Leidsch Dagblad
- Darius Milhaud
- Education Conference
- The Disaster at Katwijk
This Leiden front page of 1 November 1926 carried a signed music column by H. W. H. introducing Darius Milhaud to local readers as one of the young Parisians disturbing musical peace after Debussy, with a regretful aside that a planned local performance of Honegger's Pacific had fallen through. A report from an education conference gave the closing theoretical remarks of Prof. R. Casimir, who argued that the many school reforms of the previous quarter-century shared a common theoretical basis. A notice from the paper's management urged readers to read about the loss of the Katwijk logger KW 148 and to send donations through the paper's giro account or the Amsterdamsche Bank.
Translation
Darius Milhaud
We live fast nowadays. The new sound of Debussy has scarcely faded away when along come Darius Milhaud (b. 1893) and a handful of others (among them Honnegger, whose Pacific 213 was very nearly performed here — a pity that it fell through!) to disturb our musical peace. Milhaud's oeuvre is already of respectable size; he writes with great facility. In Paris he has quite a following, and his circle of friends extends even into our own country.
Education Conference
Prof. R. Casimir, as the last speaker, offered some theoretical concluding reflections. In the last twenty-five years many changes have been tried in education, he began. They do differ from one another, but there appears to be a common theoretical foundation underlying them, as is recognized by Adam Ballard and Killpatrick.
The Disaster at Katwijk
Be sure to read the tragic details concerning the loss of the logger KW 148, and then send your donations to our paper, under giro number 57055, or to the Amsterdamsche Bank, Leiden branch, marked "KW logger 152".
Context
Milhaud, Honegger and Les Six
The columnist H. W. H. treats Milhaud as the leading figure among the newcomers who followed Debussy, and counts Honegger among the "handful of others". Both men belonged to Les Six, the Paris group of six composers; Milhaud had met Honegger, and Germaine Tailleferre, while studying at the Paris Conservatory. Milhaud is regarded as one of the most prolific composers of the twentieth century, which matches the column's remark that his output was already of respectable size and that he wrote with great facility. The column gives his birth year as 1893, whereas biographical accounts today give his birth date as 4 September 1892.
What Milhaud brought back from Brazil
Milhaud's music, which the column presents as the next disturbance after Debussy's "new sound", drew heavily on Brazilian music. From 1917 to 1919 he served as secretary to the poet and dramatist Paul Claudel, then French ambassador to Brazil. After his return he wrote Saudades do Brasil (1920), a suite of twelve dances for piano, each based on a duple tango or samba rhythm and named after a place or neighbourhood in Rio de Janeiro; in 1921 he arranged the suite for orchestra. The work is well known for its use of polytonality, the sounding of different keys at once. That harmonic novelty likely helps explain why a Leiden critic could describe Milhaud and his peers as disturbing "our musical peace".
Professor R. Casimir's career
The closing speaker was Rommert Casimir (1877–1957), who from 1918 to 1947 held an endowed chair in education at the University of Leiden and whom the university describes as the first professor of educational science in the Netherlands. He also ran a school himself. With support from Jan Ligthart he prepared the founding of a new kind of school in The Hague, which opened in 1909 as the Nederlandsch Lyceum, and he remained rector of this first Dutch lyceum until 1930, so he was still in that post when he addressed the 1926 conference. From his philosophy teacher Gerard Heymans he adopted the view that experience is the basis of knowledge, and Leiden remembers him as a behavioural scientist who understood the importance of empirical evidence. That background fits his argument that the varied reforms of the previous twenty-five years rested on a common theoretical foundation.
How pedagogy became a university subject in the Netherlands
Casimir's chair was itself still new in 1926. In 1918 Leiden became the first Dutch university to appoint a professor of pedagogy, in an endowed chair made possible by the Maatschappij tot Nut van 't Algemeen, and in 1919 Philip Kohnstamm took up a similar post in Amsterdam. Within secondary education there was a growing demand for a scientific approach to teaching, and in 1921 the government's Academic Statute recognized pedagogy as a minor subject, which obliged other universities to appoint professors too. A conference that closed with a professor's theoretical survey of a quarter-century of school experiments reflects that period, when Dutch educationists were trying to give the many reform movements an academic basis.
Original
DARIUS MILHAUD
We leven snel tegenwoordig. Het nieuwe geluid van Debussy heeft nauwelijks uitgeklonken of daar komen Darius Milhaud (geb. 1893) en een stuk of wat anderen (onder wie Honnegger, wiens Pacific 213 hier bijna zou zijn uitgevoerd - jammer dat dit overging!) onze muzikale rust verstoren. Milhauds oeuvre heeft reeds een respectabelen omvang; hij schrijft zeer gemakkelijk. In Parijs heeft hij vrij wat aanhang en zijn vriendenkring strekt zich uit tot in ons land.
ONDERWIJS-CONFERENTIE
Prof. R. Casimir gaf als laatste spreker eenige theoretische slotbeschouwingen. In de laatste vijfentwintig jaren zijn vele veranderingen beproefd in het onderwijs, aldus ving hij aan. Wel zijn zij onderling verschillend, maar er schijnt een gemeenschappelijke theoretische grondslag voor aanwezig. zooals door Adam Ballard en Killpatrick erkend wordt.
DE RAMP TE KATWIJK.
Leest vooral de tragische bijzonderheden in verband met het vergaan van de logger KW 148 en zendt daarna uwe giften aan ons Blad, onder gironummer 57055 of aan de Amsterdamsche Bank, bijkantoor Leiden onder vermelding " KW logger 152 ".
Source: Source: Erfgoed Leiden en Omstreken (leiden.courant.nu)