Preservation and Renewal of Traditional Music

Extract

I feel privileged to have been invited to open this session here in Jerusalem this afternoon. You, my friends and colleagues gathered from many parts of the world, may at this moment be feeling as I do, that we live in a very remarkable time: remarkable especially for the opportunities it gives us of meeting people from different civilizations. Today, indeed, our musical traditions, so different in their origins, form and content, are in growing communication; and, on the face of it, there would seem to be unprecedented opportunities for preserving and renewing regional music in its traditional forms. These traditional forms are those of folk music, liturgical music and learned music, but exclude the popular and individualistic repertoire. Before speaking of preservation and renewal, however, we must first recognize the existence of powerful forces which are working only for music's confusion and destruction. For the advances in technology and communications made by Western industrial society have been used for very different ends.