"It may sometimes be hard for you to remember your mission, because you live in a country that has, certainly, many virtues, but that also finds it difficult to recognize the proper position and value of music and the other arts. I am speaking not merely of the financial help that the arts need and do not fully receive. I mean the acceptance of the central position that art must hold in any life that is fully lived. In Salzburg, for instance, you find music represented all through the texture of life, even in its most everyday aspects; one of the city's main streets, leading to the Grosses Festspielhaus, is called the Wiener-Philharmoniker-Gasse, and there is also a Toscaninihof, even a Papagenoplatz - not to mention Mozart, whose name and presence can be read and heard and felt everywhere. Can you imagine a major space in the city of Philadelphia being called Curtis Institute Street, or Philadelphia Orchestra Avenue, or Graffman Square?
No, in this country, musicians are more often considered "entertainers." I never fail to wonder at the listing of orchestra performances in American newspapers under "entertainment." The connection diminishes what music is, for often good music does not entertain at all. Rather, it inspires, frees, even creates conflict within its listener. Music means eternal growth; and growth, as you well know, is not entertaining - more often it is painful. Now I do not mean to belittle your country. Certainly the study of music here is far more luxurious than it is elsewhere. Music students in the United states have fantastic buildings with carpets and libraries and cassette machines and CD players and video equipment and computers. I come from the conservatories of Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti - buildings where for a long time there was just one luxury: an oil lamp in the middle of the room.
I am not advising study by an oil lamp. Certainly, it is not good for your eyes, and I do not believe it does much for the soul either. But I am saying that the love of music must be so great that you will accept hardships all along the way of your musical life. I am saying that your caring about music must be so deep that never will you allow yourself to be a mere projector of notes - no matter how beautifully those notes are projected. Mahler and Beethoven and Bach were not just producing notes: they were using notes to convey their deepest feelings and convictions."
Overtones: The Publication of The Curtis Institute of Music/Summer 1991/Vol.XVI, No.1
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This passage was read to our music history class by our professor in the year it was printed. As time passes, I think it still holds merit and I have passed a copy of this excerpt on to my students as they move on to study music at university. The years have brought us new technology. However you still will find that students from other countries practice longer hours and dig deeper into their music scales, technical exercises, music theory, and music history, than most students from the States. Think about those students you encounter who are from Latin, Russian, or Asian countries. We have all heard how they are disciplined to spend at least two hours every day (minimum) working on some aspect of music beginning at the elementary level. Meanwhile, music teachers in the States are thrilled if a student spends thirty focused minutes per day at their instrument. And most private instructors in the States avoid including the study of music theory and music history for pre-college students because they know students simply will not do their assigned work.