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Music education
“East-West” in the Music Education in Azerbaijan: Soviet era (part 2)
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Baku
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Azerbaijan
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Only classes related to Marxism-Leninism could compete with those on Russian music in terms of their weight in the conservatory curriculum. Respective department had been placed on the top of conservatory instruction since the late 1920s, and its horrifying list of courses, such as “History of the Communist Party”, “Political Economy”, “Theory of Communism”, “Marxist-Leninist Aesthetics”, “Marxist-Leninist Ethics”, “Marxist-Leninist Philosophy”, “Theory of Atheism”, “State Law” forced us to sacrifice music studies and spend endless hours in the library reading works by Marx, Engels and Lenin and preparing papers and presentations on main issues of Marxist-Leninist theory . I still remember words of one of our professors: “It is not enough to be a good musician. If capitalists declare the war to the Soviet Union, what are you going to do then? Just play your instrument? You have to be ready to prove them all advantages of the Soviet system and kill them morally.” I smile when recalling those days. But in fact, I smiled at that time, too. And so did most of us, students of the 1980s perceiving such statements as episodes from a grotesque movie. Some of our teachers seemed to feel the same way, too, when slightly and pertinently transforming “Theory of Atheism” into “History of Religions”, or focusing more on Hegel and Saint Simon rather than on Marx and Lenin in “Marxist-Leninist Philosophy” class. Of course, such flexibility had become possible only after the 1960s, in relatively relaxed social and political environment.
Music history classes had to be loyal to ideology as well. Composers’ aesthetics and works were viewed through the prism of ideological matters that may brought to exaggeration or, contrarily, shading on certain features. When discussing music of Bach, our textbooks carefully avoided mentioning religious links of his music. Beethoven looked as a revolutionary, and Haydn was introduced as a victim of bourgeois society. The most horrible harm was caused to the status of 20th century music: an inevitable consequence of “ideological war” that the Soviet Union had carried on with Western world. For the most length of its history, the official Soviet aesthetics had remained very suspicious about contemporary music as a product of “different” culture. Final part of “History of Music” that focused on the 20th century music was the tiniest one, and separate classes on the 20th century music had not been included in the conservatory’s curricula until the early 1980s when “Seminar on Contemporary Music” and “Contemporary Harmony” courses were offered. We students of the 1980s enthusiastically included works of Berg and Lutoslavski in our repertoire, wrote pieces trying to apply harmonic style of Bartok and Schedrin, analyzed scores by Penderetsky and Cage and discussed features of neoclassicism in Stravinsky’s music. A wonderful possibility to study 20th century music, although in rather informal manner was provided by the Composers Club. Established by composer Afag Jafarova at the early 1980s and run by students of composition department, Composers Club provided exposure to recordings and scores of the most recent pieces of avant-garde composers that happened to be obtained by local musicians.
Jazz, as “the music of capitalists”, was considered as not worthy being studied, neither practically nor historically or theoretically. However, jazz concerts occasionally happened in the conservatory, and jazz-related topics were sporadically discussed in the music history and theory classes.
The factor that perniciously affected music education referred to the strong limitation put on international contacts. The Western visitor we appealed to above was imaginable, indeed, because very few representatives of Western world happened to visit the Azerbaijan conservatory at the time. Although among them were world-renown figures, such as American musicologist Nicholas Slonimsky, or the Director of the International Music Institute, French musicologist Alain Danielou. However, the priority was given to inter-Soviet exchange programs, well-funded and encouraged by the state. As a rule, auditing committees at final exams were chaired by guest professors from other republics; students and faculty members regularly participated in concerts and conferences outside of Azerbaijan. I still nostalgically recall such voyages of mine to Russia, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan: meetings with colleagues, attending cultural events and historical landmarks and, overall, a sense of great enthusiasm and responsibility for introducing the music of my land. As for “outside” contacts, those with Arab countries were particularly intense, being stimulated with certain similarities between Azerbaijani and Arabic music traditions. Not accidental that Munir Bashir, the legendary Iraqi oud performer attended the Azerbaijan State Conservatory in 1973, and students from Arab countries were always welcome to study in Azerbaijan’s main music school. 4 Azerbaijani musicians, in turn, were offered beneficial contracts in Iraq, Egypt, Algeria and Syria.
Limitation put on international contacts had caused apparently negative impact on the quality of academic life. In the field of music research it brought to exclusive emphasis on local music tradition and a lack of experts on other regions. Indeed, how could Azerbaijani musicologist become an expert on Berlioz or Palestrina if even getting a visa to France or Italy was problematic, putting aside financial and organizational matters. Azerbaijani music history professors had no choice rather than to base their teaching activities regarding areas outside of Azerbaijan on “ready notions” provided by Russian-Soviet musicologists. The rest of the world had been viewed through a vision of the “elder brother”.
Finally, a firm governmental control was established over all stages of music education, be it curriculum, contents of textbooks or statistics of students. Musicology and music theory professors were not allowed to design courses themselves being required to use syllabi submitted at the Ministry of Education; students were deprived of an opportunity to select classes, and certain quota for each specialty either in conservatory or college had been set. This was how the concept of “planned economy” worked in the field of education.
4. For instance, Iraqi Farukh Ammar Khasan prepared his doctoral dissertation in the Azerbaijan conservatory later publishing it in a book format (“Ladovye osobennosti Arabskoi narodnoi muziki” (Modal peculiarities of Arabic folk music) (Baku: Azerneshr, 1986)
(To be continued)
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