Educators From Switzerland

"Russian students? you ask. Yes, we have white Russians but not the Soviets. They have a wonderful school of their own which has produced superb musicians such as Sviatoslav Richter, Oistrakh, and Rostropovich. Those Russians that we have here chose freedom, but their Slavic temperament manifests itself just the same, and they have a marked talent for music."

"It seems to me that this last piece, The Poet Speaks, which is the title Schumann gave to this immortal work, should be a transition into a kind of intimate reverie. It is not just about making a beautiful sound and expressive phrasing. You also need to create a sense of dreaming. The truth is, you need to dream this piece, rather than play it. Will you allow me to take your place? These two phrases are not connected. They are two different elements… of the same musical state. Here, like a question… And here again, another, tenderly asking the way. And from this moment, you should convey the music not just through the notes but through some kind of inspiration drawn from its immortal spirit. Now the sonorities should fade away…grow fainter and dimmer…and you are left simply in the presence of a reminiscent dream."

"The outstanding exponent of the French school after Pugno was Alfred Cortot, a remarkable and unusual pianist. … After graduating from the Conservatoire, Cortot plunged into the musical life of Europe, and not only as a pianist. … How could he possibly find time to keep his fingers in shape? The answer is simple: he didn't. Cortot was always making mistakes or having memory slips. These would have been fatal with a lesser man. With Cortot they made no difference. One accepted them, as one accepts scars or defects in a painting by an old master. … There was in his playing a combination of intellectual authority, aristocracy, masculinity and poetry. Cortot had a unique style, and a Cortot performance could always (and still can be recognized from his records; he made hundreds) by its sharpness, point, clarity of line, unmistakable rubato, sheer intelligence—yes, and by its wrong notes, too."

"Alfred Cortot was always a controversial pianist. Some listeners revered his playing, particularly of Chopin, as the embodiment of essential Gallic virtues, intelligence, clarity and elegance. Others thought it pallid, mannered and inaccurate, particularly in his later years."

"That's right. And the time when Cortot came to Vienna in 1947 remains one of my greatest pianistic memories. He came there to play for the first time after the War, and we all knew what the war had been for him, what his ideological engagement had been. Cortot played two programs. The first part of the first recital, how shall I say this... it was an absolute disaster. Cortot played Chopin's Fantasy, which is not very difficult from a technical point of view, but he didn't manage to play even one octave correctly. Jörg Demus was seated next to me, and he was seething: "My goodness, how is this possible? He's an amateur, I'm leaving at intermission!" After the intermission, however, Cortot came back on stage like a changed man. It was a different man, a different pianist. He had gotten ahold of himself. I couldn't believe how well he played the Sonata Op. 35 No. 2, which is such a perilous piece by comparison. At the end of the concert, with Gulda, we found Demus and tried to convince him that he had missed a major event: "That's impossible! I don't believe you – and I already sold my ticket for the second recital!" [laughs] In the end, we weren't able to convince him. A week later, in front of a sold-out house, with all three of us in attendance, Cortot played the 24 Preludes and the Kreisleriana. I can tell you that he went far beyond, in terms of depth, poetry, and spontaneity, all the recordings he had ever made of these pieces, which we knew so well. It was a revelation! It was so moving! All the pianists who were there agreed. When Cortot and Fischer were on the right foot, it was perfect, in terms of the cleanness of their playing, and not just from an emotional or spiritual point of view..."

"The musician's technique, in fact, should be as protean as the actor's. The best method of attaining this is by combining the qualities of the artist and the technician. To do this it is essential, that in addition to concentrating upon musical technique, one should keep in touch with the other arts. They provide that general culture to the musician without which he will never become a great artist."

"Infant prodigies do not necessarily become great musicians. I have had over three thousand pupils, and I am convinced that the proficiency which some display is no more than a manifestation of dexterity and an extraordinary natural imitative faculty of children."

"The light of conscience ... enters the eyes of the soul, as the light of the sun enters the eyes of the body; and to open the former requires no greater effort than to open the latter."

"There is, in Pascal's book — his drama, as we have ventured to call it — a person, real or fictitious, a protagonist; and to analyse the work of Pascal, is, in other words, to unfold the successive thoughts of this mysterious character. This is what we are about to attempt. p. 8"

"Man feels in himself passions which ought to obey, and a reason which ought to command. But it is in vain: the war is endless; victory on either side is impossible. Neither can reason subdue the passions, nor can the passions put reason to silence. p. 17"

"It is then settled: he will investigate whether God, the fountain of all truth, the key of all mysteries, be not anywhere revealed. To seek Him with the reason alone, holds out no hope of success; the experience which he has had respecting the knowledge of man, has rendered him distrustfull as to the means of knowing God. p. 27-28"

"Has the reason shared the condition of the other faculties, which our fall has so grievously injured? Is the reason corrupted? Mediately, yes; immediately, no: at least that is my belief. Our reason is the reporter of our sensations: if our sensations make a false deposition, our reason will make a false judgment. And this is what happens through the obscuration of our moral sense and the tumult of our passions; the judge is uncorrupted, but he is misinformed. p. 35"

"Perhaps the view of the harmony reestablished in a soul — I say in one only — by the doctrine of redemption, is the proof that Christianity is the remedy devised of God to put an end to our internal discordances. Perhaps, in a word, in these observations dwells a sufficient demonstration, a complete apology. But Pascal does not consider the demonstration as even commenced which he has in view, because that demonstration is calculated for the requirements of pure reason. He only believes that what he has said is fitted to dispose his hearers to listen with good-will, and even with a lively interest, to what he has still to say. p. 48"

"The point of departure, the datum of the whole chapter, is this. "Man is made to know the truth: he desires it ardently, he searches for it; yet when he tries to seize it, he is so dazzled and confounded, that he gives occasion to dispute his possession of it. It is this that has given birth to the two sects of Pyrrhonists and Dogmatists, the former of whom have wished to take away from man all knowledge of the truth, the latter strive to assure him of it; but each with reasons so little truth-like, that they increase the confusion and embarrassment of man, as long as he has no other light than that which he finds in his own nature." p. 131"

"He has tried natural religion, and has found this frail bark unfit to carry humanity. Seeing it sinking under him, he has hastened to pass into another vessel; that is to say, that theism, like atheism, has disappointed him. Always despair, you say. But let us have done with this singular reproach. In fact, what is it to you whether I have begun with despair or not? Am I obliged to render you an account of the matter? I was only responsible to you, or rather to myself, to examine. Have I done so? That is the question. And to return to Pascal; has Pascal examined? Has Pascal been convinced? Has Pascal become a Christian by conviction? Or has Pascal thrown himself into the faith as into a dark abyss? Has his conversion been nought but a suicide of his reason? I appeal on this point to all who have read the Thoughts, to all who are acquainted with the life of Pascal. p. 191"

"Meditation leads from ignorance to ignorance, from ignorance which does not know itself to ignorance which does know itself. This is the point that philosophers attain to. Also, true philosophy is to laugh at philosophy; and if Aristotle and Plato deserve the name of philosophers, it is rather by the practical wisdom of their life than by their metaphysical speculations. Reason alone, then, is an imperfect or a false instrument; and if truth is to enter into us, it is by another door than that of reasoning. p. 12"

"Between God and man, between the gospel and each soul, the interpreter is Love."

"Among the English, we see on one side an exhibition of grossness and impudence in wickedness, and on the other, we admire their strictness and lofty eminence in that which is good. In that country, interest and conscience measure every thing. There is nothing intermediate between the two motives.In France, on the contrary, the gap between interest and conscience is admirably filled by honour. ... In its origin, honour had for its office to take the place of conscience. Where it was deficient, honour presented itself the heir, the distant relation of conscience. ... But honour itself is becoming weak. ... If this progress continues, it will end by being extinguished. But which will then become the heir of honour? Will it be interest or conscience?"

"We feel the necessity of deceiving ourselves, of even grossly deceiving ourselves, and of believing, when we are doing wrong, that we are doing right. When we do not succeed in reaching such persuasion, merely by sounding our own reason and conscience, we look about for something or some person to aid us in the attempt."

"The most doubtful reasoning appears to us clear and conclusive, when we can, in any way, twist it to an accordance with what we desire."

"A conscience that is only sluggish, may submit to truth when it happens to meet with it: but a conscience under the seductions of passion, will not submit to it without great difficulty, and will devise some pretext, some expedient, for resisting the voice of truth that openly rebukes it."

"Our object to-day is to point out to you, brethren, that tendency we all have to consult another, in order to shun consulting ourselves."

"Lead your child by the hand to the great scenes of nature; teach him on the mountain and in the valley. There he will listen better to your teaching; the liberty will give him greater force to surmount difficulties. But in these hours of liberty it should be nature that teaches rather than you. Do not allow yourself to prevail for the pleasure of success in your teaching; or to desire in the least to proceed when nature diverts him; do not take away in the least the pleasure which she offers him. Let him completely realize that it is nature that teaches, and that you, with your art, do nothing more than walk quietly at her side. When he hears a bird warble or an insect hum on a leaf, then cease your talk; the bird and the insect are teaching; your business is then to be silent."

"Das Leben bildet."

"Each of our moral, mental, and bodily powers must have its development based upon its own nature, and not based upon artificial and outside influences. Faith must be developed by exercises in believing and cannot be developed from the knowledge and understanding, only, of what is to be believed; thought must grow from thinking, for it cannot come simply from the knowledge and understanding of what is to be thought, or the laws of thought; love must be developed by loving, for it does not arise merely from a knowledge and understanding of what love is and of what ought to be loved; art, also, can only be cultivated through doing artistic work and acquiring skill, for unending discussion of art and skill will not develop them. Such a return to the true method of Nature in the method of the development of our powers necessitates the subordination of education to the knowledge of the various laws which govern those powers."

"The ultimate end of education is not a perfection in the accomplishments of the school, but fitness for life; not the acquirement of habits of blind obedience, and of prescribed diligence, but a preparation for independent action. We must bear in mind that whatever class of society a pupil may belong to, whatever calling he may be intended for, there are certain faculties in human nature common to all, which constitute the stock of the fundamental energies of man. We have no right to withhold from any one the opportunities for developing all their faculties. It may be judicious to treat some of them with marked attention, and to give up the idea of bringing others to high perfection. The diversity of talent and inclination, of plans and pursuits, is a sufficient proof of the necessity for such a distinction. But I repeat that we have no right to shut out the child from the development of those faculties also, which we may not for the present conceive to be very essential for his future calling or station in life."

"I would take school instruction out of the hands of the old order of decrepit, stammering, journeymen-teachers as well as from the new weak ones, who are generally no better for popular instruction, and entrust it to the undivided powers of Nature herself, to the light that God kindles and ever keeps alive in the hearts of fathers and mothers, to the interest of parents who desire that their children should grow up in favour with God and man."

"The circle of knowledge commences close round a man and thence stretches out concentrically."