The transposition of musical knowledge in intellectual education

Abstract

The construction of European citizenship in the era of complexity requires that the transmission of knowledge be directed towards an intellectual formation, that is, the ‘shaping’ of a critical mind, one that is able to problematize, and hence to discern. This can be achieved by educating towards comprehension. In facing this issue, musicologists ask themselves ‘what to teach’ and ‘how to teach’ it, in order to prepare students to the comprehension of music – these questions form the basis of music didactics as the science of ‘transposing’ savoir savant (learned knowledge) into savoir enseigné (didactic knowledge). The paper proposes a model appraoch to music comprehension, through the didactic transposition of a piece by Claude Debussy, La cathédrale engloutie. The example is based on a strategy developed by musicological and methodological-didactic research, and focuses on the continuity among listening, music performance, and music history.