„…und die Tradition schweigt“ – Solfège in der Diskussion

This article focuses on a historical overview, criticism of solfège teaching and more accomplishable approaches to music education. When Guido of Arezzo came up with the invention of the line system and derived tone syllables from the first letters of St John's hymn just under a millennium ago, he laid the foundation for a new approach to musical education: he replaced stubborn memorisation of (church) chants with a learnable, mechanical reading technique. He probably could not have foreseen that after almost a thousand years, 'his' idea would still be relevant. This article is based on several lectures and previous publications. It is intended to show the extent to which Solfège is situated in terms of music aesthetics on the one hand. However, on the other hand, this method of mechanical readability, when it is applied without any claim to music aesthetics, is increasingly causing headaches for music educators. Two years ago, the Kodály concept was recognised as an intangible cultural heritage of humanity. This mainly brought the preservation of the diverse Hungarian folk music heritage into focus and only secondarily the pedagogical idea associated with it. It should not be forgotten that the latter is based on Guido von Arezzo's predecessor concept and would be inconceivable without it. As a logical consequence, the Solfège should also be included in the list of intangible cultural assets. Its influence is based on a musical pedagogical concept that is more than a thousand years old and still has a decisive effect on musical education in many European countries. The Solfège system is not without controversy, but where is it written that an intangible cultural property must be based on consensus on content? Is not the discourse of musicology or music education the salt in the soup that could stimulate the discussion about the inclusion of cultural property in the UNESCO List