Émile Jaques-Dalcroze

Émile Jaques- Dalcroze ( born July 6, 1865 in Vienna, † July 1, 1950 in Geneva) was a Swiss composer and music educator. Jaques- Dalcroze, sometimes ( incorrectly ) Jacques -Dalcroze written, is considered the founder of the rhythmic and musical education. Dalcroze was life in search of laws for artistic expression.

Life, work and impact

Dalcroze was born in 1865 as the son of Swiss parents in Vienna. His father was a watchmaker. With his parents already went the little Émile frequently to the theater and the opera. With his sister Helene he improvised first child stage performances. Jaques- Dalcroze received from his 6 years of piano lessons. His piano teacher was said to be very strict with him and even have banned improvising.

The family went back to Geneva when Émile was 10 years old. He completed his musical education at the Geneva Conservatory (1877-1883) and studied two years music and theater at the Paris Conservatory ( 1884-1886 ). He was inspired by the additive models of Arabic rhythms, when he was engaged in Algiers as Kapellmeister for the 1886/87 season. Back in Vienna, received Jaques -Dalcroze instruction in composition (Music) by Anton Bruckner, which he, however, too strict and impersonal place, which is why he joined Adolf Prosnitz (piano ) and Hermann Graedener (composition). There was a second stay in Paris (1889-1891), where he met the Swiss Mathis Lussy and received from him significant influences in expression and rhythm theory. Furthermore, he woke in Jaques- Dalcroze the fundamental interest in reform.

Then he returned to Geneva and began in 1892 at the Geneva Conservatory first as a teacher of harmony theory to analyze the relationships between music and its dance expression on her rhythm. He developed the music teaching methods of his time on, where he was again joined in solfege instruction on the rhythm, namely the rhythmic deficiencies of his students. From 1897 he published repeatedly essays about rhythm, music and education, describing the history of its research.

From Geneva, the jointly developed with Nina since 1902 Gorter method, the method Jaques- Dalcroze ( MJD ), as rhythmic gymnastics first to Germany (including Alexander Sutherland Neill by Gertrud Grunow and ) spread. His goal was originally the development of musicality in humans have been extended as a result of the universality of rhythm. In 1906 he had an encounter with the musician and stage designer Adolphe Appia ( 1862-1928 ). In 1909 he spent three months in the reform colony Monte Verità in Ascona, the one site of action of his students Mary Wigman and Suzanne Perrottet should be later. 1911 Jaques- Dalcroze founded and directed together with Wolf Dohrn in Hellerau ( near Dresden ) the educational institution for music and rhythm (now Festspielhaus Hellerau ), which was moved in 1925 to Laxenburg. The local teaching demonstrations and performances attracted to the European avant-garde, and his teaching and artistic activity reached worldwide recognition. In 1915 he opened the still existing Jaques- Dalcroze Institute in Geneva. Since about 1925, a rhythmic course of study at the music academies in Germany. 1926, the International Association of Professors of Jaques- Dalcroze method was established, which was renamed the International Federation of enseignants de Rythmique ( FIER ) 1977.

In addition to Geneva (International Jaques -Dalcroze - center ), there is still a Jaques- Dalcroze Institute in Brussels. In addition, there are about 30 schools of rhythm, who call themselves partly by Jaques- Dalcroze world.

Émile Jaques- Dalcroze relied on the interrelationship of the musical, physical and emotional experience that caused his work. Over a wide variety of exercises and improvisation, the rhythm that had impact on the musical and artistic and musikinterpretatorische work by a moving presentation. He noted that the rhythm showed a positive effect in educational processes and social learning field. He understood, inter alia, in the tradition of François Delsarte, who has developed for the Paris Opera in the mid-19th century systems designed to enhance human expressiveness. One of his most important students was Suzanne Perrottet. In Hellerau she worked as a movement educator. To his admirers also scored the Zurich psychiatrist Eugen Bleuler.

Compositions

• La soubrette (1881 ), operetta
• L' Ecolier François Villon (1887 )
• Humoresque (1891 ) pour orchester
• La Veillée (1893 ), oratorio
• Chansons romandes (1896 )
• Sancho (1897 )
• Jeu du Feuillu (1890)
• Le Bonhomme Jadis (1906 ), opera
• Les Jumeaux de Bergame (1906 ), opera
• Fête de la Jeunesse et de la Joie (1923 )

The focus of the diverse compositional oeuvre is about 1,200 songs, which are widely used in French-speaking Switzerland to this day.

Awards

• Officer of the French Legion of Honour (1929 )
• Dr. H.C. the University of Chicago (1937 ), Clermont- Ferrand ( 1948), Lausanne (1945 ) and Geneva ( 1948),
• 1947 Geneva Music Prize

Quotes

" The future education must teach especially the children, to see clearly in themselves and their mental and physical abilities to be measured by what you have sought and achieved earlier generations. You must guide them to experiences that allow them to assess their own strengths properly restore the balance between them and adapt them to the urgent demands of their particular and also of the entire existence. "

"It's very difficult to explain a method in two words, which will require, of course, very detailed and very numerous studies and experiences. The point is to put the different parts of the organism of children in relationship: brain, spinal cord, figurative movements, deliberate movements, involuntary movements, automatisms ... and then about to destroy the bad automatisms, those dedicated to the freedom of their members oppose. For that I have the contribution of the music that is both regulating and stimulating ... "

Writings

• Premieres rondes et enfantines. Uitgevers: Sandoz, Jobin et Cie Office international d' édition musicale et agence artitique Paris et Neuchâtel 1904; German language edition. For our kids Children's songs and games with explanatory text. German arrangement by Felix Vogt. Sandoz, Jobin & Cie International Music Verlags-Anstalt and artistic agency Paris and Neuchatel in 1904.
• Le rythme, la musique et l' éducation. Fischbacher, Paris 1920, Lerolle & Cie, Rouart 1920, Jobin & Cie, Lausanne, 1920; Foetisch, Lausanne 1965; Hug publishers, Lausanne 1988. Rhythm, music and education. (Translation of Julius Schwabe ) Schwabe, Basel 1921; George Kallmeyer, Göttingen / Wolfenbüttel 1977, ISBN 3-7800-6024-8.