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Nadia Boulanger as
Teacher by Lennox Berkeley
Editorial note:-
Lennox Berkeley studied
with Nadia Boulanger in Paris form 1927
until 1932. The present article was written
towards the end of this period for the
January 1931 issue of the Monthly Musical
Record. It is well known that the ‘Paris
Years’ were extremely influential on the
composer’s subsequent career. Not only
did he learn a great deal from Boulanger,
but he had the opportunity to meet many
great composers including Maurice Ravel,
Francis Poulenc, Igor Stravinsky, Darius
Milhaud, Albert Roussel and Arthur Honegger.
It is hardly surprising that critical
opinion often alluded to the ‘Gallic flavour’
of much of Lennox Berkeley’s composition.
It certainly explains his attention to
detail and the fine craftsmanship of virtually
all his subsequent compositions.
Little of Lennox Berkeley’s
music from this period is regularly played
although there is quite a catalogue of
chamber, piano and choral music from these
years.
In considering a great
teacher of composition, one wonders to
what extent composition can be taught
at all; for examples spring to one’s mind
of musicians of great knowledge and impeccable
technique who fail completely as composers,
and others full of talent and ideas who
fail equally for lack of training and
musical workmanship. One can only conclude
that teaching in composition is useless
in the case of people who have insufficient
natural ability, but indispensable to
those who have talent.
Although a certain amount
can be achieved by a man of great musical
gifts without study, I know of no great
composer whose talent alone has sufficed.
All have had to go through the mill and
master a certain amount of theory. Nor
is this all: a young composer requires
somebody who is capable of guiding his
faltering steps, and of showing him how
to develop his ideas and to present them
in an intelligible form.
Nadia Boulanger is more
than a teacher of counterpoint and fugue,
and by this I do not mean merely that
she also teaches the piano and the organ
and lectures on musical form and interpretation,
but that she is a teacher of the art of
music as a whole, and has a positive genius
for the training and development of the
aesthetic sense of a composer. She infuses
into her pupils that power of self-criticism
and discipline which is so essential to
the composer.
Let us consider her attitude
towards music in general. The first thing
that strikes us is the extreme catholicity
of her taste. She loves passionately all
good music, whether it be light or heavy,
simple or complicated. A good waltz has
just as much value to her as a good fugue,
and this is because she judges a work
solely on its aesthetic content. To judge
a work of art from other than the purely
aesthetic standpoint is a failing to which
I think English people are particularly
prone. I therefore stress purposely this
point in considering Nadia Boulanger’s
attitude towards music in general. Some
people think that because you like Stravinsky
you cannot also like Beethoven, or that
an admiration of Johann Strauss is incompatible
with a love of Bach. To Nadia Boulanger
such an attitude would be incomprehensible.
Different composers are
different people, and their music has
a different use. You cannot say that a
comic opera is not as good as a Mass,
any more than you can say that a saucepan
in not as good as a top-hat, or that a
tea-pot is not good because you cannot
have a bath in it. In other words, the
only thing necessary is to know whether
or not a work is good music, and not allow
any other consideration to trouble your
judgement.
As regards Nadia Boulanger’s
method in general, the chief points are:
the study of the works of great masters
(chiefly for form and orchestration),
the writing of musical exercises, and
the submitting to her of compositions.
With regard to the first point, her system
is to lecture at the piano on some work
or series of works which the pupils have
previously analysed by themselves. For
instance, we have studied recently in
class Beethoven’s piano sonatas and string
quartets, a large number of Bach’s church
cantatas, some early polyphonic music,
Stravinsky’s ‘Les Noces,’ and works
by Debussy and Ravel.
The musical exercises
are the ordinary series involved with
the study of counterpoint and fugue. These
have to be done with absolute correctness,
and if wrong, have to be done again until
they are right.
It is, however, the advice
given for actual composition that is the
most valuable part of her teaching. Here
the important thing to note is that she
is very severe, but extremely impartial-
that is to say, she is severe in condemnation
of the least technical flaw or failing
in unity of style, but impartial in that
she admits any innovation that will come
off. It does not matter what style you
use so long as you use it consistently.
This question of style
is indeed a vital point, and it is the
bugbear of the beginner or amateur composer.
Anybody with talent can have good ideas,
but very few can write a big work on a
big scale and yet preserve that unity
of style which is essential to any good
work of art.
Nadia Boulanger teaches
that the composer must first be a good
workman, who knows his job, and that then
only is he free to write what he likes,
and to realize what ideas he has; that
it does not matter how much drudgery you
go through to gain that freedom, for a
man must lose his life in order to find
it, and in music he must lose his originality
and personality in order to find them.
Moreover, there is no risk in the case
of a man who has really got something
to say that he will become dry and pedantic
through a severe technical training. It
is true that a certain period of difficulty
is often experienced by a composer who,
having written a certain amount by the
light of nature, applies himself to the
study of theory. Whereas everything that
he wrote seemed good to him before, now
nothing does; and he stops and asks himself,
"What would the books say I ought
to do now?", and the natural flow
of the music is impeded. But this is only
a phase. Little by little he begins to
do the right thing subconsciously, and
his acquired knowledge becomes a second
instinct. Thus, in the experience of most
people, the process is justified.
There is little more
that one can say. It is extremely difficult
to give an adequate idea of a great teacher,
or to summarize those qualities which
make any particular teacher a great one.
The fact is that the chief quality is
something indefinable, and unless one
goes into the question of the psychology
and moral character of the person concerned,
one is obliged to leave it at that. I
suppose you may say that a great teacher
is one who possesses the power not only
of imparting knowledge to people in such
a way that they retain it, but also of
making them catch a positive enthusiasm
for the acquiring of that knowledge.
I think that the word
enthusiasm gives us the key to Nadia Boulanger’s
power – it is a most infections enthusiasm,
and it is supported by an immense erudition,
a keen intelligence and an open mind.
The Monthly Musical
Record January 1 1931 [transcribed by
John France The
Land of Lost Content - English Music Blog
]
With thanks to ‘The Lennox
Berkeley Estate’ for permission to reprint
this article.
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