We have not yet been able to push our experiments far enough precisely to define the musical material adapted to children of various ages. We have, however, made a very great number of successful attempts to bring children to enjoy melody and sentimental expression in music. The practicableness and utility of musical auditions, or, if you wish, of concerts for children, graduated in difficulty, executed on various instruments, but on one instrument at a time, are beyond all question; this applies above all to songs reproduced by the human voice, when a well-trained voice is available.
If a real artist should take up the task of analyzing for children the language of music, bringing them to enjoy it phrase by phrase and under different timbres (voice, strings, etc.), his new and scientific application of the art would be produced in the future from these groups of little ones, so intelligent in music, who follow the most expressive tunes with so much passion and in a silence more absolute than any celebrated artist can dream of attaining in a meeting of adults! No one among these little hearers is cold, far away in thought. But on the faces of the children appears the interior working of a spirit, tasting a nectar essential to its very live.
How many times a plastic pose, a kneeling posture, an ecstatic face, will move the heart of the artist to a sense of joy greater than that which any applause of a throng of people often indifferent or inattentive, can possibly give him! Usually only those wounded at heart by the difficulty of being understood by others, or discouraged by the coldness or rudeness of other people, or oppressed by disillusion, or filled with a sense of painful loneliness or need of expansion in some other way, feel in music the voice which opens the doors of the heart and causes a health-giving flood of tears or raises the spirit to a lofty sense of peace. Only they can understand how necessary a companion for humanity music is. We know, of course, to-day that music is an indispensable stimulant for soldiers rushing forth to die. How much more truly would it then become a stimulant for all who are to live!
This conviction is already in the hearts of many people. In fact, attempts have already been made to reach the populace by concerts in the public squares and by making concert halls accessible to people of every class; but after all, do such attempts amount to more than putting the cheap editions of the classics into circulation among illiterates? Education is the prime requisite; without such education we have a people of deaf mutes forever barred from any music. The ear of the uneducated man cannot perceive the sublime sounds which music would bring within his reach. That is why though the music of Bellini and Wagner is being played in public squares, the saloons are just as full as before.
If, however, from these pupils of ours a whole people could grow up, it would be sufficient to go through the streets with a good piece of music and everybody would come out to hear. All those places where the rough and abandoned wrecks of humanity seek enjoyment, like homeless dogs looking for food in our ash-cans, would be emptied as if by magic. We would have an actual realization of the Allegory of Orpheus; for hearts which are to-day of stone would then be stirred and brought to life by a sublime melody.
Singing
Singing began with the scale. The singing of a scale, first in accompaniment with the bells and later with the piano is a first and great delight to the children. They sing it in various ways, now in a low voice, now very loud, now all together in unison, now one by one. They sing divided into two groups, sharing the notes alternately between them. Among the songs which we offer to the children, the greatest favorite proved to be the syllabic Gregorian Chant. It is something like a very perfect form of speech. It has a conversational intonation, the softness of a sentence well pronounced, the full roundness of the musical phrase. The examples given here have almost the movement of the scale.
Many other verses of the Gregorian Chant have, like these, proved to be the delight of the Montessori Elementary School of Barcelona. There the children are especially keen about this very simple music which they like to play on the piano, on their plates (Xylophones) or on their monochords.
