Early Days of Recorder Teaching in South Australian Schools
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australian asociety s for mumsic Early days of recorder teaching in e ducation incorporatede South Australian schools: A personal history Jane Southcott Monash University Abstract As a primary school student in the 1960s I learnt the recorder. This paper explores how the recorder became a staple of Australian primary school music programs. At that time recorders were comparatively recently revived Renaissance musical instruments that were adopted by music educators as a way for children and their teachers to engage in instrumental music making in classes. The inclusion of recorders in school music lessons was not always as successful as hoped but a lucky few had recorder teachers who were expert musicians like my teacher. This personal history explores the arrival and presence of the recorder in school music in South Australia. Data were gathered from primary and secondary documentary sources, personal recall and an interview with my recorder teacher, Cecily Wood. This research considers a commonplace occurrence in the lives of many Australian children and by focusing on a taken-for-granted practice in school music, adds to the historical record and to our understanding of what we do and why we do it. Key words: primary school music; recorder playing in schools; instrumental music learning; history of the commonplace; Cecily Wood Australian Journal of Music Education 2016: 50(1), 16-26 Introduction came to be and this research resonates with the experiences of many children and their teachers In 1964 I was in Grade 5 in an Adelaide primary across Australia. As a historian I am interested in school and my whole class was learning the the commonplace by which I mean those well- recorder from Mrs Wood. We were learning established and ubiquitous activities that we take from The School Recorder Book 1 revised edition for granted. Learning and playing the recorder was (Priestley & Fowler, 1962). I began on descant, and continues to be a commonplace occurrence progressed to tenor in Grade 6 (large hands) (see in Australian primary schools. The recorder is now Figure 1) and began clarinet in Year 7. a staple of western class music but this was not I am not unusual as this is the pathway that always the case. It was not until the 1930s that the many people take to instrumental study, but I resurrected instrument began to appear in English always wondered how the recorder had entered classrooms. We take for granted the presence of my schooling and set me on a path towards the recorder in our classrooms, but the question tertiary music study. Nearly three decades later is how did a nearly extinct renaissance musical I interviewed my teacher Cecily Wood about instrument end up in the hands of thousands of how she came to be teaching the recorder in primary school children in the 20th century? Adelaide in the 1960s. This paper explores how this 16 50(1) 2016 Early days of recorder teaching in schools The revival of the recorder The recorder began to emerge from its long eclipse in the early twentieth century. In 1901, Dr. Joseph Bridges (the brother of the composer Sir Frederick Bridge) gave a talk to the Chester Musical Association. He described the instruments as “flutes, played downwards from the mouth” that were well known in the time of Shakespeare. Bridges recounted that an old box, recently opened in the rooms of the Chester Archaeological Society contained a set of recorders (soprano in F, alto in D, tenor in C, and bass in lower F). When played the instruments sounded insipid and interest in them was deemed to be merely antiquarian (Recorders, Figure 1: The author playing recorder at school in 1965 (The Black Watch). 1901, p. 81). The instrument was revived and championed by Arnold Dolmetsch (1858-1940) (Williams, 2005) who in 1905 “perfected the first the recorder and its music was almost unknown modern recorder to baroque specifications” in Australia … In 1936 some Dolmetsch (Campbell, 1981, p. 7). rosewood recorders arrived by sea for a private customer and there was difficulty with the By the 1930s information about the recorder had customs officials because nothing on their list reached Australia. In 1933 the South Australian tallied with the instruments. Eventually the daily newspaper The Advertiser, reported a problem was solved by passing them as ‘tin festival of Ancient Music that mentioned Arnold whistles made of wood’! No greater insult could Dolmetsch (1858-1940) who had discovered be offered to the 18th century flute, or ‘flute an immense collection of 16th and 17th century douce’, which Bach regarded so highly. (Carroll, musical instruments in the British Museum in 1968, p. 31) 1889. The 1933 report outlined the workshops and At this time English musician, scholar and concerts proffered by Dolmetsch and his family champion of the recorder, Edgar Hunt, described in Haslemere, Surrey, England which included a his early adoption of the instrument, consort of recorders (A.H.T., 1933, p. 9). Arnold Dolmetsch pioneered the revival of early music and When I first imagined recorders being played in schools, I thought of well-balanced consorts in instruments such as as the recorder, lute, theorbo, public, grammar and high schools, and some cithern, medieval harp, shawm, viol, and spinet. in private schools – I did not think that ‘council Collecting old treatises on playing, he led his whole schools’ would be interested … In 1935 I had family to be virtuoso performers and artisans started my first recorder classes at Trinity College capable of constructing the instruments. As early of Music … in 1937 … [gave] a week’s intensive as 1933 Dolmetsch recorders were available for course to about 30 Bradford school teachers. One purchase in Adelaide at the Stradivarius Music of the ‘students’ on this course was Fred Fowler. Shop 213 Victoria Square (Advertisement, 1933). Edmund Priestley took an interest in what we Barbara Carroll, a school music teacher and were doing … the result is their collaboration Lecturer in Music at Mercer House Training College, in The School Recorder Book which Arnold’s of Leeds published in 1937. (Hunt, 1972, p. 137) Melbourne (absorbed into Victoria College in 1975), confirmed that in the 1930s, Australian Journal of Music Education 17 Southcott The recorder in South Australia on 14 June 2010. In 1972 Wood extended her work to retirees via the Council on Ageing The adoption of the recorder was interrupted and later to disadvantaged children under the by the second World War but soon after the auspices of the Red Cross. Wood was extremely recorder and its music again became available busy but still found time to reform the AMEB in Adelaide. In 1953 South Australians could Recorder syllabus. The journal of the Dolmetsch purchase the long playing (LP) record Recorder Foundation, Haslemere ascribed enthusiasm and Harpsichord Recital by Carl Dolmetsch and for the recorder in South Australia to “first, the Joseph Saxby at Cawthorne’s, 15 Rundle Street, work of Cecily Wood as a teacher, an exponent Adelaide (Advertisement, 1953). My recorder of the recorder, and the leader of her Recorder teacher, Cecily Wood spoke about how she came Consort, and second, the interest generated by to play the recorder (Interview with Cecily Wood, the classes in Recorder Playing conducted each 21 December, 1992). year by the Adult Education Department of Wood received the Oboe Scholarship at the Elder the University of Adelaide under Cecily Wood’s Conservatorium in 1948 but did not take up the tutelage” (Dolmetsch Foundation, 1969, p. 8). The opportunity due to her marriage. Shortly after Cecily Wood Recorder Medallion: For the most she decided to learn the flute. Wood had played promising Recorder player 16 years or under is early flutes but when she first heard a recorder awarded annually at the Adelaide Eisteddfod. she decided “that was the instrument for me”. She In 1965 Carl Dolmetsch (1911-1997) toured explained, Australia with harpsichordist Joseph Saxby. to woodwind players, taking up the recorder Virtuoso recorder player Dolmetsch was described is not hard. In the Dolmetsch box there is a as the “internationally recognised … leading little sheet of paper with Greensleeves on it, authority on the interpretation of early music” (Carl a fingering chart for the descant and treble, a little duet and all sorts of things. And that was Dolmetsch Australian Tour, 1965). As well as the what most of us taught ourselves from in the early music repertoire (including Purcell, Locke, first instance. (Interview with Cecily Wood, 21 Gibbons, Couperin, and Telemann), modern works December, 1992) were included such as a short piece for sopranino recorder The White Throated Warbler by Australian Wood and other enthusiasts formed consorts composer Nigel Butterley and Jig from a Suite for and performed. Wood “used to transcribe music Recorder by Anthony Hopkins, then resident in and arrange it and we demonstrated to so Australia. A reviewer described it as “a unique and many people from 1950 to 1960, it was really satisfying recital … anyone in the audience who a crusade” (Interview with Cecily Wood, 21 had themselves ever played the recorder must December, 1992). Her consort was soon in high have been fascinated by the ease and certainty demand for schools and social engagements. In with which this quite difficult music was played” 1962 Wood began teaching recorder classes to (Hoffman, 1965, p. 15). I had already been playing adults in the Adult Education Department of the the recorder for a year when I attended this recital University of Adelaide and soon had two large (see Figure 2). classes. She advocated Dolmetsch recorders as the best available. With ongoing demand for opportunities for learning and playing, in The recorder in Australian schools 1966 Wood was instrumental in founding the In 1956 the Melbourne UNESCO Seminar was Society of Recorder Players of South Australia.