Chapter 3 Images of the Ireneu Segarra Method and its Uses in Schools at the Onset of Music Education Redevelopment in Catalonia

Abstract

The collection of photographs considered here comes from the School of Musical Pedagogy-Ireneu Segarra Method (SMP-ISM) and contains images taken between 1974 and 2003. The images are organized into three amateur photo albums that are all housed in the Music Archives at the Abbey of Montserrat, in a special section that stores all the SMP-ISM’s archival collections. The main objective of the current chapter is to analyze a specific selection of photographs that were taken during a 1984 music class at the Autonomous University of Barcelona’s (UAB by its Catalan initials) Student Teaching School. All five of the images shown below were taken by a professional photographer to be published in a book commemorating the ten-year anniversary of the SMP-ISM. The relevance of this particular collection of photographs is that they are an iconographic compilation of the innovations that the Ireneu Segarra method contributed to primary education. To contextualize the collection, we first provide an overview of the movement to redevelop music teaching at the SMP-ISM in Catalonia, at a time defined by the rollout of Spain’s General Education Law. We also give a brief account of the SMP-ISM’s photographic archives and the publication for which these particular photos were taken. Finally, we conduct an in-depth analysis of our set of images based on their intrinsic value as historical evidence and relevance in painting a picture of the iconography surrounding the redevelopment of music teaching in schools, their intended visibility, and use as propaganda. This analysis arises from the belief that photography not only witnesses historic events, but also serves to shape an explanatory and justificatory discourse of reality. The specific analysis of the photographs was performed at three levels – analysis of the image itself, historical context, and interpretation – and mainly inspired by the iconographic method of