Music Education as Liberatory Practice: Exploring the Ideas of Milan Kundera

Music Education as Liberatory Practice: Exploring the Ideas of Milan Kundera Randall Everett Allsup Teachers College, Columbia University What is a liberatory practice of music education? What is the framework for such a philosophy? Our investigation will begin with a scene from Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness ofBeing} We will explore metaphors oflightness and weight from literary, musical, and philosophical points of view. Our examination will introduce various dialectics connected to lightness and weight, each with their discrete perspectives. A companion example, Ludwig van Beethoven's String Quartet in F-Major, op. 135, no. 1 6,3 will lead to a discussion of freedom and responsibilityand its effect on childrenand education . A liberatory practice of music education is located within a hypothetical or critical stance, a philosophical position that asks subjects to name their world. From such a stance may arise a sense of hope or possibility, even freedom. How, for example, might we uncover the possible within fixed conditions? What teaching strategies can help students break through unreflective and ossified thinking? A liberatory practice depends upon an engagement, even a struggle, with one's fate. Weight as a metaphor for fate and responsibility is featured in Kundera's novel. In 1968 Russiantanks havejust invadedthe CzechRepublic and the protagonists, Tomas and Tereza, have escaped to Switzerland. In spite ofthe safetythat Zurich offersher, Terezareturnsto Prague, having reached the point where she can no longer cope with Tomas's infidelities. Tomas is required to act. He must make an important decision. Should he stay in Zurich, where he is free to practice medicine, free from a political dictatorship and free from the responsibilities of a relationship? Or, should he return toTereza in Soviet-occupied Prague? Confronted by so many options, Tomas decides nothing; he throws import to the wind. Must it be? "Yes, es muss seiri\ he says and with a feeling of lightness, Tomas returns to Tereza whistling music from a Beethoven string quartet. Tomas's glib excuse, "Es musssein"comes from Beethoven's final string quartet, the fragments ofwhich he was whistling. Es muss sein is translated"That whichmust be" and, forKundera, signifies the very condition of fate, "arbitrary, inadvisable and unjustifiable.'*2 In The Unbearable Lightness ofBeing, we find Tomas forever acquiescingto fate, takingno responsibilityforhis actions. Tomas's life, Kundera implies, is unbearably light. Because this characterization is one condition ofour times, it is worth examining. If we understand lightness to mean unencumbered freedom, its antithesis, weight, symbolizes those conditions that hold us in place -those structures that are difficult to change, ifat all. In the String Quartet, Beethoven asks, "Can we alter fate?' How do we know what we can and cannot change? How do we play the cards we have been dealt? Asking these existential questions is essential toliberatory practice. The String Quartet, written in 1826, was Beethoven's last fully completed composition. This paper will examine the Finale of the work, payingparticularattention to the finalmovement's peculiarsuperscription-ariddleposedbetweenthe Third and Fourth Movements with markings that resemble the fragments of a song. We see that they indicate two compositional motives upon which the final movement is based. The melodic question, "Muss es sein? " and its inversion, "Es muss sein!" are woven throughout the Quartet's Finale.4 It is the inverted melody, "That which must be," which comes to mind when Tomas© Philosophy ofMusic Education Review 9, no. 2 (Spring 2001): 3-10 Philosophy of Music Education Review leaves Zurich and returns to Tereza. The whistled inversion, "an inversion of possibility', becomes Tomas's literaryand musical leitmotif. I would like to suggest that Beethoven sharedKundera's concern for lightnessand weight -or rather, Kundera shared Beethoven's concern. Indeed, we can hearthis dialecticalrelationship in all ofBeethoven's late compositions. Op. 135 is rather specific. For example, the melodic question , "Muss essein!", is posed several times in the introduction to the allegro section of the Finale. "Must it be?", Beethoven asks. Can we alterfate? We hear an unmistakable response: two eighth notes and a quarter note playedforte. Yet, what do these musical gestures signify? Through the infusion ofwordplay within an absolute medium, Beethoven only hints at answers. There is, for example, musical content that contradicts the heaviness ofhis...