzerland is so bad that it is impossible to start a branch during the war. Thus I cannot stay here. Since the institute is closed and has become a hospital so I am also forced to find another position to support my wife and child. And during the war, I hear from Germany, the branch institution there is also a closed proposition. You write me (and also Fraulein Gorter) that it would be best to organize a trip to America. As you know I do not dare go to

America since | would not have there an interpreter and a guide such as Ingham, as I have written him. He proposed to underwrite the method in a branch school in London for the duration, and I wrote him “Yes,” that it would be the best guarantee for Hellerau. The London school is well organized and

still functions. | would thus like to organize with Ingham a tour to America

from London. (They advise me that there would be many students and instructors [among others] Fraulein Thurau from Berlin.) As soon as the Hellerau Institute reopens I wish to return there. As you know, my dear Harald, I am, and always will be, true to you. You can count on my genuine friendship.

Dalcroze and Dohrn exchanged telegrams on 9 and 10 September. Emile acknowledged receiving official word concerning the definite closing of Hellerau for the winter course and notified Harald that he was accepting Ingham’s offer for the war interim and for the prospect of an American trip.

Dohrn’s reply advised him to do nothing until he received the letter that was to follow.

This letter, dated 12 September, upset the entire plan. It stated that Dalcroze, by terms of his contract, could not accept any agreement with Ingham without the express permission of the Hellerau Institute. It went on to say that they had considered setting up a school for him in Berlin, but now they believed that his work would best be carried on in a neutral area: Zurich. Nina Gorter, who had been in constant consultation with Harald,

was at that moment in Geneva and had discussed the situation with Dalcroze. She wired Dohrn that Emile would remain in Geneva. She also

brought with her, on her return, a statement by Dalcroze in which he reviewed the events up to the moment, stressing the insecurity he was now experiencing. Now Percy Ingham entered the discussion. He wrote to Dohm expressing concern for Dalcroze and the fact that he must continue to train teachers for the method. It was not possible, he continued, for him to do anything in America, but he firmly wished to help his friend and, after the war, to aid Hellerau. Ingham also questioned the efficacy of restraining Dalcroze from carrying out his plans to work in England. 189

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At the end of September, Hellerau issued a statement announcing that the institute would close for the duration of the war, that students could take courses where they were being offered (with Dalcroze in Geneva

or Gorter in Zurich) and that these courses would be recognized by the institute. And then came the Geneva protest, signed 4 September, which did not reach Germany for several days. Meanwhile, on September 29th, Jaques wrote to Harald: My dearest friend, each day I become sadder, yet stronger, as strong as are Our ideas which will flourish strongly after this monstrous war, and which could be useful to humanity again. | think about Hellerau day and night. Our little misunderstandings between teacher, student and ourselves now seem to be so insignificant. Tomorrow, beautiful tomorrow, peace and intellectual work, all will proceed easily. Here [in Geneva] I have seven students; it isn’t much. The Lausanne Conservatory wished to hire me. I said no to show that I always wish to remain at Hellerau. I have also refused the Geneva Conservatory. You see that I am neutral.

Although I have but seven students I work very hard to develop my method further. When I think about how little the original cause of war interests our diverse individualities, how it opposes all intellectual and artistic interests, | cannot understand why everyone does not protest against the war in every

country, the war which is responsible for all cruelties, above all without distinction of race, of culture, and against the will of men who know that civilization can only flourish in peacetime. Militarism is the enemy of culture; that cannot be denied. They speak in every country about false reports, etc. Yet war is here and war is a disgrace for every civilized people. Culture is peace. Germany's culture I know well. Hellerau was a triumph of culture, was it not? For that reason I remain true to Hellerau. Oh, if only we intellectuals would have had the courage above all to protest—to live these nights, this distress, while others die—that is intolerable!

This letter reached Hellerau at the same time as the protest. On 4 October Dohrn fired off a telegram: “Did you endorse the protest concerning the cathedral?” Dalcroze replied, “Yes, with all other intellectuals of Switzerland

as a matter of artistic conscience. Letter follows.” Simultaneously, Harald

sent another telegram to his brother Reinhard who happened to be in Geneva: Circulated report of protest incited general indignation here, makes Dalcroze, our work and entire method in Germany impossible. In accordance with truth that was confirmed by Archbishop of Reims Dalcroze will without

190

GENEVA AND HELLERAU, 1914 doubt instigate a restriction in the same newspaper and allow the information

to reach Germany. ,

The following day, 5 October a press notice was issued: The directors and teaching staff of the Jaques- Dalcroze Cultural Institute in Hellerau make the following announcement: We can explain the signing of the regrettable Swiss protest by Prof. Jaques-Dalcroze as being completely misdirected by Genevan publicity. As late as September Prof. Jaques- Dalcroze declined a very advantageous position to teach in England during the war and expressly confirmed his special high esteem for German culture. How wrong the circulated information must have been in Switzerland is shown from the fact that Ferdinand Hodler, another signer, the artist who had glorified the war of independence of 1813, and whose German spiritual orientation cannot be doubted, was also a signer. This proves how successful our enemies’ work is to influence neutral countries so one-sidedly.

Meanwhile, newspapers in various German cities denigrated Dalcroze and his work, calling him a parasite, castigating him for his slanderous statement, his reference to Germans as barbarians, his spitting upon Germany in war

time, and his thanklessness for their recognition and promotion of his artistic efforts. The Hellerau staff attempted to cope with this nasty contretemps. They turned to Friedrich Naumann, one of the founders of the German Werkbund, the organization interested in such development as the Garden City of Hellerau. They asked him to intercede, to save the situation by raising his voice publicly against the confusion of the person and the facts. He turned down the request because he felt it was untimely and he opposed Dalcroze’s handling of the affair. The institute, still attempting to keep the matter open, posted a sign: To the students: We suppose that all of you have read the press notice and that you, like ourselves, are distressingly touched as a result. You who know

Herr Jaques will have certainly understood that his signature was a spontaneous act springing from artistic remorse over the alleged destruction of a great work of art. That Herr Jaques was invited to come to Germany occurred out of a certain conviction that he would bring with him a valuable cultural property. We hold fast to this persuasion; and when that concern is now endangered it is thus for us only more reason to work for it further with our entire spirit.

Presently the long letter which Dalcroze promised, dated 5 October, arrived at Hellerau. He pointed out that in neutral Switzerland the people

were better informed on the conduct of the war than in the belligerent nations. He stated that it was not necessary for Dohrn to worry about him, 191

RHYTHM AND LIFE

nor about his signing the protest. It was a necessary warning to all countries. His fidelity to Hellerau was once again asserted but with the proviso that “| must preserve my freedom of thought.” To the Dohrns he attested his faith, but not his obligations to Germany. Dalcroze’s letter hit hard at certain points: the method is stronger than Hellerau; you cannot judge me; leave me my freedom; I have no hate against

any land; I love intellectual Germany and strive to solicit its love; I hate militarism wherever it is found; I am a slave to no one, will speak as I think;

and | shall teach as an educator. He responded to Reinhard Dohrn’s question about the future, expressing his hope that after the war the institution at Hellerau would remain unchanged in spirit, that his loyalty to the Dohrns was unquestionable, and that he would never become a traitor to the house that they built for him. He spoke of his successes in the areas of composition and the system of ear training and improvisation being studied by many students (about 300 in Geneva alone), and then he uttered the defensive motto: “This protest is made to honor German culture.” Within a few days a Hellerau instructor, Fraulein Reuschel, was sent

to Geneva to see him. With her she brought clippings from German newspapers commenting on the protest, letters from Harald and from a colleague, Herr Gebhard, and, most importantly, a draft of a proposed recantation. In short, it read: I signed the protest condemning the shelling as an act against art and not

as a protest against the German people. If the French had attacked the Cathedral of Cologne I would have done the same. | have received reports from my German friends that puts the whole thing in a different light. They blame the French for using the cathedral for military purposes. After the war we shall learn the truth. So long as this is unsettled | must take the German side, whose culture | know personally, and who must have experienced an inexorable necessity, and have felt great remorse in destroying an art work. Thus I hereby withdraw my signature with the expression of regret.

Dohm’s letter reported that he had received Dalcroze’s of the 29th on the day the protest signing became known, 3 October. He reviewed its most important contents and remarked that he could not have done more harm to the institute nor to himself. Dalcroze’s letter of 5 October had also been received and he had read a letter written to a colleague, one Dr. Denso, dated the 10th. The suggested disavowal, Dohrm contended, would not be forced upon him in any way, and it would not detract from his personal views and his integrity; but it could save face to the extent that they could be together again to promote the method at the proper time. “We must consider,” he went on, “the possibility of your not returning to Germany 192

GENEVA AND HELLERAU, 1914

and of the necessity for us to go on with the training of teachers. You have the right as a person, artist, and teacher to free expression of opinion, but you do not have the right as a member, as a leader in the organization of a creative structure in Germany, to speak independently.” Dohrn’s pleas fell on deaf ears. On the 23rd Dalcroze wrote that he was distressed, that the German newspapers were against him from the very beginning—that if it had not been the Reims protest it would have been

something else. In speaking of future operations he suggested that the institute could go on using his method but they could withdraw his name. He wanted the German public to know that, contrary to newspaper reports, he had never “made a business” of his method, that he was actually poorer at the time than when he first came to Hellerau. Further, he stated that he

could never be induced to retract what he had done, having acted on grounds of moral certainty. This letter was turned over to Nellie Reuschel for hand delivery along

with an open letter to his German students. Here Dalcroze pleaded for application to his ideal and for its further development. A large portion of the letter dealt with the ill-fated declaration and with an explanation concerning his duty to express the truth as he felt it: that his neutral country (Switzerland) was more factually informed than were the German people; that he directed no anger towards the Germans (a fact which was greatly distorted in the German press); and that he was actually the same person they had known before.

The well-meaning exchanges of communication failed to reunite the two parties. On 24 October the directors of the institute issued a second declaration with a lead caption, “In Defense.” It declined to take respon-

sibility for the mistakes and indiscretions of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, heretofore artistic director of the Cultural Institute, and for the stand he had taken. It mentioned that the method was promoted in various areas throughout Germany with German capital and idealism and, along with the Orpheus production, it was recognized by the press and the public. But now

the school and the German students felt they must separate the method and the past from Dalcroze’s actions in late September. That is how things stood for about three weeks. Then, on 15 November, Dalcroze again wrote to Dohrn saying that he had received no reply to the letter he had given Fraulein Reuschel for delivery, and that he could not believe what he read in the Frankfurter Zeitung, an item which virtually closed the door for him and which he could not convince himself came from Harald. It caused him grief and depression.

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Finally, ten days later, Harald responded with a long letter carried to Geneva by Gustave Giildenstein. He explained that he was not free to write

openly because his letters to Dalcroze were being closely watched by censoring authorities and that he was torn between the two sides. But what

he was doing he had to do, pointing out that this would probably be misunderstood in Geneva and that judgment on the subject could not be made there. The statement that Emile’s welcome in Germany had ended was not from him; it was initiated by the newspapers themselves. Then, in three numbered paragraphs, he said that he had to condemn the signing of the protest and that his explanation of Emile’s misinformation as to circumstances was not accepted. Dalcroze, he argued, was only an employee of the school. Dohrn and the management faced bankruptcy and had to defend themselves. They had to show that they wished to separate the man from the act to avoid harm to the method and to save the helpless students from mistreatment. “In spite of this, certain journals directed their abuse against your person. You have read in the Journal de Genéve that you cannot

return to Hellerau following our invitation for recantation. | regret that it is known that we wished to convince you to recant.” Dohrn then referred to the letter Dalcroze wrote to the students, saying that for this he had even more grounds for a delayed reply. Again he

spoke of the protest and Dalcroze’s failure to withdraw his signature; he took the German side saying that the military was justified in its actions, both at Louvain and at Reims—this position was taken from evidence given by a battle participant and by reports in Italian newspapers. (At this point in the war Italy was also a neutral country.)

The final communication, Dalcroze to Dohm, was written on 11 December: My dear Harald! I have received your letter. It speaks for itself. In answer to its last parr—I shall never forget our friendship which originated from the basis of working together at Hellerau. A friendship either stands or it doesn’t. It cannot pick itself up in a moment. But for what the Frankfurter Zeitung had to do with the letter | cannot refrain from strongly deploring its procedure, for you as well as for myself. Giildenstein will tell you why. I have seen this dear G. many times

and he will apprise you of our conversation. I am pleased with his understanding of feelings. He also showed me letters from Neumeyer and from Dr. Louis which move me considerably. [do not understand your position, why you did not wish to forward my open

letter to the students [since] there is now so much misunderstanding in 194

GENEVA AND HELLERAU, 1914

Germany. | can assure you that you would become very clear on this if you lived here. Concerning what occurred at Reims and Louvain I thus repeat my conviction to you that the protest was completely justified; and furthermore, it was of value to mankind. However, we shall speak of this after the war when all shall be fully clarified.

Consolation for what is done will be drawn from the date when the exaggerated nationalism of our day in every case exhausts, after a period of time, its influence on Hellerau and on me. One can do only one thing. Wait. Very sympathetically,

(s) Jaques-Dalcroze I do not understand what you say about the Journal de Genéve. I did not authorize the insertion of this article; its contents were, moreover, the full truth. Fraulein Reuschel made no secret of her bringing me your plan for a recantanion.

Might there have been sensible alternatives? This is an unanswerable question. The war and the need for a military hospital which the Hellerau buildings provided made the closing of the institute a necessity, something

that neither Dohrm nor Dalcroze could have done anything about. If a relocation of the school would have been tolerated, Berlin and Zurich might

have been practical sites. But one could not easily see Dalcroze taking charge of aschool in Berlin. The vehement stand taken by Germans against him for his protest signature was an insurmountable obstacle. Also, without him, and without the majority of his staff who were non-Germans, sufficient personnel to operate a school could not be secured.

What were the possibilities of reestablishing the Institute in Zurich? After all, Switzerland, and Zurich, its largest city, were neutral, and Dalcroze, at least technically, was also a neutral. A transfer of the teaching staff would

have presented no problems. It would, however, have been difficult for Harald Dohm to continue his administrative role because of his military obligation. Could he have designated a capable interim replacement—perhaps Paul Boepple of Basle? Boepple was forty-seven years old at the time, two years younger than Dalcroze, and thoroughly familiar with the method. Not only had he translated several volumes into the German language, but

he had also been using the method in his teaching. He might have had difficulty coordinating his own classes of rythmique and ear training at the

Basle Conservatory, as well as his choir direction and appearances as a

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Rythmique personified: four rhythmicians—left to right, Annie Beck, Clara Brooke, Suzanne Perrottet, Jeanne Alleman—Geneva 1913

GENEVA AND HELLERAU, 1914

baritone soloist. Yet, this problem would not necessarily have been unsolvable.

However, two other issues were impossible to reconcile. The Hellerau

Institute had made its reputation not on rythmique alone but on the application of rythmique to the theatre. The availability of its marvelous physical facilities, specially conceived for this purpose, could not be taken lightly. It is doubtful that a comparable theatre could have been provided, or developed in Zurich, especially on a temporary basis and in wartime. The second thorny obstacle was the question of the protest. That fact, as it stood, could perhaps have been tolerated in Zurich, but if the soul of the organization were to remain in Hellerau and was to return there after the cessation

of hostilities, some accommodation was in order. The dialogue between Dalcroze and Dohm showed that Emile would not bend because of his artistic and humanistic principles; Harald could not accept the situation at the time because of the pressures built up by the media and the emotionalism of patriotic fervor and indignity in his country.

It is almost certain that when the war ceased, the animosity toward Jaques-Dalcroze would have subsided and perhaps, in the name of the same principles by which Hellerau flourished, its doors could have reopened. By that time, however, Dalcroze’s new Geneva school, then in its third year of operation, was growing effectively. Alas, Dalcroze would never again have

at his command facilities like those of Hellerau. The spirit, the forces of understanding and of cooperation that existed there were not transportable. Even students, supposedly the same all over the world, would never again

match in talent and zeal the results obtained at Hellerau through the combined genius of the participating staff of musical, dramatic, artistic and administrative co-workers. External appreciation and its wide dissemination, so necessary for artistic life and development, had now collapsed and Dalcroze was never to revive it.

The glamour, the artistry of Hellerau, is lost except for what is preserved in words—and in a single photograph. This photograph, taken in Geneva in 1913 a truly remarkable record, keeps alive the spirit, the beauty, the grace, not only of Hellerau, but of the entire rythmique movement. It portrays four rythmicians as they leap together in harmony with a marvelous expression of joy. The four persons, all noted students of the master, are: Annie Beck, Clara Brooke, Suzanne Perrottet and Jean Alleman. What had been accomplished at the Bildungsanstalt Jaques-Dalcroze in

Hellerau in the short four years of its existence was too important to have been severed so suddenly, regardless of what had happened in Geneva early in the course of the war. Obviously Harald Dohm handled the situation 197

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badly. It could be surmised that Wolf Dohm, a more adept organizer and administrator, would have managed things differently, that he would have kept uppermost in his mind the need to preserve the institution. Wolf might have found the diplomatic means to do so. In the final publication of Der Rhythmus there appeared attestations of the work of the school and of Dalcroze’s personal accomplishments by no fewer than eighty-three prominent personalities, most of them in the music world, including Appia, Boepple, Klose, Kretzschmar, Marteau, Rachmaninoff, Schillings, Wolkonsky, Franz Bachmann, Paul Marsop, Arthur Seidl, Karl Storck and Jean d’Udine. Others who offered their accolades were the composers Pierre de Bréville of Paris, Felix Draeseke of Dresden, the conductor Leo Blech of Berlin, musicologists Max Friedlander and Hugo Leichtentritt of Berlin, Heinrich Opienski of Warsaw and Artur Friiser of Leipzig, the critic and Brahms biographer Max Kalbeck of Vienna,

and his compatriot, Richard Strauss’s great collaborator, Hugo von Hofmannsthal.!° From another source came a rare expression, a voice of disapproval of most of the Hellerau activities and reasons for the demise of the institute. Georg Kaiser, writing in 1915, in the heat of hostilities, yet with personal artistic candor, mentions some of the problems involved at the Cultural

Institute. First, there was the question of the mortgage, amounting to 723,000 marks, which the management could not handle under the circumstances.'° Kaiser presents some views which are, however, falsely conceived. He states that, just as Wagner had developed a Bayreuth, so with Herr Jaques-Dalcroze came the idea of organizing an international Festspiel

out of small reforms.'? Such a remark is both an understatement and an overstatement. [he institute was a year-long project emphasizing the threefold tenets of rythmique: movement, solfége, improvisation. The summer festivals, despite their international attraction, were actually modest affairs, carried out with minimum facilities, but displaying superb artistic acumen growing out of Dalcroze’s rythmique training. Equating Gluck’s Orfeo and Dalcroze’s Echo et Narcisse with, for example, Wagner’s Gétterdammerung

Der Rhythmus 2 (1912) 83-115. '°Georg Kaiser, "Das Ende der Bildungsanstalt Hellerau," Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik Jg. 82, no.

35-36 (2 Sep. 1915) 285. "Ibid. Although Jaques-Dalcroze could not be quoted as having made such claims, Wolf Dohrn and others made similar remarks. Arthur Liebscher spoke of Hellerau as the "Bayreuth of rhythm.” See his "Die Schulfeste in Hellerau,” Neue Zeitschrift fiir Musik, Jg. 79, no. 28 (11 July 1912) 397.

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and Parsifal is an immense exaggeration, impossible even in Emile’s wildest imagination.

As one came to Hellerau with a clear head, says Kaiser, after summarizing the ideas of rythmique, one was soon disappointed. He sensed the

triumph of rythmique as long as it stayed within its own realm. But he claimed it failed when Dalcroze explained its principles in his poor, broken German and with his banal music for the exercises which put the students into insufferable restraint. Had the institute remained, he goes on, it would

have learned to adapt, but it emphasized developing the idea of plastic movement, which the writer felt was an unworthy ideal, and leaned toward the unartistic field of the variety show. For example, in Kaiser’s opinion, the Furies’ Dance in Orfeo was not good theatre production. That rythmique would help to educate from the musical standpoint Kaiser concedes, but he also argues that the institute with its arrogance, its shrieking, its so-called wonders, deserved to be struck from artistic culture, and that the school had to fail on its own merits. 8

It was not until 1927 that the ferment had died down enough for Jaques-Dalcroze to return to Germany; to be accepted in his own right, for his own worth. One would expect that by this time the disfavor had entirely abated, but not so. References to Dalcroze and the closing of the institute were brought up again in 1965 in a newspaper article that commented upon the Dohrn family on the occasion of the death in Naples of Reinhard Dohrn, the youngest of the four brothers. In response to this article, Frau Elfriede Feudel, one of the ever-faithful German students of Dalcroze, addressed the situation concerning the demise of the Hellerau Institute in a letter to the journalist. 26 April 1965 Very esteemed Mme. Boveri!

In short, I am recovered from the funeral sermon to the memory of Reinhard Dohrn at the English cemetery in Naples and read with great interest what certain speakers, and especially you, so clearly and warmheartedly said of the departed. I knew all of the members of the Dohrn family, except the eldest son of Anton Dohrn, since the years 1910-1914, i.e., since the founding of

the Hellerau Cultural Institute until its close by the outbreak of the first World War. In this time I was, as a young teacher in training, permitted by the City of Berlin to be sent to Hellerau to study the Jaques-Dalcroze method.

Later I taught this method in the Hochschulen ftir Musik in Leipzig and '8Ibid., 286.

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Stuttgart. Since 1950 I have been a member of the National Music Council, German Section. With this I come to the point of my letter. I read with dismay on page 27:

“Dalcroze left Hellerau in a wave of German hatred and built in Geneva a rival enterprise.”

With this you place a heavy blame on him and you allow the Swiss pedagogue to appear in the dark light of a fortune hunter, for which there is not a shadow of proof. All students who came to know M. Jaques as a teacher cling to him with great love and respect, Germans as well as students from other countries and continents. In this year his centennial will be celebrated

and it takes place at the Geneva Institute. It is deplorable that through a notice in a German paper a mistake in general understanding arises. Allow me to explain, since I know the facts, and since I personally lived through

them. |

When the war in the summer of 1914 was declared Dalcroze was already in Geneva for 10 days where a festival celebrating the 100th anniversary of the incorporation of the City of Geneva into the Swiss Confederation was being rehearsed. Thus he traveled there right at the beginning of the summer festival and had no forethought of not returning. Meanwhile, in January, the school had lost its founder and business manager, Wolf Dohrn, through an accident, and the younger brother Harald stepped into his place. The school was in full bloom and had about 495 students, a good many of them highly talented. In this first week of war began an exchange of letters in which three partners sought to clarify the future of the school: a representative of the Dohrn family,

Jaques-Dalcroze, and the third, an Englishman, Mr. Ingham, who, for a long time, stayed as a student in Hellerau. This Mr. Ingham offered Dalcroze a similar school in England in case he was ready to transfer his entire teaching activities to England. Dalcroze turned this offer down since he felt deeply obliged to the Dohrn family and resolved to remain in Geneva, from where,

in 1910, he came to Germany with 40 students, to wait out the further development of the situation. This exchange of letters is the only authentic document which exists on this situation. It is printed in a small edition by Winkelmann, Berlin, and can be found in the German library in Leipzig. He gives the case a fair and respectful handling as, in earlier times, was usual with well-bred persons. Nothing of a “rival” establishment” can be found. As for “hatred of the Germans,” we have discovered more from a few former

students from Hellerau (who made the observation), but it does not come from Dalcroze, but from the Germans themselves who, in the hysteria of the outbreak of the war, were ready for every reproach and every accusation even to blame him for committing crimes (high treason and embezzlement) as they

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stood opposed to this completely unknown situation. Such reproach must every pedagogue encounter who brings something new to acquaint some party; no one is spared from this. The attack mounted to the highest point with the endorsing of the Geneva protest against the bombing of the Reims Cathedral which Dalcroze and other Swiss intellectuals, including Hodler, signed. Dalcroze turned his attention to his German students with letters and showed thereby that he must stand for the conservation of art monuments so that they would not be destroyed in the future— the future gave him the right, I am sorry to say. As Hitler came into power the report was broadened in the entire press that Dalcroze was a Jew and that they must take away from his students their teaching certification. The state music secretary turned to the Geneva Institute and asked for information. The documents stated that the family of Jaques-Dalcroze were driven from France as Protestants by the Edict of Nantes and settled in Switzerland over the last 200 years.

The teachers certificate was retained in this case; a public retraction against the assertion never took place. On the contrary, the false statements

remain uncontested; they stand in every textbook, dictionary, and they illustrate and darken the image of the great pedagogue. Please note no offense

in my statement and no desire to correct [anything], but only the wish to protect as much as possible the memory of a great teacher against defamation. There can be no question of fault on Dalcroze’s part against Reinhard Dohrn.

When I visited Naples in 1958 at the instigation of our former President Theodore Heuss and at the invitation of Reinhard Dohrn, he assured me expressly at my inquiry that the Dohm family had stood courageously behind

the founding of the Institute through Wolf Dohrn and that all discord concerning Dalcroze remains behind. Both partners shared equally as victims of the war. Jaques-Dalcroze died in the summer of 1950 as a Citizen of Honor of the City of Geneva. I had been in correspondence with him until his death but had never noticed a sign of hatred against Germans. One well sees the years in Hellerau as a highpoint of his life and can make no slight matter of It.

I belong to the very few who have lived through the Hellerau years and am of the conviction that Dalcroze belongs among the greatest pedagogues that history has known and that his concept of physical and spiritual correlation and reciprocal penetration will become more and more known in the future. In Germany, it found, up to now, the strongest force in therapeutic work with troubles of all kinds and won for itself a generally appreciated position in spite of original opposition.

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The Dalcroze Institute in Geneva stands ready to supply further information. With friendly salutations s/ Elfriede Feudal

The old controversy did not end there, however. In 1974, sixty years after the Geneva protest incident, Karl Lorenz of Remschied, then chairman of the Bundesverband Rhythmische Erzieung (Federal Rhythmic Education Society), reviewed the protest signing in his article “The Collapse of Hellerau 1914,” written for the brochure Rhytmik in der Erziehung, and trans-

lated by Thea Ney of the London Dalcroze School. It was reprinted in Newsletter of the Dalcroze Society of America. Lorenz added an additional piece of information, a letter from a military participant in 1914 obtained

for him by Kathe Jacob, a Hellerau student then residing in 1974 in Tel Aviv. The letter, abridged, appeared as follows: I , the undersigned, stood in the first World War in the German army before Rheims. Our battalion had a protected position, yet an artillery duel developed

between the French and the Germans; the German position was heavily bombarded. Of the 6th battalion, only three men survived—the other crews, some in the trenches, were buried alive (the same happened to the writer of

this report but he remained unharmed). The suspicion that the enemy observation took place from the towers of the Cathedral was confirmed. This was against International Law and so the command to bombard the Cathedral was justified to avoid further heavy losses of life. I take full responsibility for

the correctness of this report. s/ Prof. med. Dr. Siegfried Ostrowski Ehrenprofessor fiir Chirurgie an der Freien Universitat Berlin W., Surgeon, Tel Aviv, Israel!?

Karl Lorenz, "The Collapse of Hellerau 1914," t. Thea Ney, Newsletter, Dalcroze Society of America 3, no. 2 (1976) 7.

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Derivatives from Rythmique, 1913-1965 Throughout Jaques-Dalcroze’s long life he was entirely consumed with the idea of improving his method, of making it more effective, and of spreading

its message as best he could. As he frequently stated, his method was developed to intensify the study of music, to turn out better musicians. When, in the course of experimentation, other virtues emerged, these by-paths did not detract from his main purpose and it was up to others to explore them. At just about the time the Hellerau Institute collapsed, a new art was emerging: modern dance. Some of Dalcroze’s Hellerau students and the Dalcroze ideas on movement were very much involved. In the area of modern ballet Michel Fokine had set a trend which was continued by the Diaghilev company with Nijinsky, its principal dancer and

controversial choreographer. Choreographers (those working with Diaghilev in particular), were eager to explore opportunities of extending the language of dance or of studying the possibilities of varying its relationship with music. Nijinsky’s entire choreographic output consisted of four ballets: L’Aprés-midi d'un faune, performed on 24 May 1912 at the Théatre du Chatelet; Jeux performed on 15 May 1913 at the Théatre des ChampsElysées; Le Sacre de Printemps,. performed on 29 May 1913 also at the Théatre des Champs-Elysées; and Till Eulenspiegels lustige Streiche, performed in New York on 23 October 1916, at which time there was no longer any tie between Nijinsky and Diaghilev. The success of Faune at its debut was only moderate. Overshadowing Nijinsky’s unusual choreography was his own dancing. Certain sensual gestures which may have seemed natural

to him (and to fauns) struck the Paris police and some members of the audience as obscene. The notoriety which ensued pleased Diaghilev who was always ready to capitalize on such opportunities. During the preparation of Jeux a Dalcroze student was engaged to help the corps de ballet. The dancers called these rehearsals “arithmetic lessons” because instead of following melodies they were forced to count beats and measures.! When Diaghilev engaged Marie Rambert in November 1912 he ‘Lincoln Kirstein, Movement and Metaphor (New York, 1970) 203.

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was in real trouble. Sacre was in rehearsal and, unfortunately, Nijinsky (to say nothing of the rest of the company) could not comprehend the music.

They were battling rhythmic complexities never before encountered. Rambert’s responsibility was to teach the choreographer the music, and subsequently the other dancers. After joining the company in Budapest on Christmas day, she moved with them to Monte Carlo where there were no performances, only rehearsals. After each rehearsal Marie spent an hour or two with Nijinsky, listening to the music and studying the score of Sacre with him. At each session he sketched out movements for the next rehearsal. She worked individually with each artist of the company, studying the rhythms measure by measure, thus she earned the nickname “Madame Rythmichka.”? The company was antagonistic to her work and they even told Diaghilev they would refuse to dance if she remained as their instructor.?

Nijinsky’s sole aim in choreographing Sacre was the realization of the

thythm. He thought of this as a gigantic force, the only thing capable of dominating the primitive soul of man. The dancers became the incarnation

of the various elements of the music.’ His principles were to divide the dancers into groups representing different sections of the orchestra and give

each note of music an equivalent movement on stage.* The result was a giant step in the direction of absolute dance form. It also presented a vast departure from the academic approach in favor of an entirely new dance vocabulary. Audiences were not certain whether Nijinsky deliberately planned a reversal of academic practice (toes turned inward, heaviness and angularity, denial of flowing line, all to present primitivism) or whether a spontaneous, master inspiration subconsciously destroyed traditional conventions of movement.® Nor could critics agree whether he was remaking or ruining the art of ballet. Following the Paris presentations Jeux and Sacre

were performed in London but they were not well received. And after London these Nijinsky choreographies were never seen again.

*Marie Rambert, Quicksilver (London, 1972) 78.

Lincoln Kirstein, Dance (New York, 1935) 287. Later when Marie Rambert was well established in England, Nijinsky’s eldest daughter was one of her pupils. Ibid., 288. 4Walter Sorell, The Swiss (New York, 1972) 88. John Martin, The Modern Dance (New York, 1936) 112. ‘John Martin, Introduction to the Dance (New York, 1965) 197, originally published 1939.

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Shortly afterwards the company left for a twenty-two-day tour of South America with Rhené Baton, a strong supporter of Dalcroze, as their conductor. Marie Rambert went along. Her work with Nijinsky brought them together on a more than professional basis. She may have loved him, certainly she respected him, and she might have married him. However, a newcomer joined the company, Romola, daughter of Karoly de Pulsky who, with Prince Esterhazy, founded the Hungarian National Gallery and then became its director. After his suicide in Australia she became the stepdaughter, through her mother’s remarriage, to the very wealthy and influential Oscar Pardany. Nijinsky was struck by her beauty and position and, in spite of the fact that neither one could speak the other’s language, they quickly fell in love. They were married during the tour. Diaghilev, who did not join his company in South America was furious. He had lost the young Nijinsky as a lover, and he knew now that his dream of making this protégé, this sensational dancer, his leading choreographer was shattered. Two telegrams were quickly dispatched: one informed Nijinsky that his contract would not be renewed, the other delivered the same message to Rambert. During these periods of revolutionary experiments by the Russian Ballet, the ballet of the Paris Opera was drifting along in a state of stagnation.

After attempts to break the doldrums by engaging guest choreographers, Fokine and Bronislava Nijinska (Vaslav’s sister), the company agreed to try the Dalcroze system.’ Jaques Rouché, Director of the Opéra, another who held rythmique in high esteem, engaged Clara Brooke, and later Jane Erb (Dalcroze graduates) to try to turn the situation around. But the critics did not accept their results and soon the ballet reverted to their former, less experimental ways. Charlotte Watmough, Honorary Secretary of the Dalcroze Society in England, pointed out that in Dalcroze’s young days the dancer could be practically ignorant of musical structures since he or she depended upon the choreographer for liaison between steps and music.® Diaghilev recognized this problem and employed Dalcroze techniques to overcome it. Peter Brinson, many years later, defined what Diaghilev was seeking: The most important [quality] is musicality. By this | mean something quite different from a sense of rhythm. Rhythm of course is vital. A dancer has to begin and end with music. If he did not do so, even some of his more obtuse and rabid fans might notice it. So rhythm is essential. But musicality from the ‘Lillian Moore, Artists of the Dance. (New York, 1938) 225. SCharlotte Watmough, "Emile Jaques- Dalcroze 1865-1950," Dancing Times 41 (Aug. 1950) 677.

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rhythmic. But musicality is something which can only be developed if it is already there.?

Desirée Martin stated that Dalcroze eurhythmics is the closest link between

ballet and music."? Serge Lifar recognized that ballet owed much to Dalcroze’s rythmique, as did Arnold Haskell. Ninette de Valois, herself a Dalcroze student, and teacher of ballet at Morley College acknowledged her

debt to Jaques-Dalcroze as follows: “I regard as essential the habitual observation and practice of rhythmic movement; experience in one’s own body of the dynamic changes involved in the passage from one movement

to another; imagination of tensions and relaxations, sensitivity to the impressions received by changes of tempo; and of course a close study of the manifold possible relations between music and dance.”!! They assimilated

rythmique training at the Sadler’s Wells ballet school and in the teachers course at the Royal Academy of Dancing.” Anna Pavlova also employed a Dalcroze instructress yet, although she was impressed with the idea, her company was not.” Two divergently recognized dancers also had some training at the Hellerau school which aided them in handling groups and in choosing the right gestures: Kurt Jooss, who had most of his training with Rudolph Laban; and the unique Indian dancer Uday Shankar." During Jaques-Dalcroze’s years at Hellerau, and even earlier, a new dance concept was developing, mainly in Germany. “Modem dance,” as the new style came to be known, had its beginning in 1904 with the work of Isadora Duncan, extremely popular, yet far from methodically oriented. The

reanalysis of the entire nature of dance in Duncan’s time and the most striking changes in technical methods and artistic meaning came from Francois Delsarte and from Jaques-Dalcroze.'5 Dalcroze felt his work was Peter Brinson, The Ballet in Britain (London, 1962) 52. lDesirée Martin, "The Value of Dalcroze Eurhythmics," Dancing Times 45 (June 1954) 549. ''Beryl de Zoéte, "The 1,000,000 Mile Journey: Part V,” Baller, 10, no. 2 (Sep.—Oct.) 34f.

'Desirée Martin, loc. cit., 548. : Kirstein, Dance, 286.Anna Pavlova (1881-1931), prima ballerina of the Imperial Russian Ballet, danced with Diaghilev’s company in Paris. She achieved greater fame, especially in

Swan Lake and Giselle, after she formed her own company and danced in major cities throughout the world. 4Elsa Findlay, "Lessons with Monsieur Jaques," Dance Magazine 39 (Aug. 1965) 44. '5Olga Maynard, American Modem Dancers, the Pioneers (Boston, 1965) 12.

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indebted to Duncan’s dance, but she rejected his systematic and analytic approach as being too mechanical.'* Although John Foster claimed that Duncan and Dalcroze had personal contact, there is no other commentary that verifies this.'7 In the modern dance world Dalcroze’s influences are accepted, but how they truly affected modern dance and the ballet are still debated.'® Walter Sorell, in fact, claimed that Jaques-Dalcroze’s greatest importance lay in the influence he exerted in theatre dance and in twentieth-century choreography. As early as 1910 another personality was drawn into the periphery of the Jaques-Dalcroze circle. Rudolph Laban (1887—1958)—dancer, painter, and designer—visited Hellerau frequently, even returning there after the war when the school had reopened under other direction. Nathalie Tingey, a Hellerau student and one of England’s leading rhythmicians, stated that he and Dalcroze had worked together initially but later disagreed on basic principles.2° Laban was drawn to kinetic motion but was more interested in movement to the rhythm of poetry than of music.*! His system was based on natural organic movement of the human body and principles of tension and relaxation, as he sought a new style of dancing.” For several summers, at his dance colony in Asconia, Switzerland, Laban attracted followers who

worshipped him in this artistic milieu dominated by his handsome appearance and pervasive personality. Mary Wigman (née Marie Wiegmann) attended the Hellerau Cultural Institute after finishing secondary school and traveling about for adventure, during which time (in 1911) she witnessed a Dalcroze demonstration in Amsterdam. Mary wished to attend the institute, yet her mother objected to her embarking upon a new, untried program. As a result Mary left home, obtained her inheritance through a lawyer’s assistance, and promptly lost it by entrusting the money to a friend who gambled it away at Monte Carlo.”? Despite her ill fortune, she had her way. At the institute the Dalcroze curriculum did not impress her; nevertheless, she learned that what she really wanted was a career in the dance. lIbid., 20. ohn Foster, The Influences of Rudolph Laban (London 1977) 60. '8Maynard, op. cit. , 20.

Sorell, op. cit., 188. Foster, op. cit., 58. 2IMary Wigman, The Mary Wigman Book, tr. Walter Sorell (Middletown, 1973) 34. 2Thid., 32.

*Tbid., 187. , 207

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Subsequently she was offered a contract to teach rythmique and was considering it; however, by then she had met Rudolph Laban. When Laban mentioned that it was his opinion that what she really needed to do was to dance, not teach, she returned the unsigned contract and took up his work in earnest. In 1913 Wigman moved to Ascona. In 1914, because of wartime conditions, many of Laban’s students left to engage in other activities, but Wigman remained with him. He then began to work on his notation system, which was to be one of his major contribu-

tions to the field. He sought a theory of harmony of movement—swing motions—which Mary helped him carry out over the next five years.”4 Wigman went on to dance with great success, creating highly original compositions and forming several dance schools, including one in New York which was sponsored by her agent, the spectacular dance impresario Sol Hurok. Her work was an outstanding example of expressionistic dancing, the purest manifestation of “modern dance.” Its basis lay in the vision of something in human experience which touches the sublime. Its externalization came by “feeling through” with a sensitive body.?5 She did not dance to music per se, but used musical material to supplement the dance.”®

Hanya Holm (born Johanna Eckert in Worms in 1898), a serious pianist, found in her Dalcroze work a larger dimension for expression, which permitted her to be occupied in a more active way. She excelled in physical improvisation. After completing the Hellerau course she taught rythmique

until 1921, at which time she saw Mary Wigman perform in Dresden and decided to join her. She still had no ideas of making a career of dance but felt she needed an outlet that was more encompassing than the realization of rythmique.?” Along with Harald Kreutzberg,?® Hanya became one of Wigman’s most ardent disciples, danced leading parts in her company, and was responsible for training and even choreographing chorus parts for her.” She danced the role of the Princess in Stravinsky’s Histoire du Soldat in Dresden in 1929.» 24W/igman, op. cit., 37f.

Martin, Modem Dance, 59. 6Ibid., 115f. “IW/alter Sorell, Hanya Holm (Middletown, 1969) 13.

®Kreutzberg, a pupil of Laban and of Wigman, was also an actor. He and his company developed a remarkable reputation both in Europe and in America. In his later programs Kreutzberg teamed with Yvonne Georgi, a student of Dalcroze and also of Laban. See Sorell, The Swiss, 190. 9Sorell, Hanya Holm, 77 30Selma Jeanne Cohen, ed., Stravinsky and the Dance (New York, 1962) 43.

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The following year Holm came to New York to direct the new Wigman

School. Having found things there much to her liking, she returned to Germany to apply for a resident visa. After Hitler’s rise in 1933 American dancers turned against Wigman for her failure to detach herself from the Nazi regime. The pressure was so great by 1936 that Hanya wrote Mary that the school could no longer survive under her name; she asked for direction. Wigman responded that she should stay in New York if she felt she had a

foothold there, that the Wigman name could be erased, but the school should continue. Thus the Hanya Holm School of Dance was formed.?!

As Miss Holm’s work continued in America she maintained her Dalcroze connections and stressed rythmique largely through percussion work. From 1948 on she choreographed numerous Broadway shows (Kiss Me, Kate, My Fair Lady, Camelot), directed Douglas Moore’s new opera The

Ballad of Baby Doe in Central City, Colorado, and Gluck’s Orpheus in Vancouver and again in Toronto. She also choreographed for Hollywood (The Vagabond King) and for NBC television (Pinocchio). Hanya Holm’s criticism of a generation of American students reflects her own practice of order and control: “. . . nurtured by an educational system which makes twin deities of ‘Freedom,’ and ‘John Dewey,’ but which amounts to nothing more than permitting the student to flounder without discipline.”?? During Holm’s direction of the former Mary Wigman School in New York, Wigman herself continued to dance, to teach and to create compositions. One of her outstanding choreographies was Stravinsky’s Sacre du Printemps, prepared for the Berlin Stadischen Oper in 1957.

Kurt Jooss supported the view, with Wigman and Suzanne Perrottet, that gymnastics, movement, dance and creative expression form a coalition of related ideas.? After spectacular performances in Europe, Jooss came to America as well.

American “modern dance” developed its own national style and content while its German counterpart grew out of Dalcroze, Laban, Wigman

and Jooss.*4 Ruth St. Denis, an American like Duncan, but one who concentrated her efforts in her own country, brought direct attention to the art in the United States. She made adaptations of Dalcroze principles (some of them unconsciously), employing a technique her husband, Ted Shawn, originated, and which she called “music visualization.” The term was coined 31Sorell Hanya Holm, 44f.

Hanya Holm, "Hanya Holm Asks and Answers," Dance Magazine 39 (Aug. 1965), 32

Foster, op. cit., 56. *4Maynard, op. cit., 97.

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as a substitute for the much abused expression “interpretive” as applied to dancing.» In 1914 they established the first American Academy of Dance and kept it going until 1932. Realizing the value of Dalcroze training as a part of their curriculum they engaged Elsa Findlay, a Hellerau student, to work in their school.*

Other talents also spread the gospel of dance. The three Braun sisters—Lily, Jeanne and Léonie—German girls, participated effectively in Jaques-Dalcroze’s rythmique demonstrations but later turned exclusively to the performance and teaching of dance, for the most part in Italy where their beauty, grace and style were highly appreciated.” Jeanne, the middle sister, and the survivor of the trio, died in Ascona, Switzerland, in 1964.” After the signing of the 1918 armistice, the Hellerau facilities were again put to use for artistic production. The antagonism against JaquesDalcroze, which might have been allowed to dissipate, was not overlooked. This, most likely, was another of Harald Dohrn’s short-sighted blunders. True, Dalcroze was operating a school in Geneva and hence could not make himself available for work in Germany, yet that opportunity might have been pursued out of courtesy, if not for effect.

Dohrn reopened the institute in 1919 as the Schule Hellerau fiir Rhythmus, Musik und K6érperbildung (Hellerau School for Rhythm Music and

Training of the Body) under the artistic direction of Christine Baer-Frissell. Mrs. Frissell, the American wife of the Dresden correspondent to the Musical Courier, had been an instructor at the prewar Hellerau School, as were her

chief assistants at the new Hellerau, Valerie Kratina and Gustave Giildenstein, who joined her in 1921. Somehow the new school could not regain the artistic force it had previously held. It produced summer festivals, including a production of Orpheus, but the old momentum was not there. The curriculum, while continuing to foster the three Dalcroze principles— movement, ear training, improvisation—began to fall out of balance. More

and more emphasis was placed on movement, not the rythmique as developed by Jaques-Dalcroze but on a manifestation that was becoming increasingly popular: dance. Here developed one of the outstanding dancers and dance teachers of the western world, a young Czechoslovakian girl named Rosalia Chladek. Ibid., 197. *6Ibid., 22

37*T e danze delle sorelle Braun,” Giornale degli Artiste (6 Mar. 1929). 8Memorials and comments on the Brauns are published in Le Rythme, May 1965; Marguerite Jordan on "Jeanne Braun," 55f; Monica Jaquet "Jo the Braun Sisters," 56—60; Lily Merminod, "To Léonie Braun," 60-62.

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Problems arose, resulting in frequent quarrels between staff and management. Mrs. Frissell determined that she and Dohrn had to sever their

relationship with the school and that the school would relocate. Its new home was found nine miles outside of Vienna, in the former imperial castle of Laxenburg, where two centuries before, dancers were patronized by the Empress Marie Theresa who used this castle as her summer residence. The Schule Hellerau-Laxenburg, as it was renamed, opened in 1925 with Valerie Kratina as its director. Its curriculum, as announced in the annual bulletin, encompassed gymnastics, rhythmic training, and dance. Later, the following courses of instruction were added: anatomy and physiology, principles of education, Montessori methods, theatre and dance history, dance notation, piano instruction, drawing, and modeling.

In addition to her school duties, Kratina organized the Kratina Dance Group which performed widely between 1925 and 1929 in numerous cities in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, and Poland. Within the group a dance trio was established, consisting of Valerie Kratina, Annsi Bergh, and Mary Hougberg; they performed not only in programs involving the entire dance group, but also in trio recitals. Rosalia Chladek was a member of the group and, upon occasion, of the trio also. Mrs. Baer-Frissell was in charge of rywthmique, Miss Chladek taught gymnastics as well as dance, and a new

arrival headed the music department—Ernst Ferrand, whose study on improvisation from a historical perspective represented a major contribution to the musicological field.*? Kratina eventually gave up the directorship in order to devote more attention to theatre dance and to promote her dance group. In 1930 the direction passed to her gifted pupil Rosalia Chladek. Dr.

Ferrand took over the general directorship in 1936 because Miss Chladek was overwhelmed with other activities. She served (from 1928) as professor at the Conservatory of Basle. In following years she won notable dance competitions, including second prize in the prestigious International Competition in Paris in 1932. Among her other notable assignments was the directorship of the ballet of the Vienna Opera. At the height of its existence, in 1937, the Hellerau-Laxenburg School, sometimes referred to as the Hellerau-Laxenburg School of the Dance, had students from thirty-five nations.*! One year later the Nazi invasion of Austria forced its permanent closing. Ernst Ferrand, Die Improvisation in der Musik (Zurich, 1938). Werner Schuftan, Manuel de danse (Paris, 1938) 69. Also see "Les Participants au concours de Choréographie 1932," Archives international de la danse, 1 (Oct. 1932) 9. 41Gertrude Doris Aleman, a Hellerau- Laxenburg graduate, directed a branch school in New York at Steinway Hall. See Margaret Stookey, "Dancing in a Castle," American Dancer (July 1938) 20, 46.

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It is significant that the Hellerau-Laxenburg School retained in its title the Hellerau connection. It is also important that its staff always acknowledged its association with the work of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, although in Vienna this was more easily done. No matter how far apart rythmique and

dance were in Jaques-Dalcroze’s pursuit of his musical and educational ideals, the fact remains that he belongs in the first rank of personalities who

made a decisive influence on the development of twentieth-century choreography, through his direct efforts and through those of his students and followers.”

Other educational methods had been evolving from JaquesDalcroze’s basic principles. Rudolf Bode (1881-1970), one of the most talented of the Hellerau students, who opposed his master’s ideas on various occasions, developed a movement system of his own: Ausdrucksgymnastik (expressive gymnastics). His work, carried on mainly in Munich, abandoned the concentration on music, although he was a fine musician himself. He made his reputation as a new force in physical education. Variations of his technique continue to be used in schools all over Germany.

Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), painter, scientist, theosophist turned anthroposophist (actually the founder of that movement), developed a practice called Eurythmie. It consists of movement based on language and tone and has been described as “visible speech and song.”*#? According to the reminiscences of a friend, Margarita Woloschin, the idea of organized movement, in some form, entered Steiner’s mind about 1908 but it was not until 1911 that he spoke of it as an art form. In September 1912 a course in movement was given in Darnach, Switzerland, by Marie von Silvers (Frau Steiner) and Clara Smits. Here, in the last hour, Marie struck on the word Eurythmie.* As Steiner’s concept progressed, its principles were applied to drama, and in 1915 it first incorporated music. Eurythmy (English version)

was employed for its therapeutic value in 1921. Like Dalcroze, Steiner sought to publicize his method by giving public demonstrations, beginning in 1919 and continuing for six years. Eurythmy, Steiner argued, brings the precept of personal organization to realization. It encompasses a power of utterance in which the universe speaks through human movement.* In an address at Nurnberg on 14 March “Schuftan, op cit., 65. Francis Edmunds, Rudolf Steiner's Gift to Education, The Waldorf Schools (London, 1975) 107.

“Tbid., 597.

Speech given at Mannheim on 22 Jan. 1922. See Rudolf Steiner, Eurythmie. Die Offenbarung der sprechenden Seele (Dornach, 1972) 16.

212

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1915 Steiner spoke of his interest in movement, mentioning that others had previously occupied themselves with the idea, particularly Dalcroze, then in disfavor because of his attack on “German barbarism.”* This remark,

made in a deprecating way, was his only reference to the great Swiss educator. With the help of industrialist Emil Molt, head of the Waldorf Astoria Cigarette Company, Steiner established the Free Waldorf School in Stuttgart in 1919 . Like the Dohrn’s Hellerau project, it was designed to serve

the children of the local industrial workers. The curriculum included eurythmy—one class per week for younger children, twice per week for children from grade five through twelve. The musical part of the lessons

touched upon melody, rhythm, form, mood, concentration and other theoretical ideas.” The Waldorf School idea spread rapidly in Germany and

neighboring countries during the 1920s, but because of the emphasis on *Tbid., 18. 47Héléne Oppert, "L’Eurythmie dans les huit premiéres classes," Henriette Bideau, Le Plan scolaire des écoles Rudolf Steiner (Paris, 1974) 80-92.

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“freedom” in nurturing individuality, the Nazi regime closed all of the schools during the next decade. After the war ended and the German economy rebuilt itself, these schools began to reopen. Soon Waldorf Schools were operating in 24 cities in Germany, 7 in the United States and Holland,

6 in England and in 1 or more cities in 12 other countries: Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Denmark, Finland, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Scotland, Sweden, Switzerland and the Union of South Africa.* Another Dalcroze disciple, Gerda Alexander, of Copenhagen, was one of several who explored Jaques-Dalcroze’s ideas on coordination and disordination of body members, and relaxation and contraction of the muscles, to enhance freer and more comfortable rhythmic responses. Working from

1920 on, Alexander, the foremost exponent in the developed discipline, eutonie, opened her own school in 1959. Eutonie (in English publications, eutonia) means good-tone, the right degree of muscle tension.® Charlotte MacJannet, a close friend of Mme. Alexander, and a firm believer in the advantages of the Alexander method® relates two instances where the success of the Copenhagen school was apparent. An oboist with the Royal Danish Symphony felt that he was having difficulties playing his instrument. Technical execution had become more difficult and his overall

performance was uneven. He took a course with Gerda Alexander and found that it benefited him greatly. He was able to play awkward passages with ease and his whole life seemed to have improved. At his suggestion the entire orchestra devoted a summer to eutonic training and, again, the results were phenomenal. When the new orchestral season began, the musicians were playing with an entirely fresh sound, especially the string sections. Each member was completely satisfied with the change in his playing, accrediting the remarkable results to the course. The Royal Danish Ballet experienced similar results after a summer course with Gerda Alexander. Routines that were difficult to perform before the training were then done with more ease and with improved technical execution. Mme. Alexander summed up the meaning of eutonie: *Rudolf Steiner, Die Erziehung des Kindes. Die Methodik des Lehrens (Stuttgart, 1961) 125.

See Gerda Alexander, Eutonia (Copenhagen, n.d.). In 1974 Gunna Brieghel- Miller opened a school for eutonie in Geneva. Annabelle Joseph teaches eutonie courses in the United States.

*Each summer Mrs. MacJannet sponsors courses at the Prieuré, a restored medieval monastery, now known as the Tufts Center for European Studies, at Talloires, France. Mme.

Alexander gives courses in eutonie and her student, Else Nusch, teaches therapeutic movement.

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1. Innervation of a particular kind of the agonist and the antagonist muscles to obtain maximum of strength with a minimum of energy. The difference

between EUTONIC INNERVATION and innervation used in ordinary gymnastics can be clearly shown with the help of a myograph.

2. Conscious innervation of the gamma system to regulate muscular tonus of varying degrees—from heaviness to lightness, in repose and in movement. This innervation of the gamma system leads simultaneously towards mental balance.?!

3. Conscious innervation of the neuro-vegetative system, applicable in all daily work, thereby improving the circulation, freeing unconscious breathing and preventing overwork.”

The gamma system, or gamma loop, refers to the circuits to and from the spinal cord involving the muscle spindle with its efferent gamma fibers. The gamma system is important in maintaining a fixed posture, in postural reflexes, and in phasic movements. The alpha system, consisting of the main motor neurons, may be used directly, especially for quick contractions, but most volitional movements are accomplished by the use of both systems.*? The significance of the gamma system, first identified and so named by Lars Leksell,*4 has not yet been scientifically tested to a maximum degree. It has been recognized for its function in improving muscle tone, but is there

more involvement? Neurological investigation seems to have succeeded in learning how to block its action, thus determining that it exists. Heretofore, medical interest lay mainly in the amelioration of certain nervous disorders such as spasticism or Parkinsonism. How the system may possibly serve to increase human muscular activity, particularly those processes involving mental and physical coordination as required in all musical responses, for example, has not yet been discerned. It has been observed that numerous conductors have lived long lives

while practicing their difficult art: Stokowsky, Toscanini, Monteux, Beecham, Bohm, to mention but a few. Is there a connection between their Joseph G. Chusid, Correlative Neuroanatomy and Functional Neurology (Los Altos, 1973) 157.

2Resumé of the Alexander lecture issued by the Centenaire Jaques-Dalcroze, 1965. 3A. B. Baker, ed., L. H. Baker, assoc, ed., Clinical Neurology (New York, 1980) 2: 9. 47 ars Leksell, "The Action Potential and Excitatory Effects of the Small Ventral Root Fibres to Skeletal Muscle," Acta Physiologica Scandinavica, 10, sup. 21 (1945) 6.

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longevity and their art which concerns certain physical action governed by mental discipline, the coordination of which is controlled by the small nerve fibers identified with the gamma system? In the same vein, Dalcroze practitioners have also been generally identified with long, active, healthy lives,

and the question may well arise as to the possible relationship between mental and physical activity and the part rhythm plays—rhythm in the musical sense and rhythm in the physical application—in their lives. The author raised this question when in the company of several physicians at St. Michael’s Hospital, London, in 1965. The response was guarded. The profession was aware of the phenomenon, its implications were under investigation, but, as far as is known, no substantial report has come forth.

The gamma system may also figure in situations where mental and physical actions are combined musically, as in sensitive performance or in sight reading. Superior results should not be explained merely in terms of grades of talent or the degree of practice involved in attaining comparative results. It is known that practice (repetition for the sake of repetition), is a limiting factor in obtaining superior results; it is a matter of practice utilizing

maximum concentration and other mental processes along with physical applications that produces the improved, even the perfected, musical result.

Is it likely that the difference between the quality of work produced by subject A, as opposed to subject B, is due to enervation in the nervous system, not only in the alpha system wherein the larger nerve fibers are put to use, but perhaps even more so in the activation of the small neurones working within the gamma system? If this were the case it would be necessary to clinically study the positive role of the gamma system and how to use it,

both specifically, to develop musical or artistic activity, and in general applications.

One of the most practical applications of rythmique techniques is evident through educational work with both physically and mentally handicapped persons, including the blind. A pioneer in the development, Marie Scheiblauer, widely known to her friends and colleagues as Mimi, began rythmique studies in 1905 at Basle; she also attended Dalcroze’s courses at Hellerau. From time to time she came to Geneva for short periods of study and she finally received her certificate after completing a fifteen-day course in Zurich. Her work with handicapped persons began in 1922 when Professor Hans Hanselmann of Zurich observed her rythmique lessons and was struck by the efficacy of the system for teaching the sick. Her first assignment was with retarded children, and in 1924 she went on to instruct students classified as difficult to educate. Work with the deaf and dumb began in 216

DERIVATIVES FROM RYTHMIQUE, 1913-1965

1926. Volkmar Andreae, Director of the Zurich Conservatory, put her in charge of the rythmique sections and training courses for teachers of the handicapped at the conservatory, where she worked with important Hellerau students Suzanne Perrottet, Charlotte Pfeffer, and Grete Lui. (Kristina Feloges is the leading instructor in this field in Basle.) She also gave courses and seminars throughout the years in Cologne, Freiburg, Bremen, Vienna,

and Lausanne. This writer observed a filming session of an entire morning at Miss Scheiblauer’s studio in Zurich, with Walter Marty the cinematographer. In the first sequence they worked with four young blind children, one of whom was unable to cooperate, cried, and was taken home by his mother. (Some parents were also present, due in part to the simple fact that they had to bring in the children, but mainly because of their great interest in the project; in fact, a large part of the film’s budget [250,000 Swiss francs] was pledged by parents of handicapped children, the state also contributing to the costs.) The second subject was a five-year-old girl, a deaf-mute, who could not use her arms. Also being filmed was a pair of twin girls about eight years of age. One of the twins could not walk or stand, but sat or lay on the floor, moved a little with her elbows, but could do very little with her hands. Her hearing was acute, but music generally made her flinch. The other twin, Carla, was

quite intelligent, able to talk and sing, and could follow directions. Their area of movement was marked by four chairs which guided them as they touched and moved around them. Carla would push or pull her sister who was seated on a rolling chair while a third girl, Ursi (Ursula), followed along, guided by a ribbon tied to the chair, or by holding Carla’s hand when that could be arranged. Other play involved the use of round sticks, about thirty

inches long, and balls, which Carla rolled back and forth, but which the other two children could only grasp and hold. Miss Scheiblauer worked with the children every day, trying to make contact with them, attempting to catch every opening she could in order to obtain a response. It took a lot of patience—something psychologists lack,

she said. Frequently, she lamented, psychologists tire after one hour of contact with the children and their work thereafter is totally ineffective. She stressed the need to study psychology in order to understand and to feel the child’s situation, but to forget psychology if it fails to make contact with the

child, and to continue to meet the child’s needs in some other way. The

instructor's ability to improvise in all styles is important and it is his responsibility to reach the subject through proper music, not just any music.

It is easy to accompany movement with music, but do not let music be a nursemaid. Let the child sometimes do movement without music. “Music,” 217

RHYTHM AND LIFE

she said, quoting Jaques-Dalcroze, “is a small means for a large purpose— life.”

Filming was done about twice per week. Mimi explained that the film shows all kinds of problems, but her main purpose was to try to animate the soul.* She did not believe, she said, as did the Nazis, in destroying the soul.

As a result of her therapeutic endeavors and the experience she had acquired, she was often asked to write a book on dealing with the handicapped for the benefit of other teachers in the field. No, she would reply, she was too busy studying children and their problems and she advised other instructors to do the same. Dalcroze was never comfortable with her work at Zurich. He failed to recognize her efforts as a full disciple of his method.

Instead he sought to establish some sort of liaison between Zurich and Geneva, yet nothing was ever settled. Miss Scheiblauer continued to work with music and movement, but was not permitted to call it the Dalcroze method, which she never claimed it to be.

*°>Mimi Schneiblauer’s’ films on work with handicapped children are available at Pestalozzianum, Beckenhofstr. 31-37, CH-8006, Ziarich, Switzerland.

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CHAPTER X

Geneva—Expansion of Rythmique, 1914-1924

Throughout the late months of 1914, Jaques-Dalcroze was crushed by his permanent separation from Hellerau. Harald Dohrn’s suggestion to visit the United States went unheeded, although it was not entirely put out of mind. Dalcroze was persuaded to take lessons to learn to speak English, but they proved unsuccessful and did not last long. He found the language full of complications and, considering his frame of mind, concentration was difficult. The Geneva Conservatory offered him his old teaching position, but that too

he refused. Finally, he rented space at the Hotel du Lac and began to give lessons in rythmique, at first to only a few students, but eventually to a whole new group, from both Geneva and abroad.

Percy Ingham sought to establish some sort of collaboration with the master via the London school, but Dalcroze could not see any permanent

liaison at this time and did not encourage further negotiations. He did, however, undertake a visit to England where he observed the courses of the

school and gave lessons himself. With his wife Nina, a French baritone named Gaillant, and Miss Daisy Kennedy, Dalcroze gave a concert in London. He played some of his own piano pieces, and accompanied Miss Kennedy in his Poéme pour violon, and Monsieur Gaillant and Mme. Jaques-Dalcroze in his chansons for one and two voices. Dalcroze was struck by the honesty and straightforwardness of his English friends and the English public, as applied to the educative processes. He became more aware of the

modifications from country to country of artistic ideas, imagination, and creation, chiefly the result of differences in climate, temperament, and general behavior. Varying his lessons and materials to meet the changing circumstances became more necessary than ever.

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Chapter XI

Rythmique in the United States, 1913Placido de Montoliu, a Spaniard who completed his studies in Geneva, was the first instructor to bring Jaques-Dalcroze’s method to the United States. His classes were held in Bryn Mawr, Ardmore, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Greenwich, Connecticut.' At just about the time the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze opened in Geneva, Marguerite Heaton of London and Suzanne Ferriére of

Geneva introduced classes in New York at 9 East 59th Street. From its beginning the New York Dalcroze School was very active, offering courses in rhythmic gymnastics, solfége and plastics—an advanced course intended to follow the rhythmic gymnastics course. Improvisation was set aside, no longer

required as an integrated discipline, but available as a course for personal interest only. In 1918 Miss Ferriére left the school to return to Switzerland to work with the International Red Cross organization in what she felt was a more impelling occupation. Marguerite Heaton remained as sole director of the school, assisted by Jessmin Howarth, a graduate of the London school, and Paulet Thévanaz, an extremely talented graduate of the Geneva Institute. At this time rythmique did not arouse nearly the interest it did in England. In 1922 Marguerite Heaton attempted to explain why the method in America was not keeping up with its progress in Russia. When Placido de Montoliu gave his first instruction at Bryn Mawr, classes in Russia had been established for ten years. In America, as well as in many European cities, the instructor was forced

to spend much energy and time defending the method, since it was neither 'Hilda M. Schuster, The Aesthetic Contribution of Dalcroze Eurythmics to Modern Education, unpublished thesis, Duquesne University, 1938, is the first extensive report on the introduction and development of rythmique, called eurhythmics in the United States as well as in

England, at various pioneering institutions in the states. Information presented here is obtained from this source and also from the following: mimeographed "Outline of the History of the Dalcroze Method in America," prepared by the New York Dalcroze School (1965); Arthur F. Becknell, A History of the Development of Dalcroze Eurythmics in the United States, dissertation, University of Michigan (1970/71); Beth Landis and Polly Carder, The Eclectic Curriculum in American Music Education: Contributions of Dalcroze, Koddly and Orff (Boston, 1972).

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thoroughly understandable nor wholly accepted. It was considered a European method, without value in America. Furthermore, it was one of many methods and, perhaps, the least known of all. Competing methods were closer to dance,

and thus were better comprehended. Eurythmics, as the term was used in England, and by which some dance methods were also identified, was not the same as the Dalcroze rythmique. It differed from other systems of gymnastics or body techniques with or without music, in that it had a different, deeper purpose, which was not self-evident, but which required sympathy and comprehension, as well as effort, to achieve its goals.?

In 1926, when the New York School was moving to improved facilities at 63 West 56th Street, Paul Boepple arrived (following his interim director-

ship of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva), and additional instructors Gabrielle Egger, Elsa Findlay and Frances Teall—all certificate holders—and Muriel Bradford and Johanna Gjerulff, diploma recipients. The school was now empowered to offer a teaching certificate in its own right. Boepple took over as full director of the school in 1928 at which point it was renamed The American Institute of Dalcroze Eurythmics. It offered courses in harmony, counterpoint, orchestration, composition and history of music, in addition to the traditional Dalcroze courses. In the summer of 1929 they opened a branch

school in Lucern-in-Maine, a small community near Bar Harbor; Boepple instructed at the Maine site while Bradford and Gjerulff taught in New York.

Other New York institutions grasped the opportunity to do Dalcroze work: the Damrosch Institute of Musical Art (later called the Juilliard School of Music), Hunter College, New York University School of Musical Education, Teachers College of Columbia University, the Denishawn School of the

Dance, and the New York Institute for Education of the Blind. Activity blossomed in other cities as well—seventy schools and colleges, in private classes from Boston to Honolulu, and from Seattle to Washington, D.C.

A major American composer, Roger Sessions, entered the picture in 1934 when the New York school again changed its name and, more importantly, its structure. Sessions and Boepple co-directed the enterprise, the New Music School and Dalcroze Institute. The new idea was to have a school in

which the actual production of music, taught by composers, was the main objective to which all other musical activities, such as interpretation and performance techniques were subordinated in the logical sequence of 1) composer, 2) performer, 3) public. Added to the faculty was Suzanne Bloch, daughter of composer Ernest Bloch, a superb musician in her ownright, having been trained at the Geneva and Paris conservatories. ‘Te Rythme, no. 9 (June 1922).

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RYTHMIQUE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1913-

The new scheme, however, lasted for only one year. In 1935 the institute reverted to the Dalcroze School of Music, with Paul Boepple as its sole director. It had operated under a provisional charter from the Board of Regents of the University of the State of New York until 1941, at which time it was granted an absolute charter. Boepple’s leadership terminated one year later when he accepted the chairmanship of the School of Music at Bennington (Vermont) College; a new era commenced.

Hilda Schuster, dean and chief assistant to Boepple since 1940, became

acting director and in 1945 was appointed full director. Due to her deep knowledge of the Dalcroze method and her wide experience in the American educational system, Miss Schuster was certainly the most qualified person to undertake the leadership of the New York School. Besides having earned the diploma in Geneva she had taught in American public and parochial schools and in several colleges, not only teaching Dalcroze subjects but also traditional music theory and techniques of creative music for public school teachers. She also performed as a pianist in chamber and choral groups.

The home of the New York Dalcroze School changed locations again in 1944, to 130 West 56th Street, becoming the first tenant in the New York City Center for Music and Dance. Six years later it moved to 161 East 73d Street, its current location. A large part of the school’s curriculum lay in musical practice aside from strict Dalcroze concentration, although numerous students, professional and amateur, continued to avail themselves of the specialized work. Many New York City teachers took these courses for practical purposes since the city Board of Education recognized this service in granting salary increments on both the graduate and undergraduate levels.

The second American music school of note to offer study in JaquesDalcroze’s method was the Cleveland Institute of Music, the first institution in the United States to grant a degree in eurhythmics. Emest Bloch, one of the most famous of the era’s living composers, after serving three years on the faculty of the David Mannes School of Music in New York, went to Cleveland to direct the new institute in that city. One of his initial acts as director was

to engage Jean Binet, his talented composition student in New York and a diplomate of the Geneva Dalcroze Institute, to supervise the eurhythmics portion of the curriculum.

The 1921-22 catalog of the institute stated that one of the aims of rhythmic training was the coordination of mind and body. In the offering of eurhythmics, however, only rhythmic movement and plastic movement were featured, thus a further breakdown in Dalcroze’s tripartite system was evident. In addition, solfége was not treated as part of the eurhythmic idea but was

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taught in the theory department where there was no obligation to observe the formal Dalcroze solfége practices. Further developments ensued, including the expansion of the institute's courses to include children’s studies, and the 1924 addition of Gladys Wells,

of the London School, to the faculty. In the following decades additional Dalcrozians joined the staff: Doris Portmann, Betty Miller, and Penelope Draper. Elsa Findlay, a Hellerau graduate experienced in dance and theatre, joined the staff in 1956 and became chairman of the eurhythmics department in 1966. At the time of Bloch’s departure from the Cleveland Institute of Music,

two years of eurhythmics were required to qualify for a bachelor of music degree and also for a teaching certificate. During Elsa Findlay’s tenure, a major field in eurhythmics as part of the bachelor of music degree was available. John

Coleman assisted Miss Findlay in managing this program, whose major requirements were rigorous: four years of eurhythmics, including pedagogy, a seminar and thesis; four years of applied piano study; three years of music

history; four years of music theory, including solfége, harmony, keyboard harmony, form and analysis, vocal counterpoint and pedagogy; three years of improvisation; four years of liberal arts courses; four years of dance courses, and four years of chorus participation.

At this time Victor Babin, a renowned pianist (part of the two-piano team of Vronsky and Babin), was director of the Cleveland Institute of Music, and William Kurzban served as dean. Both were strong advocates of rhythmic study as an important part of a musical education.

Thus far, the Dalcrozée name had not been used in connection with courses or with the degree at the Cleveland Institute. In April, 1967, however, Gabriel Jaques-Dalcroze and the Geneva school permitted the use of the name and authorized those who received the elementary certificate to teach private

courses for children and adults, recognizing the fact that their training included work with certified Dalcroze instructors. It was specified, neverthe-

less, that those aspiring to teach for professional purposes, ie. , to train teachers of the method, or to teach at the college or university level, would be required to obtain a diploma at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva. Yet, for the moment, the use of the Dalcroze name at the Clevelend Institute was most important. The Cleveland school became the first to be authorized for certification since the founding of the New York School in 1915 and, as mentioned, the first degree granting institution authorized to award a Dalcroze certificate.

238

RYTHMIQUE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1913-

The University of Pittsburgh, in 1913, was the first institution to offer Dalcroze eurhythmics at the college level. The course, which was taught by

Susan Canfield, a Hellerau student, was offered in the department of dramatics. Later, the music education department was transferred to the Carnegie Institute of Technology (also in Pittsburgh), and the two-semester course accompanied the transfer. Carnegie Institute became the first college

to establish a permanent department of eurhythmics, whose credits were allowed only to majors in music education. In 1926, as interest in the area grew, Mary MacNair, a London School graduate, joined the staff and shortly

thereafter eurhythmic courses were offered for both music education and drama students. Doris Portmann, who worked with Binet at the Cleveland Institute of Music, succeeded Miss MacNair in 1929. Portmann had taught in the Pittsburgh public schools, at Oberlin Conservatory, and at Western Reserve University; in later years at the Cleveland Institute and the University

of Virginia. In turn, Cecil Kitcat, also a graduate from Geneva, succeeded Portmann in 1933. At this time eurhythmics was required of all music students

at Carnegie, not merely music education majors. These credits could be substituted for physical education requirements—a very attractive situation for music students. A group of advanced students, including Rose Marie Grentzer and Brunhilde Dorsch, to satisfy their keen interest in movement, formed a “Rhythmic Ensemble” which met regularly and prepared programs to perform on campus and throughout the city. By 1937 Kitcat’s interest shifted, as she left the music department and did all of her work in the department of dramatics. Later, experiencing another

change in interest, she went to New York to study and teach dance, then returned to the Carnegie Institute as professor of stage movement, after serving at the Peabody Conservatory of Music in Baltimore. Henriette Rosenstrauch, a graduate of Geneva who previously had taught at Frankfurt,

Mainz and London, was her interim replacement; a brilliant proponent of rythmique, Rosenstrauch taught in the drama department, and even experimented with rythmique in art classes. After retiring in 1959 she went to Europe to teach in various Dalcroze schools.

Between 1953 and 1958 other instructors contributed to the American eurhythmics scene: Joan Wright, Coleen Smith, Theresa Collet, and Marta Sanchez. Upon arrival from Chile, Mrs. Sanchez taught at the

Pittsfield (Massachusetts) Community School, which had a significant history featuring eurhythmics in its curriculum. John Colman also worked at the Carnegie Institute of Technology. A diplomate of the Geneva school, Colman previously had studied composition with Paul Hindemith in Berlin.

He taught at the Dalcroze schools in New York, Paris, the Cleveland 239

RHYTHM AND LIFE

Institute, the Westminster Choir College in Princeton, and summer courses at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Colman is a brilliant improviser

and a busy accompanist in New York, particularly for dance and ballet programs and classes.

Carnegie Institute of Technology, now known as Carnegie-Mellon University, permitted Marta Sanchez, with the assistance of other teachers, to supervise eurhythmic classes for culturally deprived children in city day camps and in thirty-four schools. Eurhythmic classes were also given by

Virginia Schatz, a student of Henrietta Rosenstrauch, at the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf. To improve the quality of eurhythmic training Mrs. Sanchez and Betty Sommer conducted a teachers workshop on the Carnegie-Mellon campus in 1967. In the same year, the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze authorized CarnegieMellon University to award certificates to persons who had already earned degrees in general education, music education, physical education, art

education, speech and drama education, and had completed at least a minimum study in eurhythmics. This development allowed public school teachers to do eurhythmic work in their classrooms. Duquesne, another Pittsburgh university, had installed eurhythmic classes taught by Hilda Schuster, as early as 1931. The city of Pittsburgh proved to be a mecca of eurhythmic training, featuring it on many levels: university, public school, summer camp, and special teachers courses. Other centers and instructors for eurhythmic training not previously mentioned are : From before 1915

Buffalo Clara Brooke, Amy Graham Boston Jacqueline Mellor, Placido de Montoliu Chicago Minnie Lawson, Rose Theiler, Eleanor Burgess, Lucy Duncan Hall

Seattle Elsie Hewitt McCoy

1920

Cornell University (Ithaca, Lucy Duncan Hall, Leontine Plonk N.Y.)

1921

New York Institute for the Emilie Hahn Blind

1922

Westchester (Pa.) State Lucy Duncan Hall, Leontine Plonk Normal School

; 240

RYTHMIQUE IN THE UNITED STATES, 19131925

Toronto Conservatory of Madeleine Boss Lasserre Music, University of

Toronto

Juilliard School of Music Nellie Reuschel New York University Lucy Duncan Hall, Leontine Plonk 1927

Washington, D.C. Iris Bland Smith 1930

Cincinnati Conservatory of Doris Wulff Music

Greenbriar (W.V.) College Hazel Petraitis

Ithaca (N.Y.) College Marjorie Dorian MacPhail (Minneapolis) Martha Baker School of Music

University of North Johanna Gjerulff Carolina

Trinity (Burlington, Vt.) Dorothy Hunt College

King-Smith School Gertrude Marti (Washington, D.C.)

1947

Mansfield (Pa.) State Florence Borkey Teachers College

1952

University of Southern Irene Bland California

1959

Hartford Conservatory of Patricia Thompson Music, University of

Connecticut 1960

New England Conservatory Lisa Frederick 1963

University of Minnesota Martha Baker 1964

David Hochstein Memorial Edith Wax School of Music

Additional institutions offering Dalcroze courses at various times are: Bank Street College, New York Manhattan School of Music, New York City College Graduate School of Education, New York University of Washington Montclair (New Jersey) State College Kent (Ohio) State College

241

RHYTHM AND LIFE

A telling summary of the progress of Dalcroze activity in the United States is shown by these figures:

1912 3 instructors 1924 11 instructors

1928 20 instructors in 43 colleges and schools 1965 180 instructors in 24 states, 93 cities

In 1922 various Dalcroze teachers from coast to coast joined forces under the leadership of Marion Kappas who, though not an authorized Dalcroze teacher herself, understood and fostered the master’s principles to some degree, to form the Association of Dalcroze Teachers. In 1932, a reorganization on a stricter basis was accomplished.

Once Jaques-Dalcroze’s rythmique program was organized, published, and its value proven to a high degree, he sought universal acceptance. Putting the method into effect progressed in varying degrees in Switzerland, Germany,

and other European countries. He continued to seek application of his method in the public schools which in Geneva came about, as late as 1929, only on a limited basis. In the United States, interest in Dalcroze activity in the public schools manifested itself in the early 1930s. By that time, however, particularly in this country, many of Dalcroze’s principles were already shorn away: solfége and improvisation were no longer directly related; only body movement remained. And this was directed mainly to the study of rhythm, perhaps the most important element with which music is imbued. The deeper

influences of rhythm, its human integration, the qualities which were saturated in Jaques-Dalcroze’s rythmique, were largely eliminated. The absence of the complete disciplinary relationship was noted at Geneva, the world center of Dalcroze study, though it was overlooked to a certain degree in the United States. It was truly with reluctance that the Geneva school finally

authorized the association of the Dalcroze name with the training in the American music school—a’ matter of expediency as well as of guarded promotion.

Karl Wilson Gehrkens, long-time chairman of the music education department of the Oberlin Conservatory of Music, became interested in Jaques-Dalcroze’s concepts, particularly those which agreed with his own early practices. His investigations were thorough, including witnessing eurhythmic

classes in several parts of the country, and visiting the master himself in Geneva. Gehrkens remained unconvinced, however, of the need to integrate

242

RYTHMIQUE IN THE UNITED STATES, 1913-

Dalcroze’s three disciplines, feeling that they were well known and well understood, but too universally acceptable to be restrained to a single system unless the “system is as flexible and adaptable as the principle is broad and comprehensive.”? Gehrkens clearly stated his objection to the integration of elements comprising Jaques-Dalcroze’s system, as the instructors from Geneva had initially insisted, and they eventually gave up those principles as a matter of necessity. As a system of rhythmic training, the greatest obstacle to the success of the method has been the attitude of some of the Dalcroze teachers themselves.

They have often insisted that the system must be taught in its entirety to be effective and that if it cannot be worked completely and exactly in accordance with its inventor it must not be adopted at all.4

In Pennsylvania a strong attempt was made to establish a program of eurhythmics on a state-wide basis, while a member of the faculty of Carnegie Institute of Technology, Will Earhart, also the director of music in the public schools of Pittsburgh, simultaneously sought a curriculum in music including eurhythmics, for all public schools in the state. Cecil Kitcat, Susan Canfield and Hilda Schuster worked out an outline for eurhythmics in 1933, yet the project was not brought to fruition due to a lack of qualified teachers to carry it out. Some local elementary teachers attempted to undergo special training

in order to be certified, but it was not enough to overcome the serious situation. The pressing problem of obtaining teachers with sufficient skill to

teach Dalcroze work, who are also licensed as public school teachers in individual states, has been one of the most unresolved handicaps in promoting the Dalcroze system (even with its variants) in this country.

In the early 1970s the Dalcroze Society of America leaped into prominence. Under the guidance of its chairman Arthur Becknell they published a newsletter, later called Journal, which brought attention to all of their activities, information on their annual national conferences, workshops, demonstrations and clinics all over the country, articles on subjects of professional interest, activities of individual rhythmicians, and announcements of new licentiates and diplomates from the several authority-granting schools. In addition to Dalcrozians already mentioned, dating from the earliest instructors to those taking part in teaching through the 1960s, the following persons, active through the 1970s on may be mentioned:° *Karl W. Gehrkens, "Rhythmic Training and Dalcroze Eurythmics," Yearbook, Music Supervisors National Conference (Chicago, 1932) 309f. ‘Thid., 308

°Data from Newsletters and Journals of the Dalcroze Society of America, 1972 to date.

243

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Robert Abramson Manhattan School of Music, Juilliard School of Music

Frances Aronson New York University

Charles Aschenbrunner Hope College Carolyn Bilderback Manhattan School of Music

Julia Black Georgia State University

Thomas Bratz University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

David Brown Cleveland Institute of Music June Butler Cleveland Music School Settlement

Margery Dorian Mills College Dora Dubsky New York YM-YWHA

Shirley Griffith University of North Carolina Melinda Haas Texas Women’s University University of Texas

Judi Heastings Pittsburgh Public Schools Herbert Henke Oberlin Conservatory Julia Hibben Belmont (Mass.) Public Schools Helen Hill Hollis Woods Community Church Music School (Queen’s Village, N.Y.)

Inda Howland Oberlin Conservatory

Charlotte Hubert University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire Annabelle Joseph Pittsburgh Public Schools

Joy Kane Hartford Conservatory Loma Lombardo

Bianca Lord N.Y. Dalcroze School Cleveland Institute of Music

Virginia Mead Kent State University Ron Oczanich Akron University Lisa Parker New England Conservatory Longy School of Music Sydell Roth Croydon Country Day School

Betty Sommers Montclair, Newark State Colleges Ron Sprunger

John Stevenson Laval University Ithaca College Ursula Stuben Laval University Elizabeth Waters University of New Mexico Marianne Wahli Laval University Edith Wax North Shore Community Arts Center

Evelyn Wellman Western Washington State College

Inge Witt Meredith College

There were in addition, those persons who carried on in private studios and in other private schools.

245

RHYTHM AND LIFE

As well as working at their home bases, eurhythmic instructors were in demand to conduct classes in other schools and in various other facilities, generally during summer sessions. These programs, from one-day sessions to four-week periods, often carried college credits. Workshops were also given within the activities of national organizations such as the Music Educators National Conference, Music Teachers Association, Orff, Kodaly and Suzuki meetings, national and state meetings of organ and piano teachers, at local libraries, choral and community arts associations, and public schools. Work was done not only in eurhythmics, but experts in therapy and eutony also

shared their talents. | |

The most active conductor of clinics (workshops) was Robert Abramson, who gave as many as ten programs in a single summer, in addition to

several others during the year. Other popular workshop instructors were Frances Aronoff, Martha Baker, Arthur Becknell, John Colman, Brunhilde Dorsch, Virginia Mead, Lisa Parker, Marta Sanchez, and many more. From time to time Dalcrozians from abroad came to instruct at various sessions:

Hettie van Maanen (President of U.I.P.D.) from Holland, Elizabeth Vanderspar from London, Valerie Roth from Paris, Dominique Porte and Marie-Louise Hatt-Arnold from Geneva. American teachers were invited to participate abroad as well: Marta Sanchez to Chile, Venezuela and Australia; Virginia Mead to China; Robert Abramson to Japan where en route he paused periodically to teach rhythm classes in London, Frankfurt, and Diisseldorf; and Joy Yellin to Australia.

Abramson and John Stevenson also participated in programs at the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva. An even more significant challenge was issued to Abramson when he was asked to teach the ear training course of the Jaques-Dalcroze method—all three volumes, which Abramson had translated into English—to the faculty of the Manhattan School of Music. Stevenson expanded his activities in Geneva by bringing with him his Ensemble JaquesDalcroze, Plastique Animée for performances throughout Geneva. The ensemble was also featured in programs in the United States.

At the 1974 Dalcroze International Congress in Geneva there were

227 participants from 22 countries. The United States had 25 representatives, the largest delegation of any country except Switzerland.

Now that schools in America are graduating qualified teachers and have intensified their programs it is certain that eurhythmics has overcome some previous impediments and is well on its way to being recognized as a force in the teaching of music and other studies.

246

CHAPTER XII

Paris: 1924-1926 @

Paris, 9 Apr [1925] 52 Rue de Vaugirard My dear Claparéde,

I am writing you as a faithful and comprehending friend, in whom I have deep admiration and entire confidence, and I beg you to consider this letter in all confidence. You know that if I left Geneva it was because I sensed—from the musical point of view—that the Conservatory opposed my activity, thanks to the "hostility" of the director. On the other hand, my system of education, following the political events imposed by financial restrictions, stopped being experimental in the public schools even at the moment when it was beginning

to assert its influence on the development of the personality and on its imaginative faculties (1 hold, in effect, that it is only after three or four years of study of rythmique that one can obtain the results which I expect). Thus have I decided to leave Geneva and to make my home in Paris, and my exile was further motivated by the fact that the Institute at la Terrassiére could no longer guarantee me a job—I am, unfortunately, not a rich man.

I have chosen Paris because of the support of two persons who are always interested in my ideas, my situation in the School of Rythmique which they created. The number of professional students is considerable. Among them are Americans English, Czechoslovakians; there are few French people except,

naturally, in the children’s classes, where there are many. | have gathered around me about 40 instructors, very intelligent and faithful. The physicians are friendly, certain artists also; my demonstrations attract a large public, the reviews ask for articles. In other words, my financial situation is for the most

part assured, thanks, above all, to the fact that my two friends offer me, without charge, their place and will undertake all of the advertising. But in spite of these moral and material advantages, I cannot accustom myself to the life of Paris. 1 am homesick. That is why I return to Geneva, the city of

which I do not cease to think, which draws me, and which I love. But, | feel—you know certain [things] are closer to reality than the actual facts—I

247

RHYTHM AND LIFE feel that my return to the institute would conflict with resistance of a financial order which, in spite of friendships and sympathies, will result in a situation not precisely desirable. So I am ready, for at least one year of trial, to make all concessions, not to ask for consideration as director, and to be content with simple appointments as an instructor. You should be up on the matter.

But I would like, at least in the summer course of this year, to make all attempts possible to interest the pedagogues in my efforts. | know that my experiences make progress in encouraging the freedom of young spirits to awaken from within creative and imaginative faculties. And I can state, in the course of my inspections in England, where my method is introduced in a great number of schools, about 200, that the practice of my exercises is profitable in general studies. It is true that in England I am admirably seconded by my friend Ingham who for 10 years has spent 30,000 to 40,000 fr. to spread my

ideas. Nevertheless, I cannot, not anymore, come to establish myself in England; I leave too much to Geneva, this city a bit cruel, but which I adore, and to which | am attached by its temperament, character, heart and spirit. At the Institut de la Terrassiére, as you no doubt know, I do not enjoy all the liberty that I desire from the point of view of the free disposition of my worthy pedagogues. It is interesting that I strongly desire to concede to all the schools of rythmique of the diverse countries the right to distribute certificates of my method on condition, certainly, that the professional studies be done con-

scienciously under the direction of certified teachers.! This year, at the instigation of my disciple and friend Paul Boepple, the office at la Terrasiére has envisaged the question in a new way, and | think that henceforth the right to teach my system will be liberally accorded to each country according to special conditions. | am profoundly happy about this and | only regret that this decision was not taken sooner, for on occasions and already they are ready in various countries—with reason I believe—to pass on the permission from the institute at Geneva. It is in Germany that the movement opened up and that is why the committee in Geneva took the initiative for which I congratu'The institute granted the certificate, its first level of achievement,to students who spent a certain amount of time, not strictly regulated, and, who passed the specified examinations. These persons were not empowered to teach the Dalcroze method in conservatories or other institutions or in special Dalcroze schools (specializing in Dalcroze training). The second level, the diploma, was awarded after fulfilling the requirements for the certificate and the passing of further examinations. These graduates were entitled to instruct on the professional level, i.e., to teach students who were preparing to become Dalcroze instructors in their own right. A school or other institution that staffed three or more certificated instructors, and with the approval of the Geneva institute, had the authority to award certificates in its own name thus enabling their graduates to teach on the professional level. The authority to grant the diploma was zealously guarded by the Geneva Institute, much to the displeasure of other Dalcroze schools, particularly those in other countries from where it might be impractical to attend the Geneva school even for a limited period of time in order to take the examinations there and, to be certificated there. At times this led to ill feelings between hard-working, well-intentioned schools on the outside and the central institution, which was sincerely interested in maintaining certain standards and control.

248

PARIS: 1924-1926 late them, to send Paul Boepple? as mediator to the Congress of Dusseldorf. I have held, in effect, that it is not by restrictions, by reservations, by vetos, that one can protect ideas, and that they have to be able to develop in all liberty, such that they who expand them offer the necessary guarantees of seriousness, intelligence and loyalty. But it signifies also—ackowledging that Geneva—and the Institut de la Terrassiére—become the center of rythmique. This is why I came to ask you to try to work out the way to unify more entirely my efforts to yours and to those of Monsieur Bovet.? If you could interest your students in rythmique, persuade them to follow two courses per week, | will

be ready to give them lessons myself, and that in a way to imbue my undertaking of your principles to you, these principles which I admire because I believe they penetrate deeply. Our mutual desire to penetrate is reciprocal—

in the educative point of view—from the exchange of courses, etc., has not been realized in total in spite of your sincere sympathy and your great good will. Would you like us to try to find the means, should I return to Geneva, to find a solution to this interesting question? I would be deeply indebted to you if in the middle of all of your multiple occupations, you would want to and could find the time to reflect on this problem. Will you consider this letter as being of a strictly confidential nature, because I do not know, in sum, if I have the right to write you without having notified the office? I believe, in effect—having been presented with the actual question by the conservatory—that I cannot take any initiative. It is to a friend that | address myself on this occasion.

My dearest friend, trust in my fervent affection. Your faithful s/ E. Jaques-Dalcroze‘*

‘Paul Boepple (1896-1966), son of Basle Boepple, who was one of the earliest Dalcroze disciples, may have been the master’s most talented and most competent pupil. He was granted the diploma in 1919 and served as Dalcroze’s chief assistant for seven years, including

the two- year period he served as director of the Geneva school while Jaques-Dalcroze sojourned in Paris. During this period Boepple also was musical director of the Théatre du Jorat in Méziéres where he produced Honegger’s "King David," "Judith," and the "Chant de Joie." He also conducted the premier performance of Bloch’s "Schelomo." In 1926 he went to the United States to direct the New York Dalcroze School. From 1936 he was also director of the Dessoff Choirs and the Motet Singers, with whom he brought to light many works of the Renaissance masters, sometimes devoting an entire concert to the works of a single

composer. He also served on the faculties of the Westminster Choir College and of Bennington College. See Anna Moyneux, "Paul Boepple and the Dalcroze School," Dance Observer, (Jan. 1940) 5; also Willi Schuh and others, "Paul Boepple," Schweizer Musiker-Lexikon (Ziirich, 1964) 56. *Bovet, with Claparéde, founded the Institut Jean-Jaques Rousseau in 1912 in Geneva. 4Ms. Fr. 4002, Correspondance générale, Départment de Mss, Université de Genéve, 183f.

249

RHYTHM AND LIFE

This letter sums up Dalcroze’s feelings, frustrations, and disappoint-

ments, as the ninth year of operation of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva drew to a close—as he attempted to instill a new spirit into his work and, above all, into himself. He felt the need to develop in another atmos-

phere, perhaps in another city. With the improvement of instruction, the clearer delineations of his pedagogical ideas, and a competent staff conducting the classes, his daily routine at the institute was no longer exciting. From time to time he gave a few demonstrations; his compositions were meeting with a modicum of success, locally and abroad; rythmique was taking up nearly all of his time and attention. His method was being taught in many areas of the world with varying degrees of fortune. Most successful was the work in England where they had superb leadership in the Ingham family and very good facilities. Yet, most

importantly, it was the prevailing English temperament which seemed compatible with the spirit of rythmique. Dalcroze’s work flourished in rather

passive, subdued societies, as compared to those possessing aggressive, passionate, active, populations. Hence, Italy and the United States did not supply fertile ground for its expansion. Nor did Spain, except that the ideas

were being employed more and more in the training for handicapped persons. There were also problems in France. On several occasions Emile had given demonstrations there, particularly with groups from Hellerau; from time to time he gave special lessons at the Paris schools. And there were problems at home as well. Much antagonism and too little understanding of his method and what it was purported to do lead Dalcroze to feel totally constrained. An article appeared in the Journal de Genéve which mentioned opposition to his work in Geneva; that persons who admired his work as a writer

of songs suspected his qualifications as an educator and were trying to destroy him at the institute as well. The fact that Dalcroze had received offers to go to Paris had leaked out. The article said, If he goes away, if he closes his institute in Geneva, what a loss! It is true that his surly critics will remain with us. The consolation will be meagre. And will we do nothing in this eternal battle of the artist against those who degrade him and envy him, to help the triumph of a just cause?°

In spite of this plea which, incidentally, also listed strong support of the method, especially among Parisian musical leaders, a response was printed a few days later in La Suisse. Aloys Mooser spoke of the enemies of rythmique, Robert de Traz, Journal de Genéve (20 Apr. 1924).

250

PARIS: 1924-1926

who were not confined to Geneva and who included prominent persons in Paris, particularly those in the world of dance and theatre.® The dance critic André Levinson exclaimed deprecatingly, “A rythmician is no more a dancer than a metronome is a musical instrument.”

Many people refused to understand the fact that rythmique was not dance, that it was basic to all the arts as a pedagogical device, and that it was not an artistic end in itself—a distinction that, at times, Jaques-Dalcroze himself neglected to make clear. When criticism of a rythmique demonstration was proclaimed as not meeting standards for the art of dance, Dalcroze

would take it upon himself to reply by explaining his purposes; but when such performances were looked upon with favor he tended to keep silent. For example, Levinson wrote: The system of Jaques-Dalcroze, valuable as it is for the interpretation of musical rhythm, is empty of plastic significance, ignores the resources of organized movement, and it is not from Hellerau that the renaissance of the Paris ballet will come. Nevertheless the autocracy of musical rhythm of the thythmic Messiah usurps the functions of the dance, properly speaking. Rhythm must devote itself to the distribution of movement in time; it pretends to dictate configuration in space.

Dance is not supposed to interpret uselessly, to reproduce servility, the rhythmic structure of a piece of music.®

To this Jaques-Dalcroze replied: ... IT do not authorize any dancer, any instrumentalist or singer to perform in public as my student. And that is for the good reason that instruction is only preparation for specialized artistic study and does not constitute an art in itself as in certain particular cases which I need not explain here.

Only those persons can call themselves my students who are rhythmicians having obtained, after several years of serious study, the diploma giving them the right to teach my method, that is to say to prepare their students in artistic studies, developing their entire musical sense, hearing, tonal feeling, metric perception and rhythmic instinct. The latter two qualities are brought about with the help of a series of exercises having for their aim to develop and harmonize motor functions and to regulate body movement in time and space. For that reason it seems to me that the practice of rythmique is indispensable 6Aloys Mooser, "A propo de la rythmique écrit a l’intention de M.R. de Traz," La Suisse, (24 Apr. 1924). 7André Levinson, La Danse d'aujourd'hui (Paris, 1929) 438. 8André Levinson, La Danse au thédtre (Paris, 1924) 17.

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for every dancer to overcome the gap in traditional choreographic training. Dance, nevertheless, is only one of many specializations of my system and rythmique is the basis of all the arts.?

Responding to criticism may or may not be beneficial. Creators are privileged to remain silent when it is advantageous to do so. Anna Pavlova, for example, at the turn of the century, scored tremendous successes with her dance, The Dying Swan, to Saint-Saens’ music from the Carnival of the Animals. The composer loathed her interpretation for it had nothing to do with his concept of the music; but as the dancer achieved acclamation, he kept his silence.

Another critic, Serge Lifar, who should have had a better understanding of Dalcroze’s intentions, spoke of Dalcroze as having made his “debut modestly and unostentatiously in retirement.” He goes on to say: A mediocre composer, but a very great teacher, Jacques Dalcroze (sic) invented eurhythmics, a mechanical translation of musical rhythm by means of the human body. Dalcroze’s principle was that each musical sign has its corresponding move-

ment, which belongs to it alone and without exception. This, it must be repeated, is a mechanical equivalent, for it cannot contain either dancing, creative inspiration, aesthetic expression, Or emotion. One can watch one or two Dalcroze recitals with pleasure, especially if one happens to be a music teacher. But the third time becomes boring—always the same mechanics, the same movement.!”

Sometimes one encounters even greater simplification. In her autobiography, Irma Duncan speaks of the unknown Swiss musician called Jaques-Dalcroze who once witnessed a lesson at the famous Duncan school and whose infectious enthusiasm and constant interruptions she remembered well.

What fascinated him most were the kinetics involved in what Isadora called the ‘scale of movements,’ which started with a slow walk, gradually accelerating into a fast and faster pace till it evolved into a run, and from there by degrees reverted to a slow walk again. ... When he left, he signed the guest book, which was always on top of the piano. A few years later, he founded his whole system of Eurhythmics on what he had seen that day at our school.!!

*Levinson, La Danse d'aujourd'hu> 437.

Serge Lifar, History of Russian Ballet, r. Arnold Haskell (London, 1954) 193f. "Irma Duncan, Duncan Dancers (Middletown, 1966) 38f.

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The summer of 1924 was ripe for a serious decision. Dalcroze needed

a change of environment and the French schools required a stimulant to instill new life into their rythmique practices. The resolve to take a leave of absence from the Geneva Institute for one year (which actually resulted in a two-year leave) and to make Paris his headquarters was made during that summer and was announced in the July 1924 issue of Le Rythme. Upon arriving in Paris in September Emile and Nina were unable to find a suitable apartment and were alone, having enrolled their son Gabriel at “La Chataigneraie,” a boarding school near Coppet. For a considerable time the couple was homesick and heartsick. At last they took up quarters in the Hotel Corneille, in the rue de Condé—small, dark, cold rooms, with no piano and insufficient space for one. It was not a home which inspired creativity. Therefore, Emile’s work center was the Ecole du Luxembourg, newly renovated by its directors Mme. Valdo Barbey and Emmanuel Couvreux.

At the time, rythmique was practiced at ten principal locations in Paris: Ecole du Luxembourg, Ecole de Rythmique de Paris, L’Opéra, Ecole Normale de Musique, Institut de Barrol (St. Germain), Les Orphelins de la Bonne Presse, Institut Notre-Dame-des-Champs, Lycée Fénelon, Maison

des Etudiants, and the Trait d’Union. In addition, courses were given at certain public schools: one for handicapped children at La Salpétriére, another at an institution for the blind, two more at the Plaine Monceau, and at the American colony in St. Cloud.

Because of his unsettling mood Dalcroze refused to undertake demonstrations elsewhere in France or in Czechoslovakia, Poland, Italy, Austria and Spain, although he had received encouraging invitations. He

organized a concert of his works, but this did not go as well as he had expected. In October and November he delivered no less than nine formal lectures outlining his ideas and procedures; their success encouraged him to give several more during the following spring. Further comfort came by way of an announcement from Egypt that a new school of rythmique was

opening that season and that a performance at home of Le Feuillu was planned in April.

A flu epidemic struck Paris in April, and the serious illness of his professors and students interrupted the courses for a period. Dalcroze’s letters written from Paris at this time exuded considerable gloom, as can be seen in the long Claparéde letter of 9 April. Not only did Emile and Nina miss their son, but also the familiar surroundings of Geneva; homesickness still haunted them. Emile was in no mood for composition. To satisfy his artistic cravings he spent time reading, visiting museums about Paris, and 253

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meeting new friends, especially important musicians with whom he enjoyed attending performances of new music. Occasionally Emile and Nina found a bit of home life when spending a dinner evening with friends, particularly

enjoying their evenings at the home of Gustave Lyon, head of the Pleyel piano manufacturing firm. He read the newspapers and the artistic criticisms, sometimes responding in a personal way to the individual writers, as he did to Robert de Flers who wrote for Le Figaro. He later struck up a friendship with de Flers and his circle, but was unimpressed with the trivia that seemed to prevail in their attitudes. The former seriousness of Geneva’s intellectual surroundings was indeed lacking. Of course he attended the theatre and some of the lighter entertainments that the city afforded in abundance. He enjoyed the Casino

de Paris, especially the performances of the eighteen Hoffman Girls, acrobatic dancers at the Moulin Rouge. This was an American group, well disciplined and hard-working, whose musical backgrounds were supplied by a typical American jazz group, of which Monsieur Hoffman was the director. Mme. Hoffman had been to Hellerau and was familiar with the techniques of rythmique both in the states and in England. Emile and Nina also found the Russian company under the direction of Nikita Balieff, performing at the Théatre de la Chauve-Souris, to be most tasteful and musically satisfying. Dalcroze was well known to these Russian performers since rythmique was very popular and well understood in their country. Indeed, he had the inclination that these visitors had more of a feel for his method than did his own Parisian students. Dalcroze renewed his acquaintance with Firmin Gémier, with whom he

had collaborated in productions in 1903 and in 1914, and with Guy de Pourtalés, author of the novel La Péche miraculeuse, in which the thrilling scenes, particularly the finale, of the Féte de Juin of 1914, were recalled. Among musicians he circulated with Rhené Baton, the conductor, who was to enjoy a significant career in the United States, and with the composer Joachim Nin. He also moved with the Arthur Honegger circle, consisting of about twenty musicians, among whom were George Auric, Marcel Delannoy, Lazare Lévy, and Darius Milhaud. Earlier in 1924 two concerts of Swiss music had been given in Paris which included works by Jaques-Dalcroze and Honegger who, in spite of hie French birth, was oriented towards Switzerland because of his Swiss parents and training.”

Dalcroze listened with interest to the ever present modern music but

had no particular leaning towards it. The works of Schoenberg and !7Raymond Charpentier, "Les Grands concerts," Comoedia (25 Feb. 1924).

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Stravinsky left him unimpressed. Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortiléges was the most talked about work of the period and though Dalcroze recognized the value of its orchestration and its penetrating colors, he felt the piece lacked cohesion. He thought about orchestration and musical color yet could not find a way to identify those fields of inquiry with rythmique. He did, however,

_ have his students analyze modern music. If contemporary music left him cold, the chamber music of Schumann, Brahms, Franck, and Fauré, which he heard in abundance, left him feeling purified, as he himself exclaimed.

Dalcroze was particularly saddened by the death of Gabriel Fauré on 4 November 1924. This man was his counselor and always supported him, recognizing Dalcroze as a significant composer as well as the founder of la rythmique. Honegger sent him six special students, one of whom was Hans Ganz, the brother of Rudolph Ganz." The latter, a brilliant pianist and conductor, was a life-long friend of Dalcroze and an earnest champion of rythmique. As director of the Chicago Musical College, he introduced rythmique into the curriculum and made it a requirement for conducting students. In 1936 the college conferred a doctorate on Jaques-Dalcroze (which he accepted in absentia), the first of several such honors. This special class of Honegger’s students was particularly diligent. They discovered, to their own satisfaction, the echoes in the brain created by muscular groupings, and that, they concluded, was the whole miracle, or mystery, of rythmique.

The finding of this particular class was one of a series of experiments

which indicated that the process of rythmique could not be explained simplistically. For this reason Jaques-Dalcroze was continually searching and rooting out from its depth, physical, artistic, and human exemplars to be studied, analyzed, and exercised, until, at least in his own mind and within his own experience, a visible contact between the inner person and the outer

world could be established. As composer and musician he recognized the need to intensify the emotional reactions in the human being caused by musical stimuli, particularly in the musician or the student musician. He was absolutely correct in trying to find a way to encourage activation of the emotions by muscular response and, conversely, to employ mental and emotional energy to express an organization of forces through physical movement. The amazing part of his discovery is that it was based purely

upon instinct, for he had no physiological proof of the relationship of 13Rudolph Ganz related that Max Schillings, also a devoted Dalcroze supporter, made the entire company study rythmique when he served as intendant of the Berlin State Opera. The classes lasted only six weeks.

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emotion to the sensori-muscular complex. This hypothesis had not been scientifically analyzed prior to 1972." How much Honegger really understood of Jaques-Dalcroze’s ideals of rythmique cannot be known, but he continually urged Emile to exploit them

further, even to the point of making this an art in its own right. Dalcroze was especially attracted to Honegger’s music; he heard King David in 1921 in that epoch- making performance at Lausanne, conducted by his talented student, Paul Boepple. He also greatly admired Pacific 231, first presented

in 1923, having heard it under Koussevitsky, whom he considered the greatest orchestral conductor aside from Ansermet. And Honegger, though French-born, maintained an interest in his Swiss heritage. In 1921-1922 he composed a set of five piano pieces, Le Cahier romand, which he dedicated to several Swiss friends, including Paul Boepple. This composition was very rhythmic, in the style of Dalcroze’s Rythmes de danse which consisted of twenty-four piano pieces in two suites, also written in 1922. Later, in 1932, Honegger composed music to a comedy for the Théatre du Jorat at Méziéres, where he had had earlier successes. This work, La Belle de Moudon, shared the spirit of the Vaudois works of Jaques-Dalcroze.! Dalcroze formed another rythmique class consisting of eight students sent to him by two vocal instructors of the Paris Conservatoire. His schedule being crowded, he had to arrange the class for six o’clock every Wednesday morning in order to make a place for them. He also received students from Maurice Denis, the French painter, designer and writer on art, who wanted them to find a way to reinforce their means of expression. Dalcroze’s preference, however, was that the students of rythmique be musicians.

Among Dalcroze’s associates in Paris were several composers identified as belonging to the group les Six. The musicians, Louis Durey (1888—

1979), Germaine Tailleferre (1892-1983), Darius Milhaud (1892-1974), Arthur Honegger (1892-1955), Georges Auric (1899-1983) and Francis Poulenc (1899-1963), initially enjoyed no special contact with each other. Responsibility for the beginning of their relationship, however, belongs to Blaise Cendrars, the colorful writer and super dilettante of the 1920s, who ‘4Nathan Zolt, "Equivalence Hypotheses of Mental and Somatic Processes," Diseases of the Nervous System 33 (Oct. 1972) 667-71. Zolt states, "We may conceive of emotional processes

as essentially equivalent to muscular processes, and that thought processes are equivalent

to motion processes. We thus conceive that the relation of an emotion to a thought is equivalent to the relationship of a muscle to a movement." Willy Tappolet, Arthur Honegger (Neuchatel, 1954) 212.

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arranged a small concert in June 1917, that included works by Auric, Honegger, and Durey—their first public appearances as composers. In January 1918, Poulenc and Taillefairre joined these three in a concert at Jacques Copeau’s theatre, the Vieux-Colombier, and for the remainder of the year these musicians were heard at this theatre and in an art school converted into an informal concert hall on the rue Huygens. Jean Cocteau called this group les Nouvea Jeunes and was their principal spokesman, chiefly through the pages of Le Cog et l’Arlequin, the first product of the publishing enterprise which he and Cendrars founded. By the end of the year Milhaud, back from Brazil and already a prolific composer, added his own music to that of the Nouveaux Jeunes.'® The first concert to include music of all six composers took place at the Salle Huygens on 5 April 1919. Among the audience on that occasion was the music critic Henri Collet who, in a later review, recalled the “Russian Five” (identified by Vladimer Stassov, the music critic and director of the Czar’s Department of Fine Arts) and dubbed the young French musicians les Six.” Jane Erb, who had been in touch with Dalcroze ever since her Hellerau

training, was then teaching rythmique to the ballet members of the Paris Opéra.'§ She claimed that Georges Auric participated in Dalcroze’s Paris classes, however, Auric later explained to this writer that, although he was a strong believer in the method, he did not actually partake in the training at any time. As for Milhaud, Miss Erb thought that he was too lazy to take part in the classes. Jean Cocteau, on the other hand, an observer at Hellerau, occasionally took part in rythmique sessions. In the spring of 1926 Dalcroze arranged two demonstrations of rythmique in Paris, using the few capable students available at the Vaugirard school, adding some former students, and a group of twelve from the London school. The programs included two inventions and fugues of Bach and four other sketches, preceded by his own explanations concerning their content and value as exercises for the students, not as performance show pieces. The

demonstrations were scheduled on certain dates in order to accomodate other programs promised to him by Firmin Gémier, to be given at his theater,

\6Satie wished to include Koechlin as a member of this group but the invitation was declined. See Sharon Boaz, "Charles Koechlin, Rediscovering a Unique, Forgotten French Composer,” Ovation 3 (May 1982) 17. '7Henri Collet, "Un livre de Rimsky et un livre de Cocteau: les cinq russes, les six frangais," Comoedia (23 Jan. 1920) 2. For a review of Cendrars' activities see James Harding, The Ox on the Roof (London, 1972) 57f. I8M lle. Erb also worked with actors, one of whom was Jean-Louis Barrault.

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the Odéon. Gémier, however, had forgotten the agreement and had departed for a visit to the United States, leaving no one in charge who knew anything of the schedule. Thus, Dalcroze was forced to cancel the engagements.

Two other French musicians, however, were especially impressed by these demonstrations: Albert Roussel (1869-1937) and Charles Koechlin (1867-1950). Following this exposure to Dalcroze’s work, Roussel avowed appreciation for the values of rythmique. In fact, it was his association with Dalcroze and his interest in the latter’s pedagogical method that inspired

Roussel’s own application to music education (especially for young musicians), as opposed to the formal dissemination of contrapuntal techniques that he had practiced for years, both as a student and a professor at the Schola Cantorum in Paris. Roussel took an active interest in the Pipers Guild, an association which fostered the making and playing of pipes as an element in childhood music education, and served as its first president. Koechlin, as a result of his interest in the method, requested an audience with Dalcroze to acquire information on the subject of rythmique for an article he was writing for the Revue musicale. The two men visited together for two

hours, during which time Dalcroze learned much about the composer, but Koechlin learned very little about the matter that he had originally come to investigate. Lord Crewe,'9 the English Ambassador to Paris, also attended one of the demonstrations and wrote a warm letter of recognition for the program. A Swiss delegation, to whom Dalcroze had sent complimentary tickets for box seats, was also present; but there was no acknowledgment from that quarter.

Meanwhile, Dalcroze learned from letters written to him by Georges Enesco that the prominent violinist-composer was including Dalcroze’s Violin Concerto in a number of concerts that season, including programs in Geneva. In checking with his Parisian music publishers Dalcroze found that his works

sold only modestly in France and hardly at all in Switzerland. Sales by the publishers Schott in Germany and Augener in London were also minimal. Sénart who, along with Jobin, was his principal French publisher reported to him that he had seen publicity for his works both in England and in Germany, but that in recent months he had seen none in Switzerland. The Swiss vocal society, La Lyre de Carouge, for whom Dalcroze had written La Veillée in 1893, sent him compositions to judge for a competition which they were sponsoring.

Of the fifty-five scores he received—choruses with and without orchestra, submitted anonymously—Emile recognized a number of works by his former Robert Offley Ashburton Crewe-Milnes was given an earldom in 1895. He chose the title Crewe after his uncle, Lord Crewe, who bequeathed him a large family estate.

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students: Walter Lang, Bernard Reichel, Jean Binet, Fernande Peyrot, and Charles Faller. This discovery brought him much satisfaction, as did a number of commentaries by other pupils who related their appreciation for the work they had done with him.

At the end of his first year in Paris, Dalcroze presented his students in a public lesson. Most of the children had varying experiences in rythmique, some only a few weeks of training. One reporter found the lesson not only agreeable to look at but also a confirmation that the method (the discipline) was logical, was in itself a new art and a true educational method. The lesson closed with a presentation by a group of professional students, with the same

reporter stating that the work was not ballet but something unique which came directly out of the music.” In the summer of 1925 Dalcroze celebrated his sixtieth birthday. Shortly

thereafter the city of Geneva “admitted [him] to the citizenry of honor of Geneva this 21st day of November by legislative decree of 30 October 1925, in consideration of his great talent.”2! Only sixty-nine awards of the bourgeois

d’honneur had previously been made: six to members of royalty; two to churchmen; thirteen to business men; and others to men of state, jurists, physicians, and military personnel. Also honored in 1925 were one historian, Berthold-Georges Niebuhr; and one painter, Ferdinand Hodler, Dalcroze’s friend and a co-signer of the wartime Geneva protest.22 Many of Emile’s friends

and former students wrote him notes of congratulation, the most heart-warm-

ing gesture during his entire Paris sojourn. In an open letter to all of these associates he published, in Le Rythme in December, his deep appreciation for their kindness. The following January, when he was in Geneva, he personally thanked the authorities for the honor they bestowed upon him.

In the fall of 1925 Henri Gagnebin, organist and composer, was appointed Director of the Geneva Conservatory. He had been a student of Otto Barblan and Joseph Lauber in Geneva and of Vincent d’Indy in Paris. In an interview Gagnebin stated, “As director, the first thing I did was to reinstall la rythmique in the curriculum of the Conservatory. I considered this the most important decision | ever made.” 0Bernard Barbey, "La Rythmique Jaques- Dalcroze," La Revue hebdomidaire anée 34, tome

vii July 1925) 114-16. 21Théodore Bret, Les Bourgeois d'honneur de Genéve de 1814 ad nos jour (Geneve, 1929) 52. “Thid.

23Conversation with Monsieur Gagnebin on 1 March 1965. During his tenure as director of the conservatory, 1925-57, Gagnebin had inaugurated, in 1938, a national competition for soloists which became a notable international competition.

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DENOUEMENT: 1933-1950

tions.! With some 6,000 to 7,000 persons attending each concert, at prices ranging from 1.50 francs for standing room up to 10 francs for seats, enough revenue was collected to allow a charitable contribution of 16,000 francs to be made to the fund for the poor.? The program was billed as Genéve chante, consisting of selections from five works of their beloved romand composer, from the Féte de la jeunesse et de la joie, the Féte de Juin, the Jeu du feuillu, the Festival vaudois and the Poéme alpestre. The final piece was the popular and inspiring Priére patriotique. This

auspicious festival brought forth the remark from the French composer Georges Auric, “When will they give us a Paris chante?

Switzerland does not have an official national anthem, yet Dalcroze’s Priére patriotique may come close. In 1936 Génia Houriet was part of a Swiss

team attending an international gathering at Birmingham, England; the group numbered about thirty from the French and Germanic areas. At the opening of the assembly the group, preceded by the Swiss flag, entered the large hall, took their place on the stage, and were called upon to sing their national hymn. What to do? What to sing? Someone then proposed, after a moment’s hesitation, that they sing something by Jaques-Dalcroze! By common consent, with joy in their hearts, before 10,000 people, they raised their voices to sing the Priére patriotique. It was a touching experience.’

In his customary busy manner Dalcroze continued to compose numerous children’s songs and devoted long hours to the writing of books | and articles. He reflected philosophically on his program, always attempting to find language that would heighten the understanding of his aims and practices. Souvenirs, notes et critiques’ was written in 1941, and the delightful Notes bariolées> in 1948. In between, in 1945, he completed La Musique et nous.°

Souvenirs contains twenty-one chapters, some of which were previously published as essays in journals and revues. They cover subjects such 'Ph. L., "Le Festival Jaques- Dalcroze, organization et budget," Journal de Genéve (30 June 1937). “It was the policy in Switzerland to take 13% of every entertainment ticket sold and to give this money to the poor. The practice is known as le droit des pauvres. Musée de Genéve, no. 12 (Feb. 1961) discusses the available halls in the city, their capacities, and the receipts for the previous year. 3Génia Houriet, "L’Hymne national suisse: une voix pour Jaques-Dalcroze," letter to the Tribune de Genéve (28 Jan. 1965). 4Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Souvenirs notes et crtiques (Paris, 1942). Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Notes bariolées (Genéve, 1948). 6Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, La Musique et nous (Geneve, 1945).

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as music in Switzerland, music in Suisse romande, music for children, discussions of rhythm and rythmique, art, dance, theatre, and education. In chapter six, “Influences,” he explains some effects on his life and work:

from Fauré, the need to express simply and to control thoughts and sentiments: from Delibes, some fine points of orchestration, from Lussy, insights into the hidden and more complicated musical aspects. Ysaye opened for him the doors of music, of emotion, fantasy and truth. He spoke of the strong personality of Percy Ingham and how he was affected by it.

Rhythmic curiosity, he states, was born in him when he served as a conductor in Algiers; the Arab percussion instruments and rhythm left indelible effects. The final essay, “La Critique et les Critiques” was a paper he presented in Paris in 1912 before a congress on education; his attempt to explain his rhythmic method had brought on battles in the corridors. One doctor claimed that the exercises were dangerous and provoked troubles in the nervous system, while Dr. Weber-Bauler of Geneva was also present and defended the method. By 1941 Dalcroze was proud that neurologists were prescribing education by rythmique. Notes bariolées (A Medley of Observations) contains extracts of notes, impressions, and thoughts written day to day over a long period, intimate observations on philosophy of physical and psychic functions, of tempera-

ment and character, and reports of school and family—sometimes malicious, yet always full of wisdom. It is one of his most intriguing volumes, dwelling, to a great extent, on the lighter side. His views are perceptive and unusually sensitive to small, tender observations. At a concert, he recalls, a neighbor was applauding each number with frenzy. “I see, Monsieur, that you love music,” said Dalcroze. “Not exactly,” he replied, “but my hands

are cold, and besides that, I like the noise and the movement.”? Another observation: when an artist learns that one of his works is imitated he is not upset, he may even consider it a compliment. However, he gets angry when the work is disguised. Personally, | am irritated when I am imitated (I speak of rythmique) because the imitators speak of the fault of my pedagogical work while pointing out only appearances, without having gone through the numerous experiences which permitted me, little by little, to discover new ways to develop the body and spirit in young generations. Copyists teach only the spectacular side of my exercises. | don’t mind being stolen; I mind the mischief certain imitators

can do

“Notes, op. cit., 56 SIbid., 78f.

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is in going through the city streets that I often find interesting and musical rhythms. Not today! The trucks, tramways and motorcycles make such an infernal racket that music takes fright and flees.”® In reminiscing of his childhood he recalls that he was subjected to music instruction based on the Galin-Paris-Chevé method." Music was figured, rhythm scanned by ta, te, ti,

constantly repeated; nothing of musical sonority, melodies, harmonies, dynamic and rhythmic accents, no emotion, no style, no citation of masterworks—in a word, no music. He refused to sing with comrades, “because the exercises are too silly!,” resulting in his being severely punished and classed among the incapable. '! Dalcroze’s third book, La Musique et nous: Notes sur notre double vie, is

less technical and more reflective than his earlier writings. It is divided into two principal sections: Music and Us, and Rhythm and Us; the essays of

the latter section concentrate on rythmique and education. The volume includes a kind of appendix, however, translated as “Thoughts and Truths at the Pale”—forty pages of remarks on numerous subjects, most of them consisting of only three or four lines to convey a message. Some random selections are of interest. One searches the why-for of certain facts. When he finds it he asks why he looked for it. (p. 245) To understand and to acknowledge what we are is to conjecture what we could be. (p. 245) Our joys always seem to us too short and our cares seem endless. (p. 245) A work of art is the result of a strong sensation, of a lively feeling, of a deep and continuous reflection, thus a means of intelligently selected expression. (p. 249) The death of a man whom we knew evokes in some the apprehension of their

own death or that of someone near to them. With others it is a certain satisfaction, even a certain pride, to feel oneself to be quite alive. (p. 251f)

In opening the portals to the brain it is not necessary, at the same time, to close the heart and one’s feelings. (p. 255)

Apart from these thoughtful musings Dalcroze’s concerns were constantly with the problems of his educational activities. Rythmique took an important step forward when, in 1934, it was recognized by the Swedish "Ibid, 21. Pierre Galin’s Exposition d’une nouvelle méthode pour l'enseignement de la musique, 1818, incorporated ideas of Rousseau and was very popular in its day. Emile Chevé with his wife

Notes, op. cit., 22. | ,

Nanine Paris published a Méthode élémentaire de musique vocale, 1844, later ed., 1863.

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government, and courses under Karin Fredga were introduced at the Swedish Royal Institute of Gymnastics. A few years later (1937) a course was instituted in the School of Dramatic and Lyric Arts in Ankara, Turkey. In England the Ingham Memorial Home in London was opened by Cecilia Johns, another indefatigable champion of rythmique. When World War II broke out in 1939 its effect in Switzerland was indirect; but in England its force was felt first hand. The London School took refuge by leaving the city and setting up, temporarily, in Kent. Cecilia

Johns continued as director, ably assisted by an excellent staff which included Annie Beck, Ethel Driver, Brenda Thomas, and Alice Weber. Nathalie Tingey, Kitta Brown, and Iris Greep came from London one day per week to give lessons. Before the war ended, however, the building which housed the classes in London was completely demolished by air raids and

another home had to be found. Excellent quarters were obtained in Kibblestone Hall in Staffordshire, and the brave rhythmicians carried on. The British government eventually gave recognition to this institution as an accepted training school for elementary teachers. With Emile’s seventieth birthday one year away, friends in Geneva debated how to honor him on that occasion. The ever-loyal Jo Baeriswyl and another colleague, Jean Duchosal, president of the Jaques-Dalcroze Society, began the collection of an immense assemblage of signatures (all in

one book) of persons from all over the world who had been rythmique students. The large book, 50 centimeters by 38, in white vellum, gold embossed, was presented to the master in 1935. More than 10,500 people had signed it. Included were warm attestations to him, about 200 in number, from distinguished persons worldwide. Among these testimonies was one

from the great Belgian violinist Eugéne Ysaye, whom Dalcroze accompanied on tours for one season in the early part of the century. Ysaye commented on the expansion of the method over the years, and the fact that from time to time some unauthorized and incapable persons undertook

its teaching. Not only did the violinist admire Dalcroze’s method for the training of musicians, but he claimed that it served as a new science, a necessary element in the cultivation of the musical art. When Baeriswyl undertook the compilation of the so-called “Golden Book,” records showed that from the opening of the institute in 1915 to the

years 1933-34, 7,253 students from 46 countries had passed through its doors. Not only was Dalcroze’s work recognized and admired locally, it had

made its mark across the ocean as well. In February 1936 the degree of doctor honoris causa was bestowed upon him by Chicago Musical College

at the recommendation of its dean, Rudolph Ganz. A decade later the 286

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University of Lausanne also conferred upon him the doctoral degree honoris causa; however, because of Dalcroze’s painful illness, the honors took place in Geneva.

His last attendance of a meeting of the Société de Belles-Lettres was also in 1946. Since joining the organization at the age of sixteen he had

often been honored by its members, who thought of him as the “perfect bellettrien.” At this last meeting, held on 24 October in Geneva, organized in his honor by old friends, Dalcroze delivered a speech on his songs. He wrote songs at home, he said, and later at the collége, but it was the spirit of

Belles-Lettres, where the members laughed and worked together, sang together and loved one another that encouraged a different type of song. Later, in order to earn a living at song writing, he developed another style. By necessity, he performed his songs in the villages and the little romand cities where they pleased a sympathetic public. Always he stressed a simple accompaniment; the words and music go together, and the rhyme must join the spirit. The real task was in the construction, where the same prosody

had to be maintained from the beginning to the end. He mentioned that the public of this day was better informed musically than that of fifty years earlier, and that, within Switzerland, musical taste differed in each canton. He compared his songs and those of his compatriots to German songs which, he claimed, were heavier, and could be repeated more often. The French songs were faster, lighter, and more precious. The translations of his songs, he said, were excellent, but they lacked fluency. Their success depended on several things. For some reason Le coeur de ma mie, Marinette, and Kirikirikan

w ‘re popular in France. If his children’s songs succeeded it was because he so loved children and he had the luck to be able to musically translate their simple feelings. He preferred the singing of children’s songs in person rather than on the radio because there one lost the delicate joy of little faces.

Composing alone is not enough, he continued. The songs must be sung, and they must be sung well, with attention to life, nuance, lightness— to all details. Their allure changes according to the indications of each word.

Rhythm should be free. This is something that conductors do not often observe. He detested arrangements for a large chorus, of songs intended for one voice. “Arrangements” he argued, “are so much derangements.” Speaking of belles-lettriens, he said that he liked the recognition that he received

from them. When he was depressed the remembrance of their friendship and proven sympathy fortified his spirit and permeated his better thoughts. At the bottom of his heart he heard them singing Amis, voici les vieux qui passent (Friends, here are the old fellows who are moving along).

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This speech and other tributes to Dalcroze were published in a special issue of Revue des Belles-Lettres in 1952."

At another gathering of his belletrien friends in 1940, Dalcroze further expressed his warm and tender feelings for the organization. Mes chers amis bellettriens. In my youth I always expressed myself with much difficulty in public. I was so afraid to make a speech that | never accepted to be part of a committee. | had a horror of noise which still persists.

When I was young I used to dream of being dropped in a tunnel, or in a fast, black rowboat. I was dragged along a narrow canal between the rows of terribly dark and quiet houses. But at the end of the tunnel or canal there was a light. What joy, then, to find calm and security! Since, I have had to go through some tunnels and have often had the good luck to come out of them reassured, cheered up, astonished, enlightened and thankful. One of the darkest of these tunnels was the collége, where I never found what I sought, did not appreciate what was offered me, except in certain classes directed by tender and psychologically inclined masters. I can clearly see Philippe Monnier, leaving the collége at the end of his studies and crying, crazy with joy, “Finally, out of this prison!” Then bursting into a store to buy a cane, symbol of liberty and virility. Finally, the right to have an opinion, to unfurl one’s energy in this manner, to be able without contradiction to affirm one’s literary sympathies, artistic or otherwise. It is certain that this bellettrien spirit freed me of timidity (and of a certain pose tending to hide it), instilling in me the idea of celebrating in songs the high merits and high deeds of society and of the people. It is certain that this spirit

permitted me to express later my feelings of love and admiration for la Romandie in a way which suited my temperament and perhaps its own temperament. After the tunnel of the collége I found Belles-Lettres such a

liberation that even now, when it leaves me condemned to travel other tunnels of all sorts, even as the interminable tunnel of our actual dark, daily lives, it suffices me to think of Belles-Lettres to see the uniting past come to my discovery, bringing me a sweet, tender light. When one speaks of Belles-Lettres everyone is of the same cadence, all spirits of one accord, all nerves vibrate in cadence, all hearts beat as one. Belles-Lettres frees us and consoles. . . Personally, | knew another way of liberation; but I will not speak of rythmique this evening. The remembrance of my full and early youth allows me to remain optimistic and, consequently, to keep up like a sacred fire my affection for my friends, my esteem and my sympathy for my fellow citizens, and my love for our beautiful pays romand."

In the same commemorative issue Henri Barbier commented on Jaques-Dalcroze, as a bellettrien. “No one,” he said, “has been so completely bellettrien as Jaques. He was faithful to friends, an inspiration as a musician Revue des belles-lettres, 27, no. 3 (May-June, 1952). 13Emile Jaques-Dalcroze, Causerie (Genéve, 1940).

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and a poet, and his devotion has not ceased, even in advanced age.” He went on to say that Emile was not a brilliant student at the collége, but that his entry into Belles-Lettres was like a bright light. He then recalled early associations with his old friend. Barbier had lost contact with Dalcroze for some years, but they were together for the seventy-fifth anniversary of Belles-Lettres at which Dalcroze,

then a much celebrated person, collaborated. With a chorus of rythmicians they sang songs and rounds from the popular repertory, including Le joli bois vert, of which, Barbier said, one does not know whether to admire more the poem (also Emile’s) or the music. He recalled a trip to Rolle by auto for the society’s centennial festival. Meetings, speeches, and a banquet were held at the chateau and songs were sung from the stage of the casino. The bellettriens were very enthusiastic.

Dalcroze, at the piano, improvised a song, Tous les ans quand vient le printemps, Belles-Lettres s’en vient a Rolle (Every year when springtime comes

Belles-Lettres take off for Rolle). In the evening a theatrical program was held, with Emile once more surpassing himself with scenes from Bonhomme jadis. This was his last performance for Belles-Lettres. The next day a garden party was planned at the Parc des Eaux-Vives where a group of children, who had been rehearsing for weeks, were to

perform. It rained in torrents, however, and the group moved to a little theatre in the park where the children sang their songs and Mme. JaquesDalcroze, M. Chéridjian, and their friends Zbinden and Soullier, with Emile at the piano, gave a concert. Barbier remembered another party, at L-Arquebuse, a popular Geneva

inn, where Emile entertained until the late hours. He put a newspaper between the strings of the piano, thus producing guitar-like effects, and gave

a veritable concert of Spanish music. He also improvised at the piano on news taken from the day’s Tribune de Genéve followed by a discourse in “English” made on assonances which his remarkable ear and imitative talent

drew upon, much as he had done at other such merry parties. The rheumatic body pains which Dalcroze suffered for more than a quarter century were already so severe by 1921 that he was forced to turn down an invitation to dinner at that time with the explanation that his legs hurt him. A delightful five-stanza poem accompanied his response to the invitation, each stanza ending with the line, "Mais, j'ai bien trop mal aux guibolles!” Two stanzas from this poem follow:

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[ would love, like a butterfly, To fly from flower to flower

And to run about like an eagle Across all the skies of our planet; Then like an impetuous steed, To throw myself into mad races, While striking up joyous songs. But my pins hurt too much! I would love to visit, Carrying a red and green emblem, My friends, then at their side

To repeat to them that I love them; I would love to sing with them Our simple and guileless songs, And | would return home happy. But my pins hurt too much." Schleup continued the tribute to Jaques-Dalcroze in the Belles-Lettres commemorative issue.!® His musical education was complete, said Monsieur Schleup, and his tastes were pronounced from an early age, from the Beautiful Blue Danube on. From Fauré and Delibes he got the charm and grace we find in the chansons romandes; from Coppelia or Lakmé we find analogies in Féte de Juin or Le Feuillu. Nothing that touched art left him indifferent. He followed with

interest the impressionists, the polytonalists, les Six (of whom he preferred Honegger, Milhaud and Poulenc), then the atonalists. Schoenberg he found boring. He would not let himself be influenced by instigators of eccentric form, especially by the French school. The most celebrated musicians followed his courses: Honegger, © Milhaud, Martin, drew out of the Dalcroze method means which contributed largely to the success of their works. By his solfége Dalcroze

sought to form absolute hearing. His students were numerous, especially in Germany." Fritz Jode imitated Dalcroze by presenting his famous canons and '4Henri Barbier, "Jaques-Dalcroze Bellettrien,"” Revue, loc. cit., 3-16. lA. Schleup, "Jaques-Dalcroze Musicien," ibid., 18-20.

In a letter to the writer, Paris, 25 August 1965, Mme Honegger attests to her husband’s admiration for Jaques-Dalcroze who was among the "officials" at the premier peformance of

"King David," the work which first gained Honegger international attention. It was the rythmicians from Dalcroze’s school who arranged and performed the dances for "Judith" presented at Méziéres in 1925. '’Schleup may have had in mind, Dalcroze’s influence on Carl Orff who taught "rhytmic education” at the Ganther School in Munich and who later developed his own educational methods where, again, rhytm played an important part.

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his melodies for one voice. The Austrian school followed by publishing a remarkable series of songs for children and adults. Schleup cited the chanson Le pays romand and compared its appeal with the favorite song of Joseph Bovet Le Vieux Chalet, indeed a great tribute.

With the death of Nina Jaques-Dalcroze on 1 April 1946, Emile lost his companion of forty-seven years. Their marriage had been a happy one

despite the problems that plagued them from time to time. Nina was a beautiful but vain woman and thought more of her voice and appearance than of anything else, yet she was a constant source of encouragement and a forthright spirit upon which he could lean. She served Emile much as a

business manager would, without many of the important professional qualifications. She saw in her husband a popular composer, and this was the side she continually chose to reinforce. For the most part she was not particularly interested in his pedagogical enterprises and did little to enhance those opportunities—they reached a point where she was actually jealous of his efforts and the time he devoted to his work in developing rythmique. Nina was also wary of Emile’s close associates, his staff and his students, many of whom were young, very beautiful women. Yet when the

opportunity arrived for major decisions to be made, like the move to Hellerau, she instantly recognized the advantages. As the years passed she felt that her voice was changing and no longer had the desire to sing. It was then that she devoted more energy to Emile’s affairs. From 1938 to 1940 she suffered a serious illness, arteriosclerosis, from which she recovered, but it left her with and intermittent loss of memory and other aberrations. As a young singer, Nina Faliero had been in the spotlight. She fell in love with Emile, used him as her accompanist, and married him. She did not mind featuring his much-loved songs and performing leading roles in his stage works, for she was still the star. When Emile, however, put his entire soul into the development of rythmique she was no longer the bright light. Instead, she had to observe not only her husband as the evolving luminary but also those persons who surrounded him, fawned upon him, and who declared him a genius and treated him as such—something which he greatly appreciated. In part because she never developed a friendly circle of her own, Nina always resented his friends and professional associates. For example, the Braun sisters, Emile’s former students and then instructors at the institute in its earliest days, had, in 1925, established a successful dance studio in

Rome. In 1941, because of their German origin, they were subject to internment and taken away from their classes. The Brauns appealed to Jaques-Dalcroze to testify for them, verifying their Swiss citizenship and the 291

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fact that they worked with him. He refused, leading the Italian authorities to restrict them for the duration of the conflict. How could Dalcroze, an intelligent, sensitive artist, deny them the brief letter they requested? When one considers Dalcroze’s appreciation of Zola’s stand for the sake of justice as far back as 1898, then putting himself on the line in 1914 when he signed the document of protest against the German bombings (a position which he refused to retract or to modify), one cannot understand the change of attitude in his later years. Could he have felt that since the Brauns departed from the realm of pure rythmique when they became teachers of dancing that he no longer owed them a measure of loyalty? The answer to this riddle

is simple, having no connection with professional loyalties. Nina admonished, “If you sign this they are going to want to return to Geneva and there will be problems.” So Emile complied with her wishes. Perhaps there was more to the situation than merely Nina’s strong will. It is possible that Jaques did not realize the seriousness of the situation for the Braun sisters,

being that he was very naive and not particularly informed on political matters. He neither understood the aims of Nazism, nor the purposes of concentration camps. When one mentioned something about the horrors of the camps he would reply, “Don’t speak to me of such silliness.” He knew

the Germans as charming people and remarkable musicians; however, he did not know that the husband of Jeanne Braun, a Jew and an intellectual, had been killed in a concentration camp.

With the advent of Nina’s illness Gabriel took over his father’s business affairs. Gabriel was now an attorney and understood well the problems of rythmique, the institute, and the vicissitudes of Emile’s life. He

had studied rythmique and took particular interest in the worldwide problems involving the Dalcroze method. In the master’s late years all matters of income were handled by Maitre Gabriel Jaques-Dalcroze. The “other woman” in Emile’s life was his sister Héléne, his childhood companion in fantasies and, later in life, his most serious confidante. Héléne developed into a musician in her own right. An excellent pianist, she gave recitals and played a good deal with Ysaye, finally being forced to give up her career when a painful neck condition developed. In 1895 she married

René Brunet-Lecomte, who trained as a chemist, worked in a bank, and then became associated with the Tribune de Genéve in an administrative capacity. Over the years, Héléne served as a training accompanist for several

of the festivals that were produced in the area. In 1915 she enrolled as a student in the newly formed Institute Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva and received her diploma with the distinction of having been, at forty-eight years of age, the oldest diplomate at the time. She taught at the institute until her 292

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retirement in 1940, although opinions of her effectiveness as a teacher varied. It can be assumed, from many reports, that she had little interest in working with children, and that she worked well with professional students; her devotion to Emile, however, could never be questioned. In his early, struggling days as a composer it was she who handled his correspondence and other business with publishers. After Nina’s death Emile gave up his

residence at 7 Avenue Gaspard Vallette, moved in with his sister, and conducted all of his business from the new address on 12 Boulevard Tronchées. Héléne Brunet-Lecomte carefully conserved her brother’s letters, as they revealed much that passed through the musician’s soul in his moments of anguish, disturbance, and success—all of which he confided in his sister. (Many of the letters Emile had received throughout his long career are, alas, not available because his wife Nina, having no use for them, destroyed the correspondence.) At the age of eighty Héléne completed the first extensive

Dalcroze biography, from which much information in the present work is taken.'8 In her later years her affairs, too, were handled by her nephew Gabriel. She died in her apartment at the age of ninety-five, in the year of the international Dalcroze centennial celebration, while a special summer session at the institute was in progress. Her passing was announced by Mme.

Croptier, Director of the institute, who asked the convention members to sing one of her brother’s tender songs, Tout simplement, in her behalf. In his old age and in poor health, Emile walked with difficulty. His hands shook in normal daily activities but not when he played the piano; his improvisations, miraculously, were still inventive and intriguing. However, he went to the institute less frequently, sometimes as little as once a week. As he left his sister’s apartment to take the street car he moved slowly,

with difficulty, and the tram conductor would often call out, “Take your time, Monsieur Jaques. We'll wait for you.” That kind of consideration would probably not have been offered to many other citizens of Geneva—a

tribute to the love and esteem felt for him by the ordinary person. Often Emile would be taken out in a wheelchair by his nurse; on one occasion recognizing a former student who had traveled with him and had assisted in many demonstrations. “Hey, Monica,” he called from across the street, “what do you think of my new Cadillac?” l8}7él@ne Brunet-Lecomte, Jaques-Dalcroze sa vie-son oeuvre (Genéve, 1950).

'9The author is indebted to Monica Jaquet for this and other personal anecdotes. Jaquet had been a teacher of rythmique for over fifty-four years including instruction at the Geneva Institute 1930-1970.

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The directorship of the institute now had to be turned over to a younger person, a new responsibility assigned to Marguerite Croptier. She was certified in 1928, and was entirely capable of adding to her teaching

duties the requirements of administration. The operation of the institute involved not only classes for children and professional students, but also the maintenance of control over the worldwide Dalcroze movement.

As Dalcroze’s eightieth birthday approached, Hilda Schuster, Director of the New York Dalcroze School of Music, planned to honor her master with another book of signatures of method students, this time students from American schools. The gesture again warmed the heart of the aging rhyth-

mician and he thanked Dr. Schuster for her efforts, not only on his behalf, but also on behalf of the entire Dalcroze movement. In Geneva the program of honors for the octogenarian included a performance of his opera Le Peti Roi qui pleure, concerts at the conservatory, and programs of his chansons in the schools. The newspapers and radio gave many expressions of tribute. Frank Martin, the renowned composer remarked, “That which dominated the life of this man, his very nature, is youth. ... More than any man in the world he had the faculty to live in the spirit of growth, to sense the future in the present, or better still, to feel the tension of the present toward the future. From that comes the optimism of his nature, the pleasure of his art.”2°

In 1944 the city council of Geneva had announced a policy to award a prize to be given every four years, in literature, fine arts, and music.?! The prizes (sums of money) were first awarded on 2 May 1947 to Jacques Cheneviére for literature, Alexandre Blanchet for painting, and to Emile Jaques-Dalcroze for music. A presentation ceremony was held at the Grand Théatre with aconcert

by the Orchestre de la Suisse romande conducted by Ernest Ansermet. Jaques-Dalcroze’s opera Le Bonhomme Jadis, which had experienced repeated successes forty years before, was produced and the orchestra performed his early work, the Variations on a Swiss Air, la Suisse est belle. He had written this

work for his orchestration students as an example of what could be done to display the various characteristics of the orchestral instruments. A month later Dalcroze was awarded another honorary doctorate, this from the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France, and in 1958 the city of Geneva posthumously honored the great musician and educator by renaming one of its important thoroughfares Boulevard Jaques-Dalcroze.

Alfred Berchtold, "Emile Jaques-Dalcroze...." Frank Martin and others, Emile JaquesDalcroze homme... (Neuchatel, 1965) 152f. ‘l Attribution officielle des prix la ville de Genéve (20 Mar. 1954).

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DENOUEMENT: 1933-1950

Emile’s last days were passed in great physical discomfort, in spite of which he continued working according to routine. At odd moments, away from his serious thought devoted to rythmique and the writing of chansons (the last being La Petite Armoire), he amused himself by compiling puns— maxims and words having several meanings—which, given more time would probably have resulted in an amusing little volume. The last message he wrote was a post card to friends thanking them for some mushrooms they had given him. In his later years Eva, the family maid for over thirty years, usually examined his letters to see if they were readable, as well as printing the addresses for him, for his handwriting was very shaky.

Héléne and her husband René had invited some friends to dinner on what was to be his final evening, Monsieur and Madame Henri Barbier (long-time friends from Belles-Lettres), and Emile’s colleague, Jo Baeriswyl. After the guests had departed, Emile felt unwell so Eva called the doctor. She

also called his son Gabriel, who arrived at 11:30. By that time Emile was sinking, holding Eva’s hand and squeezing it. He was able to recognize everyone who was with him but was unable to speak. At 1:00 AM, | July, five days before his eighty-fifth birthday, he died. Emile’s friend Barbier wrote: He departed at an advanced age. He said and did all that he could say and do. He valiantly accomplished the task which his genius ordained for him, he accepted with a serene and resigned heart the proof of the last years of his life, then he left without apprehension and without suffering, leaving behind him only his work of beauty and a trail of goodness.”

The body was taken to the institute where it lay in state. For several days the school children throughout the area grieved, yet proudly sang the songs of their beloved poet-musician. On 4 July the Reverend Ernest Christen delivered the funeral message at the Cathédral St. Pierre, emphasizing Dalcroze’s power to reach the hearts of his people and to praise his God through the beauty of his songs. After a brief musical tribute taken from the work of his friend of Vienna school days,

Fréderic Klose, and performed by members of the Orchestre de la Suisse romande, eulogies were pronounced by city councilors Albert Malche and Albert Picot; by Marguerite Croptier, Director of the Institute; and by Judge André Fontana, president of the Société des Belles-Lettres.

“Henri Barbier, loc. cit., 17.

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RHYTHM AND LIFE

Before Reverend Christen’s benediction the congregation rose and sang Emile’s touching Priére patriotique.

7 —b-+ Pf | Af + __

CC ——————— ——————— = O Lord, give help to the —_ beau- teous _ land, The

————— i ry

land which my heart a- dores----. The

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— EE et —S[SFE=F &

called up- on me I o- bey, My Lord, pro- tect my

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Oy 2+ “$ G —— fe} & dear coun-- tTy.

Leaving the cathedral, the funeral procession, led by costumed ushers

(as befitted an official of state), progressed to Place Neuve, where the conservatory was located and further honors were rendered, then filed past the Grand Théatre. The chimes of St. Pierre continued to peal the beautiful,

heart-felt melodies the departed had given the world. According to his wishes the body was cremated and the remains buried at the cemetary of Plainpalais.

Adieu, Monsieur Jaques. 296

CHAPTER XV

@@

Centennial Celebration: 1965 Early in 1963, friends and colleagues of Emile Jaques-Dalcroze began forming committees to organize and carry out plans for a commemorative centennial

celebration. Charlotte MacJannet, President of U.I.P.D., and Margurerite Croptier, Director of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze initially developed the idea, and with Maitre Gabriel Jaques-Dalcroze, who was now heir to his father’s intellectual realm, they were named vice-presidents of the organization committee. The president was Henri Gagnebin, composer and former director of the Geneva Conservatory, now retired, yet full of energy and competent in administrative and organizational affairs. The general secretary, who assumed most of the detailed work, was André Hunziker, a mathematics instructor in the Geneva schools, who had recently organized an immensely successful conference for mathematics instructors in Geneva.

The remaining members of the organization committee were all musicians and rhythmicians, including the instructional faculty of the institute. An impressive honorary committee was also established, consisting of persons in government and education, as well as local and foreign persons who had an interest in la rythmique in various manifestations. A number of musical and cultural organizations, national and international, participated as a Committee of Patrons who contributed in many supportive ways. In addition, five special organizations contributed materially to the centennial project: City and Canton of Geneva Pro-Helvetia Foundation

Foundation Rapin Union de Banque Suisse Crédit Suisse

297

RHYTHM AND LIFE

The centennial-year celebration officially opened with an inaugural ceremony held at the hall of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze in Geneva on the evening of 22 February 1965. Henri Gagnebin, André Chavanne, Claudius Terrir, and Alfred Borel opened the meeting with short addresses and, after

the musical portion of the evening, Maitre Gabriel Jaques-Dalcroze delivered the closing comments. The main part of the evening consisted of a suite by Telemann, compositions by Jaques- Dalcroze, Gagnebin, students of Jaques-Dalcroze, and professors of the institute. Pieces that were composed especially for this occasion were: Le Tombeau de Monsieur Jaques, Evocation pour piano, Henri Gagnebin

Suite en trois mouvements, en hommage a Jaques-Dalcroze, Bernard Reichel Etude rythmique, dédiée a l'Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, Frank Martin

The evening was an outstanding tribute to the great pedagogue, leaving all participants, performers, and audiences alike, charged with emotion and fond memories.

The committee distributed a list of some two dozen future programs to be given locally: lectures, concerts, dramatic presentations, dance, radio and television programs, information concerning new recordings of JaquesDalcroze’s Jeu de feuillu soon to be available, a new edition of his book Le Rythme, la musique et l’education, soon to be published, and of the remarkable

book which the committee commissioned for the centennial in which several writers dealt with Dalcroze—biography, composition, songs, ryth-

mique, his relation with Adolphe Appia, in addition to an invaluable catalogue of his compositions.! The committee also issued information concerning the instrumental music of Jaques-Dalcroze which had been recorded between 1951 and 1963, also available on tape, and prepared a list of songs, operatic excerpts, and other pieces ready for performance.

One of the numerous concerts open to the public was given on 10 March by the Orchestre de la Suisse romande under Ansermet’s direction, at which Ruggiero Ricci, the American violinist, played the Dalcroze C minor Violin Concerto.

Interest in the various manifestations of the centennial was quite keen in the Geneva community. Alfred Berchtold, recognized for his most informative book on the culture of the area,? had been commissioned to write

‘Frank Martin et al. Jaques-Dalcroze, l'homme, le compositeur, le createur de la rythmique (Neuchatel, 1965). ‘Alfred Berchtold, La Suisse au cap du XX siécle (Lausanne, 1963).

298

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION: 1965

the biographical portion of the centennial volume, and lectured at the hall of the Athenée on 19 March 1965. At the conclusion of his discourse, before the assemblage rose to depart, a woman in the audience sprang up impulsively, and in a tearful and emotionally strained voice, exclaimed: “I wish to point out that as a child more than sixty years ago, I attended Monsieur Jaques’s classes. It is my belief that there has never been a man with more

warmth, more feeling, more love and understanding for children than Monsieur Jaques. What he did for us I remember and cherish to this day, as do so many of my generation who revere him as | do. There can never be another teacher like him.”

At the program on 31 March entitled “Guirlande de Rondes et de Chansons,” given at the Salle de la Réformation, an enthusiastic crowd gathered to enjoy the familiar songs presented in old and new ways by

students of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, prepared by their teachers. Numerous persons of advanced age hurried to reach the hall on time so as not to miss a single number; their vigor and coordination could be detected

even in the street. It was clear that they were once rythmique students themselves and that the training had left a lasting reward of health and strength for them, as well as a continued interest in the method, which they were about to relive that evening in the performances of their grandchildren. Jo Baeriswyl prepared a new staging of Le Jeu du feuillu which was

presented during the month of May—the very season the play emphasized— in Plan-les-Ouates, Onex, Versoix, Pregny, Mayrin, Cointrin, Collonge-Bellerive, Petit-Lancy (all suburbs of Geneva), and in Geneva itself.

In June five performances of the delightful Petit Roi qui pleure were given at the Grand Théatre by children of the Geneva public schools and the students of the Institut Jaques-Dalcroze, under the musical direction of Jean-Marie Auberson. Two of these presentations were reserved for attendance by school children. This little fairy opera ranks with the ever-beguiling

Hansel and Gretel, written in 1893 by Engelbert Humperdinck, for its charming story and pleasing music and dances, all illustrating principles of rythmique. In paying tribute to Jaques-Dalcroze, the. organizational committee also wished to recognize the contribution of Adolphe Appia, without whom

the attainments of rythmique, particularly in the theatre world, would certainly have been limited. A portion of the city’s Museum of Art and History, known as the Salle des Casemates, was now given over to an exposition commemorating the collaboration of the two Genevans, Jaques-

Dalcroze and Appia. In addition to interesting memorabilia relating to

299

RHYTHM AND LIFE

Dalcroze—honors, awards, diplomas, books, scores, photographs, even the “Golden Book”—they also brought together the scenic drawings Appia had made for all of his productions. These were transported from their former home in Berne and were to be housed here for the purpose of making them available to a new, and perhaps more motivated, public. The opening of the exposition was scheduled for 31 July and its contents were to remain on view through August and September, in a portion of the museum now known as the Salle Jaques-Dalcroze. A major portion of the centennial was focused on the two- week period from 2 to 14 August. In the first week the committee scheduled a Cours de Vacances, a summer course at the institute for proponents of rythmique— teachers, students, and other interested persons. In the second week they held an International Congress of Rhythm and Rythmique. These events attracted some 450 visitors from thirty countries and five continents and the instructional staff and lecturers consisted of forty-four persons from eleven countries, thus signaling the truly international character of the activities and their participants.’ The summer course was normally held every three years, and although 1965 was not the sequential year for the program, the order was interrupted

due to the occasion of the centennial. Certain instructors had already acquired star status and world-wide reputations; they justified their positions

in their impressive presentations. One of these, Rosalia Chladek, was a product of the late Hellerau school, albeit not under Dalcroze, but under the direction of Christine Baer-Frissell. She was later an instructor in Laxenburg and director of the ballet of the Vienna Opera, then Professor at the Academy for Music and Theatre in Vienna. Chladek gave inspiring lessons in body rhythm and musical rhythm. Gerda Alexander of Copenhagen demonstrated her theories of eutonie, a word which has still not reached American dictionaries, nor is it Common, even now, in France. Eutonie means good-tone, the right degree of muscle tension. In his method Dalcroze stressed coordination and disordination of body members, relaxation and contraction of the muscles, as exercises to enhance free and more comfortable rhythmic responses. Eutonists continued to explore that aspect from about 1920 onward. Two Americans, Hilda Schuster and John Colman, along with Monica Jaquet of the institute family, presented both some of the oldest and newest ideas concerning rythmique and its teaching. Colman also commented on aspects of improvisation. Vera James of London gave a typical first lesson of *From the United States came John Colman, Henrietta Rosenstrauch, and Hilda Schuster.

300

CENTENNIAL CELEBRATION: 1965

solfége. Mrs. MacJannet, as President of the International Union of Dalcroze Teachers (UIPD), reported on her visits to other countries— Italy, Norway,

Sweden, Germany, Hungary and South Africa—where she made contact with rythmicians and learned of their work in the field. She discussed the role of UIPD in helping to organize programs in other countries in honor of the Jaques-Dalcroze centennial, providing valuable information on rythmique

training in Germany and other countries, and on the work being done in therapeutic techniques. A progress report explained the result of ten years of work done by international committees to set standards of admission for rythmique studies and for the certificate and diploma examinations. The

week-long summer session activities closed with a relaxing boat trip to Coppet on Lake Geneva. The International Congress of Rhythm and Rythmique followed the Cours de Vacances, paralleling the Congress of Rhythm held almost forty years betore. Each of the five sessions dealt with a particular theme, and the closing

session was, for the most part, ceremonial in nature.

The general theme for the first day was “Education by Movement, Rhythm and Music.” Mesdames Alexander, Chladek, and Jaenicke dealt with their special activities. Gisele Jaenicke’s topic was the training of opera singers. The composer Frank Martin discussed a fundamental question: the

sources of rhythm. He recognized an inner sense which he called the consciousness of number, illustrated by one’s ability to identify the third or fourth chime of the church bells, not having consciously heard the first stroke of the chimes. He related this to the human regulation of gesture and to the sense of musical measure. Also related to these qualities, he said, are poetry and language through their accent and length of syllables. Poetry, Martin claimed, which developed and sustained itself over thousands of years, was not accidental, but a phenomenon based on our perception of number. It is the human spirit which provides regulation of corporal movement, which relates to musical rhythm, and which uses musical terms such as accelerando and ritardando. Musical rhythm is an element of liaison between our spirit and our body. Jaques-Dalcroze, he pointed out, intuitively used rhythm to create an association between body activity, spirit and movement, to forma basic pedagogical system.

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