The Role of the Arts in Liberal Education

The Vienna Experience bombards us with small truths, whether they be artistic, cultural, or historical, that add up to large changes in the way we live our lives, the way we approach our music, and the questions and thoughts that now pass through our minds because we have been challenged by another mentality, another time, another place, another circumstance. --McKenzie Sweeney, Belt, MT, The Vienna Experience 2003

I have just completed directing The University of Montana-Missoula (UM) Music Department's Vienna Experience (VE) for the third time. I have now had the privilege of observing and working with more than 120 students before, during, and after their participation in this remarkable opportunity. I have come to believe that the Vienna Experience is a very powerful and effective educational program, one that in many ways illustrates what genuine education in our troubled time must aim to achieve. It is a program, too, which exemplifies the role of the arts, especially music, in a liberal education. The arts must be returned to their proper place in the core of the curriculum, brought back from their long modern exile in the curriculum's periphery, the place to which they were banished on the grounds of being mere entertainment. In this paper, I will strive to give shape and clarity to these beliefs.

The Vienna Experience Curriculum

Every three years, UM students have the chance to live and study for three months in Vienna, Austria. Presenting an engaging curriculum, the VE provides something beyond what results from successful completion of courses. An occasion to improve students' musicianship, the VE also invites students to explore non-musical objectives. Interactions between the students and the foreign culture serve as an educational medium through which the shaping of personal character is addressed.

Founded in 1980 by Professor Donald Carey as a program that concentrated primarily on the development of musicianship and vocal performance skills, the Vienna Experience has, since his retirement, evolved over the last seven years towards addressing the more classical goals of education. This gradual shift in emphasis was the result of learning from what was observed in Vienna over the years and taking better advantage of what Vienna had to offer. The program remains built around a choir, the University of Montana Chamber Chorale.

About one year before departing for Vienna, prospective participants are admitted to the program through written application, interview, and musical audition. The VE officially begins during UM's "Wintersession," a three-week period that occurs in January between the fall and winter semesters. During this time, the participants come to campus for orientation, rehearsals, and intensive coursework; these activities continue on campus through the first half of the Spring Semester. The remainder of the curriculum is offered in Vienna.

The VE curriculum currently includes the following required courses: Ethics, Aesthetics, Vienna History, The Power of Myth, Chamber Chorale, and The Art and Architecture of Vienna. I will describe two of these courses as examples of the content and potency that exists in the VE curriculum.

The Power of Myth course traces the treatment and representation of mythological characters such as Orpheus in literature, painting, theater, and opera from the 17th to the 20th century. The course introduces students to ways of approaching literature. It acquaints students with textual analysis and questions of aesthetic production and reception, and helps them to reflect on the cooperation between composer and librettist. The approach is to study mythological figures which have retained their symbolic power over centuries and whose fascination proves they are creations of poetic imagination which touch the nerve of human existence. One group activity involved the students writing their own version of the play Orpheus and then acting it out on the stage of a Roman ruin in "old Vienna."/1/

The Art and Architecture course provides students with the opportunity to study original paintings, sculptures, and architecture in Vienna, Salzburg, Budapest, Venice, and Florence. The course takes place in museums and galleries using only original artworks as examples. The students attend a class, for example, at the world famous Kunsthistorisches Museum (Art History Museum). They stand directly in front of the original painting of Judith by the Jugendstil artist Gustav Klimt. Students are invited to investigate the painting close up and then asked to explain to the rest of the class what they see. The students may have previously seen this painting in an art book, but to see Klimt's actual brushstrokes makes the students feel a sense of awe about being in the same room with an actual renowned painting. The professor takes them socratically beyond the description placard, into the paint on the canvas, to explicate form, color, balance, dominance, movement, and harmony. Additionally, the professor presents a clear historical context and clarifies how the artist sometimes expressed politically incorrect ideas of the day. Overall, the course reveals the importance of continuity in the historical development of style, not neglecting to emphasize the differences in ways of seeing the world in the various periods of the evolution of pictorial ideas. Before each class concludes, the students are required to spend 20 minutes drawing their own versions of one of the paintings or other items in the museum. This exercise draws attention to the detail of the object they are illustrating. They also recognize the difference between their skills and those of Klimt, for example. Their drawings become part of a personal journal./2/

Required to register for a minimum of 12 credits, students may also elect to enroll in the following courses: History of Western Music, Vocal Literature, Full Score Study, Music Education Seminars, Vocal Masterclasses, or German for the Musician.

In the Full Score Study course, for example, students study the orchestra scores of compositions being performed by the renowned Wiener Philharmoniker. They listen, analyze basic orchestration, and practice conducting the music before observing three-hour rehearsals of the orchestra playing those same pieces. In the spring of 2003, the members of the class studied Anton Bruckner's Symphony No. 7, Hector Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, and Claude Debussy's Prelude á "L'aprés-midi d'un faune."

The first of two Music Education Seminars takes place at the famous Orff Institute in Salzburg. The masterclasses not only demonstrate the Orff pedagogy, but also open up the participants' minds to a different way of thinking about the role of the arts in their lives. They learn to perceive art as an activity in which they are the creators. By providing an atmosphere that discourages judging themselves and each other based on fashionable standards, the Orff approach makes the students so comfortable that they begin to shed inhibitions. Through the method, their inner worlds are brought to the surface through creative dance, playing of instruments, and singing.

In contrast to the pedagogy used in rehearsals for the Chamber Chorale, in which the ensemble re-creates music that has already been composed, the Orff approach is mainly about the celebration of creation and the re-discovery of the rather childlike creative potential that maturation tends to stifle. In uncovering their creativity, students may develop a higher regard for their own power to add something of beauty and insight to the world.

We also visit Hungary primarily for the opportunity to work with the teachers and students at the Kodaly Institute in Kecskemet. After presenting an exchange concert with students from the Kodaly Institute, we spend time in the public schools of Kecskemet to observe music teachers working with their students. Our students are amazed at the level of musicianship demonstrated by second and seventh graders. The second graders were excellent listeners, and, through the Kodaly hand-signal approach, had become quite adept at sight singing. The junior high students were, as one of our music students described, "...about as advanced as our second-year college music theory students at the UM."

Vocal masterclasses that concentrate on song interpretation and technique are presented by three outstanding Viennese teachers and performers. Students elect to take private vocal, instrumental, or composition lessons. In the spring of 2003, some also researched independent study topics such as the imperial history and the politics of the Vatican in Austria, Freudian literary theory, intercultural communications, ethnomusicology, and a Vienna Experience television documentary for PBS.

Welcome to Vienna

The VE education begins in earnest when students are taken away from Montana--where most everything is predictable and familiar--to Vienna where German is the language, the Euro is the currency, the U-Bahn is the main transportation, and Wienerschnitzel, Sauerkraut, und Bier are favorite menu items. The first week in Vienna is a honeymoon of sorts. The students are finally there after so many months of planning and preparation. The old city is so beautiful. They love hearing the children speak German on the streetcars, enjoy navigating the transportation system, and delight in attempting to read German on the large advertising posters. Most of all, they can't believe what a jewel the Vienna night is with its great white gothic cathedrals framed on the canvas of the blue-black night sky. The evening couple on Kärntnerstraße, a main shopping street in "old Vienna," strolling to the music of an accordian played by a street musician, is so romantic. The cobblestone that has been worn by the feet of Mozart, Haydn, and Beethoven and the horsedrawn Fiakers bring the quaintness of Vienna and times gone by to the students' eyes, ears, and hearts. They find themselves in a dream. Some exclaim, "I can't believe I'm here!" "Everything is so beautiful!" "It's more than I thought it would be!" "Where have I been my whole life?" One student proclaimed with eyes glistening upon seeing Stephansdom, a 14th Century cathedral, appear before us as an escalator carried us up to Stephansplatz from the subway, "I just realized that I need to see the rest of the world!"

Although an extended trip to Europe is an enticing idea to most university students, some students and parents must be convinced that participating in the Vienna Experience will be worthwhile, even though it may result in a delay in graduation, and it is relatively expensive. I offer them an analogy. Imagine a sapling tree that would be better off if it were transplanted. The sapling is rooted in the soil in which it was planted. Like all the other young trees in the forest, it seems to be normal, vertical, and relatively strong. If, however, the sapling could be transplanted to more fertile soil containing more vital nutrients, away from the other trees, in more direct sunlight, with daily nourishment, the sapling could become quite a better tree, although a tree is all it will ever be. Upon being transplanted to new soil, the tree will suffer great shock to its system. At first it may seem that it will not survive the transplant, but it will struggle desperately, sending shoots out in many directions to establish a root system in the new earth. The tree will then become even stronger than before. And if the tree, upon maturity, were to be asked, "Do you want to go back to the old forest?" it might respond, "I will return only to convince all the other saplings to go through the change."

The VE transplants UM students into the fertile Viennese culture, though temporarily, to be sure. Their nutrition comes to them in the forms of great art and a different culture. As they adjust to differences between the cultures of the United States and Vienna, they eventually establish strong new roots in this old city and Vienna becomes a home away from home. As they observe the U.S. from the perspective of the Austrians, the students become less parochial, less insular. Because they live in Vienna, the participants develop a heightened respect for a culture about which they had only heard and read. They become wiser about old Europe, develop more self confidence, and, like the sapling, become stronger. The students return to the U.S. and become ambassadors for the program.

Parents' skepticism about the relevance of the VE to their son's or daughter's major is usually allayed in part by their student's enthusiasm for the program. It also becomes clearer to them, in time, that this experience is invaluable because education is incomplete without study in a foreign land.

As part of providing a smooth transition to Vienna, the living accommodations are carefully chosen. In the spring of 2003, the students lived in new dormitories that were constructed on the beautiful grounds of an 18th Century palace. Not accustomed to the heavy traffic, cement, and noise of Vienna, our Montanans find comfort in the serenity provided by the park-like setting. Two students to a room, they have conveniences such as an internet port, telephone, and bathroom in each room. They share a communal kitchen and have access to an exercise room, sauna, and party area. The dorms are adjacent to the hiking trails of the beautiful Vienna Woods. The transportation system is conveniently located and takes the students to downtown Vienna in approximately 25 minutes.

These comforts help the students deal with the frustrations of handling simple tasks that are initially burdensome in this new place. Because the door locks and windows do not look or function like those with which they are familiar, unlocking doors and opening windows becomes a momentary challenge. Shopping at the local market and trying to mail a letter at the post office for the first time are intimidating obstacles. The students quickly come to depend on each other. They figure this new place out through group problem solving. In the early stages of the trip some confident students do attempt to buy vegetables at the grocery store on their own, for example, but are sometimes forced by the discomfort of the situation to simply turn around and walk out of the store without purchasing anything. Not knowing how to do it, and not wanting to be embarrassed at the checkout stand, they reluctantly give up. This is disconcerting, but the students seem to find it an interesting, if not humorous, event. By watching Viennese shoppers, the students eventually develop an understanding of the processes and successfully buy the food, sometimes cheering upon leaving the store at having accomplished a task that would be done without forethought in Montana. Living in a foreign culture teaches humility.

About three weeks into the program, the students begin to show signs of stress--the trauma of their temporary transplant. They have experienced collisions between the U.S. culture and that of Austria. Their understanding of excellence has clashed with the Viennese demonstration of excellence. Reports begin to surface that there is tension within the ranks. They've been together for some time and they begin to see characteristics in each other that are annoying. The tempers are short. Mood changes occur often. It is becoming more difficult to tolerate kitchen messes and people's attempts to dominate each other in conversation. The roommates they so carefully chose may not be working out. They begin to pick each other apart and become hypercritical of the program. They are spending money faster than planned. Everything is in German. They are frazzled.

Although some will not admit that culture shock has set in, they are in its midst. They realize at this point that the honeymoon is over. During this period, there are some students who become homesick and in the lonely moments before they fall asleep, seriously contemplate catching the next flight back to Missoula.

I then call the students together for a meeting to discuss the situation. I remind the group that I predicted before leaving Montana that about three weeks into our program in Europe they would begin to show signs of impatience and frustration. This time the flare-up of emotions occurred three weeks to the day from our arrival in Vienna. A discussion ensues during which there is, at first, a polite sharing of problems students are having. The conversation heats up when the students become comfortable enough to tolerate direct honesty. Many students speak during the meeting; some say nothing. The conversation comes to a close when there is nothing else to say. The students comment that the meeting was a relief and very worthwhile. They are ready to take on Vienna again.

The students are forced to examine their personal behavior and that of others under stress and, in that regard, are challenged to think about the quality of their character. They question their social attitudes as they become more cognizant that what one does affects others. The VE is, therefore, an indoctrination of sorts; for many of the students, for the first time in their lives, they must get along in a community and a place from which, at least momentarily, there is no escape. It is in the private and public recognition of personal shortcomings that the participants may consider redrafting the creed by which they govern their lives. The person into whom they had developed, the person in whom they had confidence, the personality of which they were proud, and the life that had taken on a direction and focus were not in some ways able to function comfortably in this new circumstance. Dealing with this crisis of character and personally resolving its issues may cause the students to change for the better.

Notable Events

The development of the choir as a cohesive performing entity over the 12-week period is remarkable. In 2003, the Chamber Chorale performed 18 times, including concerts in Vienna, Hausleiten, Maria Enzersdorf, Oberpullendorf, Baden, Salzburg, and Kecskemet, Hungary./3/ They performed for sophisticated audiences who could distinguish honest, informed performances from shallow, rote ones. Our singers learn that genuinely making music is not simply singing the notes precisely in time and tune; it requires comprehension of the music's meaning. The anticipation of performing concerts in a city of high culture added intensity and seriousness to the choral rehearsals before we left for Vienna, but with each concert in Europe came incremental growth that was the result of realizing the importance of giving themselves fully to the music. In that regard, the growth of the choir was most apparent in the Hausleiten concert described later.

Shortly, after we arrived in Vienna, the choir received an invitation to sing an April 11 concert for approximately 400 high school students at the Don Bosco Catholic church. Although a reverence for music and the arts is engrained in the psyche of the Austrians, I didn't know what to expect of the young audience's conduct. My experience with high school audiences in the U.S. led me to be a little worried that the more complex and serious classical pieces we sing would cause them to become restless. Our choir demonstrated that it was very capable of singing music composed by famous classical composers; the audience was respectful and appreciative. As the program progressed from the more serious sacred music to the folk music of the United States, the audience became more engaged and, in turn, our choir members responded with even greater energy. The choir received a standing ovation, and after singing an encore, was applauded all the way to the rectory where our singers had stored personal belongings.

The Austrian students were so elated with the concert that they formed two parallel lines leading from the rectory hallway out into the parking lot into the square in front of the church. Flanked by the Austrian's thrilled bravos accompanied by the boisterous unison clapping, our UM students were bid auf Wiedersehen. The Austrian students' response to our concert was so overwhelming that all our students could do in disbelief was parade out smiling, giving high-fives and waving.

For me, the experience at the Don Bosco church recalled a colleague's report of a concert he conducted in a Los Angeles high school in the late 1980s. Invited to perform an assembly for the students, the guest choir from Oregon required a police escort from the bus to the auditorium. The assembly was so unruly and disrespectful that the choir could barely be heard over the catcalls coming from the high school students. After 10 or 15 minutes of singing, members of the young audience near the front began to throw objects onto the stage. The concert was halted immediately and the choir students, some in tears, were escorted back onto the bus. The LA students' response was vulgar and ganglike. It is an extreme example of the discourtesy, disinterest, and disrespect that is becoming more common in U.S. schools. Even Montana high school assemblies related to classical music are becoming rare. Because of previous experiences with audience misbehavior, attendance is usually limited to music students and others especially invited. The contrast with our experience at Don Bosco could not have been more dramatic.

Extended trips to Hungary, Salzburg, and Italy give the students the chance to sample those cultures as well as additional chances to perform.

We were in the small town of Kecskemet, Hungary, on Palm Sunday. After singing several pieces as part of a church service that morning, the students set out to explore the area and were drawn by the magnet of music being performed in the town's main square. The center of attention was a Hungarian folk group consisting of an instrumental and vocal ensemble and eight dancers. After a wonderful dance demonstration, the leader of the band stepped into the center of those gathered to watch and began to explain that it was time to teach some of the dances to the audience. Approximately 10 of our students joined in with the people of this village and they leaped and stepped to the wonderful music of Hungary, dancing arm-in-arm with people who did not speak English and who likely had not heard of Montana.

By the time we travel to Italy, the students are surely ready for a break from the heavy class and performance schedules. Our time there is intentionally unplanned, but while in Venice, we provide the opportunity for the students to have an evening Italian meal at Georgione's Restaurant. The owner shuts the place down and we are his only guests. Some students ate squid for the first time in their lives.

As the students are finishing up their meals, the owner takes out his electric guitar and serenades us with his wonderful baritone voice. He eventually relinquishes the microphone and several of our students perform. The choir sings two or three pieces for the cooks and everyone dances to the owner's musical coda to the evening and we all sing Volare together.

The University and Its Students

O university (the fairest one in sight),
Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something!
Use language we can comprehend.
Ask a little of us here!
Ask of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a university
To stay our minds on and be staid./4/

Even though higher education has its problems and the idea is very old-fashioned, I believe the university must strive to be a compass needle that always points in the direction of excellence, beauty, rightness, and truth, especially when the compass case is moved. This can be accomplished if the university lives up to its obligation to make sure that exceptional achievements continue to happen and we press our students to rise above mediocrity.

University students arrive at UM often unsure about what is worth knowing, and more fundamentally, some even need to be convinced that knowing is valuable. Many come to the University believing that college is the next step in their lives, but are confused about the purpose of college. Most students long to be inspired by something or someone, desperately needing something concrete and true to hold on to in a time when ethics are shaky, when there is too much to learn, and when money drives everything. They are raised in a society that is, in many ways, suffering from its own success, and the students are among the victims of that success.

They are convinced that everything is changing so rapidly that life must be out of control. Amidst this disorder, the students have a deep desire to matter--to feel that their lives are important. Subconsciously, they must know they should dedicate their lives to something worthy. Ortega y Gassett puts the situation nicely: "If that life of mine, which only concerns myself, is not directed towards something, it will be disjointed, lacking in tension and in 'form.' ...[W]e are witnessing the gigantic spectacle of innumerable human lives wandering about lost in their own labyrinths, through not having anything to which to give themselves."/5/

Partly because of a public education system that continues to lower academic standards and inflate grades, students are deceived into believing that minimal effort results in success. Thus, some come to campus unprepared academically and attitudinally for the rigors of the University. Despite this circumstance, some might dream that it is possible to be someone better than they are, and even hope that in their lifetimes they might accomplish something great.

Most students innately desire to be really good at something and the VE participants may have elected to join the program hoping that they would be stirred to chase excellence down. In this regard, it is no accident that the arts are the fulcrum of the VE. They are so because, universally, human beings are touched by the arts and some have an affinity for them. People have found something about the arts that helps to discipline and focus their pursuit of distinction and excellence.

However, the main "artistic" influence on university students' lives comes from the media-driven United States popular culture. To be fair, there are some societal benefits to select products of popular culture, but its industry is more concerned with making money than it is with the quality and character of a society that sits restlessly on the unstable foundation provided by violence and sex in films, shallow pop/rock music, sitcoms, voyeuristic television, and intellectual pabulum. Much of popular culture drives the nails of mindless music and violent computer games into the wood of the public, which obviously includes the more vulnerable minds of our youth. Such shallow offerings stand in stark relief to what the students have the opportunity to digest in Vienna over 12 weeks.

U.S. mass-market capitalism essentially forces art to compete against everything else in the marketplace. This Darwinian philosophy places artistic creations into competition for survival against that which is commercially conceived for mass-consumption, by a public that is commercially educated, within the context of an economy that is driven by a commercial engine. As has been proven by the United States, utilizing profitability as the standard through which aesthetic value is judged inevitably produces a society that is increasingly insensitive to that which is good in us. We are on an economic merry-go-round that is spinning so fast that elements, determined by the masses not to be essential ingredients in a capitalistic world, are thrown off by centrifugal force. What is left on the wheel are money-making projects. Great books are spun away. Classical art and music are flung out. Yet, the human spirit longs for beauty and truth.

The Austrians believe that art is essential to their society. It is so important, in fact, that rather than adopting the "survival of the fittest" approach, art is given significant support by the state so that the heritage can be preserved and passed on. Museums and concert halls are not only the main tourist attractions in Vienna but the very core of cultural life for thousands of Viennese. Popular culture exists in Vienna to be sure, but there is a hierarchy, lacking in the U.S., that places great art on a pedestal. Art is taught, supported, encouraged, and revered. In Vienna, we seem to see Western culture at its vital best.

There are standing-room only crowds every night at the Vienna opera houses and concert halls, and it is often young people between the ages of 15 and 25 who form the majority of those waiting in line for tickets. During their time in Vienna, our students receive a 12-week transfusion of amazing European culture. After letting that new blood flow through them for a time, the students may begin to question which is more healthy for society; a live performance of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony or a rap group's performance of "music" that contains profane and violent texts.

It is the art of a culture that partly represents its values. Art, therefore, forms an important part of the glue that helps to hold a society together. The VE leads the participants to ask themselves, "What art represents the values of the U.S.? What of our country's glue? What is holding our society together?" The role of major past, present, and future art is threatened by a covert raid that is taking place. The pirates are the media moguls and the masses that support popular culture. The very caring about beauty and decency is being destroyed; there is hardly anything one can do about it.

Thus, the VE may be attractive to students, not because it is a product of popular culture, but ironically because it is in many respects anti-popular culture. The study of Greek mythology, ethics, Vienna history, art, and architecture do not make pop culture's top 10 list of desirable ways to spend time. Perhaps upon sensing that there must be more to life and learning than what is typically available within the geographic and academic confines of the University campus, students are willing to take an educational journey to this satellite campus in Vienna. As a result, they learn that places exist that are full of grandeur and elegance, where sculptures have watched people walk by for centuries, where cathedrals far older than the United States continue to push up into the sky as though trying to pierce the floor of heaven. They learn that great buildings flattened in WWII were restored to their original state despite the cost because their architecture was beautiful and beauty is central to Viennese tradition. Vienna is a place where church bells ring out during the day and where mass is held every evening all over the city. Vienna is so different from Montana. The entire experience is an infusion of great thoughts and great art. Deep down inside, students must realize that this is worth knowing.

To see the eyes of young singers from Frenchtown or Miles City, Montana, as they sit in the front row of the Stadtsoper (State Opera House) and watch a performance of the Barber of Seville is really something. As one student responded, "I felt like I was one of the 19th century aristocracy because the players on the stage seemed to be singing directly to me." The students walk out of the auditorium different from when they walked in. They are so exhilarated and uplifted knowing, maybe for the first time in their lives, that, "Yes! It is possible to be that good!"

The next evening they may take advantage of standing-room tickets for a concert in the Goldenesaal of the Musikverein, a hall touted to have the best acoustics in the world. They listen to a performance of the Bach B minor Mass performed by the Swedish Radio Choir and the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. The students shake their heads in disbelief at the high quality. The next morning, their Art and Architecture class meets at the Upper Belvedere Museum and they are led by their master teacher into the paint of the great 19th century painter, Amerling. They see and feel the result of artistry once again.

Significant experiences like this take place for 12 weeks. It is in these moments that they begin to distinguish that which is important from that which is not. They examine that which is excellent and can discern that which is not. They sense that which is beautiful and that which is not. It seems, too, that they are able to discern with more clarity that which is right from that which is wrong. But then comes Mauthausen.

Mauthausen: A Second Crisis

After our Salzburg trip, the students take a side-trip to Mauthausen Concentration Camp. Mauthausen is located north of the Austrian town of St. Valentin between Salzburg and Vienna. The trip is a depressing but educationally necessary excursion. One of the concentration camps of the Third Reich in WWII, Mauthausen was much smaller than Auschwitz or Dachau, but it was also a "termination" camp--one from which prisoners were not meant to return. For that reason, it was notorious and much feared by prisoners of the camp system. A transfer to Mauthausen was a death sentence. According to camp records, approximately 120,000 Jews and prisoners of war were killed there, including 34 Americans./6/

Before leaving from Montana, the students were prepared for our visit to Mauthausen through discussions about the Holocaust in our Ethics class and through a lecture presented by a retired U.S. Army General living in Missoula. He had been involved in freeing one of the camps and talked about what it was like to walk into that camp. He became quite emotional as he shared what he saw and smelled, and he displayed very graphic images of the piles of emaciated bodies. Some students would not look at the pictures, while others looked stone-faced, and still others grimaced at what they saw.

When we arrived at Mauthausen, four students hugged each other in tears even as they stepped off the bus onto the soiled earth for the first time. The participants walked in silence, often by themselves, through the dusty yards of the camp and climbed the 184 steps of the Todestiege (deathsteps). Some of them sobbed uncontrollably during the orientation video when they watched starved human beings carry 110-pound rocks up the Todestiege--stones that were used to construct the prison around them.

Members of the Chamber Chorale watched birds fly freely over the walls of the prison and resonated with the idea that the prisoners in the camp likely saw similar symbols of freedom. Many Mauthausen prisoners were forced to stand with their foreheads pressed against a wall for days. After finding the location of that torture, one of our students decided to press her head against the wall for about 30 minutes. She reported that during her time against the wall she noticed tiny red bugs were crawling on the stone. She said, "I began to think that it is likely that the prisoners saw bugs like that during their torturous hours against that wall. The bugs began to become beautiful to me. They may have become beautiful to the prisoners."

While at Mauthausen, the students came to appreciate the difference between reading about a concentration camp--as most American students do--and actually being there. Some said they felt ill when they walked into the "showers," past the dissecting tables, and peered into the incinerators and barracks. When climbing the Todestiege from the bottom of the stone quarry, they contemplated humanity's potential to commit such atrocities.

The students were emotionally drained when we arrived at the small church in Hausleiten where we were to sing that evening. There was not much energy during our warm-up rehearsal. The students didn't feel much like singing after Mauthausen. Then one of them suggested that we should dedicate our performance of Bach's Komm süsser Tod ("Come, sweet Death") to the victims of Mauthausen. The others readily agreed.

The arrangement of the Bach is stunning. After the choir has sung the music as originally composed by Bach, the music continues, but I leave the podium. At this point, each singer sings the music at his or her own pace. Their singing is complemented by very effective but entirely individual gestures of beseeching, pleading, entreaty and prayer. The dissolution of the choir into individuals makes the point that death is an individual human experience and not a class or group one. In this dedicated performance, the choir at first prayed communally for the victims of the concentration camp. In the second half of the piece each singer became a Mauthausen prisoner begging God for relief from the intolerable suffering, begging to be taken away from life in all its inherent preciousness.

The small, rather dark, medieval Hausleiten church in which we sang was built in 962 A.D. The pews seemed purposefully designed for discomfort with very straight backs and not enough leg room. When we stepped onto the platform to sing, the sanctuary was full. We presented our first two or three pieces and came then to the Bach. I turned to the audience and told them of our afternoon visit to Mauthausen and that we were dedicating our performance of Komm süsser Tod to the victims of the concentration camp. As the choir began to sing, tears welled up in their eyes and began streaming down their faces. The altar area where the choir was standing was not well lit, but it was possible to see the light glance off their tears. When we stopped singing, there was complete silence for some 15 seconds. There was no motion in the choir, only the soft sounds of sniffling before someone in the audience finally broke the tension with applause.

The class period following our time in Mauthausen was spent unraveling the experiences of our visit there. The discussion began when a young man volunteered to read an excerpt from a book written by a Jew who was a prisoner in Mauthausen. The reading described in detail the long parade of Jews who walked down Kärtnerstraße past Stephansdom between thousands of Viennese who lined both sides of the streets and who just stood there and watched, or even applauded and jeered. About halfway through, the student broke down. Students read original poems and one sang a song she had composed about the experience at Mauthausen.

One student was particularly concerned about an inscription on one of the barracks walls. It read: "If there is a God, I will never forgive him!" She had very strong Christian convictions, and therefore insisted that God was not responsible for Mauthausen; rather, she cried out, "God was there. He was the one who wiped the tears away," and a friend sitting nearby moved over and put her arms around the weeping girl. At the conclusion of our discussion, I invited the choir to gather in a circle to sing our nation's unofficial anthem of grief, Samuel Barber's Agnus Dei. It was likely that in these moments, as the students struggled past the lumps in their throats to sing this beautiful music, they began to find some answers to the unanswerable questions that haunt anyone who seriously contemplates the atrocity which is the Holocaust.

About two weeks prior to our visit to the concentration camp, the students had waltzed to the music of Strauss at a Viennese ball under crystal chandeliers at the Imperial Palace. A student now commented to me that she would never be able to listen to "The Blue Danube Waltz" again without thinking of Mauthausen.

Thus, the questions naturally arise, "How is it possible for the same culture that produced the great music of Strauss, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms, and Haydn to allow the Third Reich's extermination of human beings? How could many of the same people who danced the waltz and the ländler so elegantly between 1938 and 1945 turn a deaf ear to those atrocities, or even countenance them?" These are the great questions of our times. Is there something rotten and malignant at the very core of Western culture?

At the time, it struck me that this confrontation with the darkest days of the 20th century was, in many ways, the educational climax of the Vienna Experience. In the months since, I have come to believe that my intuition was right. That this climax should have taken the form of a musical performance followed by a discussion culminating in another musical performance says a great deal about the role that music may play in liberal education.

Summary

The VE works on the students in the same way an artist works on art. Beginning with only a general idea of what they are to create, artists are often surprised by the result. Experiential education often results in learning that cannot be predicted, quantified, or described in words. Learning that is formed by the heat of experience, however, is at least as valuable and enduring as education provided in traditional academic settings. Experiential education has the potential to teach more personally, realistically, intensely, and meaningfully. The participants begin to think and remember experientially. Experiential knowledge remains in the mind for life. Long after they've forgotten the definition of an isosceles triangle, they'll remember an experience they had in Vienna.

Liberal education in Western civilization surely must provide opportunities to confront the major questions of our time. It is an inherent responsibility of the University to encourage students to seek answers to those questions that raise concerns about the soundness of Western civilization itself. The answers, however, need not be rational and discursive. In fact, some are not to be found within the relatively limited range of the spoken or written word, but are uncovered during explorations within the realm of aesthetic experience.

During the 2003 VE, the participants were indeed brought face-to-face with major questions of our time raised by the Holocaust and the depredations of the German Nazi regime. Direct, honest answers, forged by the heat of aesthetic experiences--in this instance in the form of musical performances--were galvanized by the interactions between the students' personal experiences at Mauthausen and their singing of Bach's musical metaphor about the peace associated with death and later by their singing of the passionate plea for peace in the Agnus Dei of Samuel Barber. The paradox of a culture that was on one hand beautiful and graceful and on the other hand included people capable of such horror was one of the great shocks of the VE, one that begged for resolution. The participants found resolution through the music of Bach and Barber.

Not only was the aesthetic validity of their experience demonstrated in their performance but it was affirmed in a remarkable way. A gentleman approached me at the reception after the concert and congratulated the choir on its performance. He wanted me to know that the compliment was coming from a musician, and therefore informed me that he was a cellist with the Wiener Philharmoniker. He told me that he had not often in his life been so captivated and touched by a musical performance. Impressed with the choir members' full investment in the music, he proposed recommending to the administration at the Musikverein that it consider inviting the UM Chamber Chorale to sing a concert there. Within a few days of our concert at Hausleiten, I was quite pleased to receive a phone call from the Musikverein administration inviting me to contact them regarding the scheduling of a performance when we begin making plans for our Vienna Experience in 2006. The Musikverein ranks with Carnegie Hall, Amsterdam's Concertgebouw, and other great venues. It is very high honor to be asked to perform there.

An experience as powerful as the visit to Mauthausen is emotionally complex and difficult to comprehend or explain. The UM singers were engaged in their performance partly because of their desire to resolve that experience. They needed to find an explanation, a way to understand what they had experienced, and so they sang the answer. It was as if Bach's music became an electrical conduit through which a current of meaning was conducted. Because their singing was directed and connected to the Mauthausen prisoners, the choir members cared more deeply about the quality and genuineness of their singing than in previous performances. It mattered. This performance was significant for the singers. To the degree that each of the singers was willing to step past self-imposed restrictions related to expression, they were better able to understand and share the sad deep truths of Mauthausen. Finding the answers is cathartic as well as informative.

This kind of education yields vivid knowledge that arises from penetrating to the core of events and issues and experiencing them from the inside, rather than as a spectator. Knowledge of this kind brings meaning with it by nature. Bach's composition, for example, is expressive of something not in the first place connected to the Holocaust, of course. But human beings have the ability to make abstract connections among ideas and events. This "bisociation of ideas...implies something beyond itself and it is this conceptual play that explains its appeal, its function and its ubiquity,"/7/ possessing "the character of double or stereoscopic vision"/8/ common to poetic and musical metaphor. In the case of joining together Komm süsser Tod with Mauthausen, the choir members interpret meaning by reflecting upon the myriad ways in which Bach's music and the Mauthausen experience affect, define, and describe each other. A powerful third meaning arises from the "outward expression of a strong internal state,"/9/ and that was the choir's performances of Komm süsser Tod at Hausleiten and Barber's Agnus Dei at the Musikgymnasium.

While in Vienna, the students lived and participated in a society that places the arts at the center of life rather than as merely entertainment and ways to occupy leisure time. This provided them with powerful support for their love and passion for the arts.

Because the arts in the U.S. are trivialized by forces such as popular culture, they are seen as being peripheral to what is "really important." High schools and universities relegate the arts to the outer boundaries of the curriculum, describing the arts as "extracurricular." What the arts teach, however, must not be on the circumference but at the very center of learning. The farther away they are from the center of the circle, which is occupied by revered subjects such as science and mathematics, the more education suffers dilution.

To return to the United States and try to share this shift of view regarding the role of the arts in life with those who have not experienced it is very difficult. It is practically impossible to convince those who would listen that U.S. culture is erroneous and even destructive in its classification of the arts.

I can't help but think of the prisoner in Plato's Allegory of the Cave wherein he escapes the confines of the cave to learn that reality is something other than that which is known by his shackled comrades. Upon returning to the cave, the enlightened prisoner finds that no one understands or is even willing to listen. They don't believe him.

Our students left the cave of U.S. culture and learned that there is a place where the light of great art illumines something unique and significant. Something is communicated and taught by the arts that is crucial to know--something that cannot be taught any other way. But upon their return to the U.S., they cannot gain a sincerely interested ear. When they try to explain that reality exists not only in things that can be measured, not only in information about the human mind and the physical world, but also in the aesthetic experience, they are confronted with disinterest. When they try to explain that human beings limited primarily to academic education may miss the essence of life, the response may be, "You need to come down off of your Viennese high horse and get back into reality." The fact of the matter is, however, that the University must become convinced that within its curricula intellectuality and technique must not interfere with or supplant emotional expression; rather, the students should be exposed to the arts through which that expression becomes intelligible.

The musical resolution of the Mauthausen experience presents a convincing argument that the arts "...reveal the nature of feelings with a detail and truth that language cannot approach."/10/ The arts are viable ways to address seemingly unanswerable questions that arise out of human experience. Education provided by the arts may result in a society that is sensitive to beautiful things. Certainly, any people truly educated by the arts will have a better chance to live lives that are imaginative, inspirational, and creative--not merely vocational. The Vienna Experience not only teaches its participants but also serves as instruction to the University itself as it considers the role of the arts in the liberal education of its students./11/

In Vienna it is true that we were exposed to high levels of music, but also to ethical concerns, historical dilemmas and intrigues, and questions of the nature and importance of art. These issues are kept especially alive in our minds and souls through our discussing and remembering them with one another far after our return to Missoula...and our home is bound to benefit. When our time in Vienna ends, the Vienna Experience does not end; in fact it is only beginning. --McKenzie Sweeney

The Vienna Experience: The Role of the Arts in Liberal Education

The Vienna Experience Curriculum

Welcome to Vienna

Notable Events

Mauthausen: A Second Crisis

Summary