Page 156 - Weiss, Jernej, ur. 2020. Konservatoriji: profesionalizacija in specializacija glasbenega dela ▪︎ The conservatories: professionalisation and specialisation of musical activity. Koper/Ljubljana: Založba Univerze na Primorskem in Festival Ljubljana. Studia musicologica Labacensia, 4
P. 156
konservator iji: profesionalizacija in specializacija glasbenega dela
Music School. Paradoxically, even if he did not have a diploma of higher
education, he was approved as the head of the higher school in which he was
also teaching. That meant that Klaipėda Music School was a conservatoire
de facto, just the Government of Lithuania did not have enough resolution
or money to fund two higher music schools. The same story repeated almost
20 years later, after Lithuania had regained its ancient capital Vilnius.
Did Lithuania Need Two Conservatoires?
In the interwar period, Vilnius had Mieczysław Karłowicz Conservatoire and
the Jewish Music Institute. Both institutions worked under the curricula
of European conservatoires. In order to integrate those schools into the
common education system in Lithuania, the Soviet authorities reorganised
them into courses, and later, on 1 October 1940, on their basis established
Vilnius State Music School. Jonas Bendorius (1889‒1954), a graduate from
Leipzig Conservatoire of Music, became its director. At the time, it was one
of the largest schools in the Baltic countries. In the first academic year, it
boasted 73 teachers and about 650 students.8 It was to have been reorganised
into a conservatoire in a year’s time, but the plans were prevented by the
war. Despite that, with the permission of the German authorities, in 1942,
the school started work in accordance with the curriculum of Kaunas Music
School. However, after the Nazis had killed Jewish teachers and students
and had closed the main higher schools of Lithuania in 1943, the survival
of the school became a serious issue. The school was saved through hiding
under the status of a secondary school. Even though the school worked
under the curriculum of the conservatoire, it did not have the right to issue
conservatoire diplomas to their students, therefore the latter had to go to
Kaunas to take their final exams. The emigration at the end of the war further
exacerbated the crises and halved the number of teachers and students.
Nonetheless, it did not affect the establishment of the conservatoire at that
time, with the laws of the USSR having come into force: the music education
had to be transformed into three cycles – primary, secondary, and higher.
That’s why, on the resolution of the Council of People’s Comissars, on 1
January 1945, a conservatoire was established in Vilnius, and a children’s
music school was set up on the basis of junior forms and later developed
into Čiurlionis Art Gymnazium; the middle chain between them was the
8 A letter of Jonas Bendorius to the chair of the Artistic Affairs Council of the Lithua-
nian SSR, 27. 12. 1945, The Archives of Lithuanian Literature and Art, f. 410, ap. 1, b.
13, l. 48.
154
Music School. Paradoxically, even if he did not have a diploma of higher
education, he was approved as the head of the higher school in which he was
also teaching. That meant that Klaipėda Music School was a conservatoire
de facto, just the Government of Lithuania did not have enough resolution
or money to fund two higher music schools. The same story repeated almost
20 years later, after Lithuania had regained its ancient capital Vilnius.
Did Lithuania Need Two Conservatoires?
In the interwar period, Vilnius had Mieczysław Karłowicz Conservatoire and
the Jewish Music Institute. Both institutions worked under the curricula
of European conservatoires. In order to integrate those schools into the
common education system in Lithuania, the Soviet authorities reorganised
them into courses, and later, on 1 October 1940, on their basis established
Vilnius State Music School. Jonas Bendorius (1889‒1954), a graduate from
Leipzig Conservatoire of Music, became its director. At the time, it was one
of the largest schools in the Baltic countries. In the first academic year, it
boasted 73 teachers and about 650 students.8 It was to have been reorganised
into a conservatoire in a year’s time, but the plans were prevented by the
war. Despite that, with the permission of the German authorities, in 1942,
the school started work in accordance with the curriculum of Kaunas Music
School. However, after the Nazis had killed Jewish teachers and students
and had closed the main higher schools of Lithuania in 1943, the survival
of the school became a serious issue. The school was saved through hiding
under the status of a secondary school. Even though the school worked
under the curriculum of the conservatoire, it did not have the right to issue
conservatoire diplomas to their students, therefore the latter had to go to
Kaunas to take their final exams. The emigration at the end of the war further
exacerbated the crises and halved the number of teachers and students.
Nonetheless, it did not affect the establishment of the conservatoire at that
time, with the laws of the USSR having come into force: the music education
had to be transformed into three cycles – primary, secondary, and higher.
That’s why, on the resolution of the Council of People’s Comissars, on 1
January 1945, a conservatoire was established in Vilnius, and a children’s
music school was set up on the basis of junior forms and later developed
into Čiurlionis Art Gymnazium; the middle chain between them was the
8 A letter of Jonas Bendorius to the chair of the Artistic Affairs Council of the Lithua-
nian SSR, 27. 12. 1945, The Archives of Lithuanian Literature and Art, f. 410, ap. 1, b.
13, l. 48.
154
