Do you know what was the first secular music book in Latvian schools? / LR3 / / Latvian Radio

Lolita Fürmane, musicologist, Doctor of Arts, tells the story

In 1824, under the influence of the Enlightenment, several German-Baltic pastors of Vidzeme and Kurzeme founded the Latvian Literary Society, also called the Society of Latvian Friends. The purpose of this organization was to nurture and study the Latvian language and culture, to take care of Latvian education. The latter meant, as it were, to civilize the Latvians by adapting Western cultural forms to their education.

The books addressed to the school were important in this program. In their content, singing was as important as reading, and it included not only chorales, but also songs of secular content. The first such collection with sheet music was published in Riga in 1845 and was called “Songs for Latvian children and young people at school, at home and in the field to be sung with one and several voices”[i]. It was an appendix to the “First Reading Book” published a year earlier by Pastor Paul Emil Schatz (Schatz, 1807–1862) from Vidzeme.

The historian of the Latvian book industry Aleksejs Apīnis (1926–2004) has written that the first known satirical verses in Latvian manuscript literature were written about Šača.[ii] In any case, Šacs was a man with a good education for that time: he graduated from Terbata University at the age of 20, but in his position as pastor of the Tirza parish, at least in the 19th century church reports, he was seen as a good spiritual shepherd. His arranged songs – 57 in total – were composed by German composers. Some of the melodies here are completely new, for example, Friedrich Silcher’s (Silcher, 1789–1860) “Each year again/ Christ’s child comes” was composed only three years earlier. The link to the reading book appears in the publication’s table of contents. There are both Christian and nature and seasonal motifs. Several songs represent birds, insects, farm animals, but each of them carries some wisdom, the theme of the songs is often permeated with morality, as in this song by Jozef Gersbach (Gersbach, 1787–1830), translated into Latvian by Jānis RuĮens[iii]:

“Guard your ear!
It’s good, just listen!
When you hear an evil thing,
Close your ears immediately!”

Gersbach’s two-part songbook “Singing Bird” (“Singvögelein”) was popular in German schools at that time.

Most of Šatz’s “Songs..” are two-part, often leading the voices in parallel thirds or sixths, and the musical language clearly emphasizes the logic of classical harmony in auditory education. In the translated version of “Dziesminům..” by Baltic pastors, however, it was not possible to avoid awkwardness in the relationship between musical and literary-grammatical accent. And yet, this collection, which Paul Emīls Šacs had arranged for Latvian children, marked the path that led in perspective to Cimze’s “Garden flowers” in his “Dziesmu rota”. In the preface to his “Dziesmiņu..” Shats wrote: “We think that singing these songs will make the hearts of children and parents bend to God’s joy…”. In other words, the author of the publication was aware of singing as an important form of intergenerational spiritual communication. Kamol was unrolled, and already three years after Schaack’s publication, the “Singing School Book” by Baldone pastor Fridrich Šaka (Schaack, 1804–1857) was published in Jelgava.[iv] – the first known musical alphabet and solfeggio course for Latvian children.

Reference sources:

[1] The collection is stored in the LNB Rare Book Storage, RL2/2407.

[21] A. Hops. Without asking permission. Latvian manuscript literature in the 18th and 19th centuries. Riga: Liesma, 1987, p. 120.

[3] Jānis RuĮens (1817–1876), the future poet, had recently graduated from the Cimze teachers’ seminary.

[4] Published in the edition of the Latvian Literary Society: Magazin, herausgegeben von der Lettisch-Litterärischen Gesellschaft, Bd. 9, St. 3. Mitau: Steffenhagen & S., 1848.

effenhagen & S., 1848.