1st International Music Therapy Congress, Paris 1974
Barbara Wheeler: What had happened with the early development of music therapy in France?
Edith Lecourt: We began to work together for music therapy in 1969 at a national level. At that time Jacques Jost (an engineer interested in sound and music effects) and myself (student in psychology and musician) were working at the development of the first association for music therapy in France and the first training.
B. W.: How did you first become involved with music therapists from countries outside of France?
E. L.: My first encounters with foreign music therapists (as I remember) were in Lenk (Switzerland), Zagreb (Yugoslavia), and Berlin (Germany), years 1972-73. It was in Berlin (a seminar organized by Dr Harm Willms and with H. P. Reinecke, famous psychomusicologist) that we came to discuss how to develop music therapy on an international level. This was during an exciting night, a little group: Dr. Harm Willms, Dr. Darko Breitenfeld, Angela Fenwick, and myself.
I personally was curious of the existence of this practice in the world, it is why I went in these meetings in 1972-73. Previously I had made my first conference in Hospital Sainte Anne (also very famous) in March 1971 in front of a medical audience: I presented a one hour conference on the situation of music therapy (after my bibliographical research at the CNRS). My conference was about "Therapeutic experiences of music therapy in France and foreign countries since 1945." I remember very well of the situation not only because it was my first conference but because at the end of the conference I was publicly verbally aggressed by Dr Ferdière (this famous psychiatrist from the surrealism movement who was the therapist of the artist Antonin Artaud) who in a very loud and theatrical discourse said, "don't listen to this presentation! etc." I didn't know him and so I was very shocked! Now I think he reacted to my too serious way of speaking (I was so anxious not to make a mistake! I wanted to be "scientific"), and this was at the opposite of his artistic fantasy! This remains for me as the initiation rite for my entrance into this professional world! (his own presentation was on "medium paintings").
B. W.: How did you start to organize the congress in Paris?
E. L.: At the end of an exciting and conflictual discussion between Willms, Breitenfeld, and Fenwick in Berlin about the idea of a world congress, they asked me to organize it in Paris. I came back with this idea and thought that it would be important for the recognition of music therapy to have it in a famous historical medical place: Salpêtrière Hospital (the place where Charcot developed hypnosis and where Freud met and discussed this subject). Jacques agreed for the project of the congress.
Photo 1: The entrance of the congress in the Hospital (under “105” is written: University of Paris - Faculty of Medecine Pitié Salpétrière; the program is on the door)
Question: How did the planning for the congress evolve? What decisions did you make?
E. L.: We worked hard to realize it in 1974. I made a research at the national scientific library (CNRS) on recent publications on music therapy to find contacts with authors! This was the way I have been in contact with music therapists on an international level, to inform them of the congress and to call for papers.
Finally we asked Pr. Paul Sivadon a famous psychiatrist (who developed social activities for patients and a new architecture for psychiatric services) to be the Honorous President of the congress. I was the actual (not honorary) President of the congress. This underlined the fact that, in France, from the beginning of the XIXth century on (1801) with the Dr Philippe Pinel (the founder of psychiatry in our country), music therapy has been closely linked to psychiatry. (At the end I made a publication with him on the congress for a psychiatric review: Prof. P. Sivadon, E. Lecourt "Premier congrès mondial de musicothérapie," Revue des Laboratoires Sandoz, p.29-30, 1974)
B. W.: What happened at the time of the congress itself?
E. L.: A strike of the post office just before the congress made its organization particularly difficult. But more than 400 participants from 20 countries were for us a real comfort and relief! Unfortunately, the Hungarian and East German music therapists were not able to get a visa to attend the congress.
The program (pdf) was composed of papers, round tables, and also a workshop with Rolando Benenzon, a visit and a debate in the Tomatis Centre (famous for the discovery of the "electronic ear" as a tool for behavioral transformations.). And as I visited a Parisian galerist who specialized on music and painting, I had the idea to invite her to organize an exhibition in the hospital church for our congress (we discovered the "musicalist painters").The main painters presented were: J.Kupka, Janin, Klausz, Valensi, Blanc-Gatti and some other painters working on relationships between colours, sounds and movements. We presented also a reflection on the phenomenon of coloured audition.
This congress brought a huge amount of information on music therapy. I observed that the presentations were essentially pragmatic and that there was a lack of theorization of music therapy itself. About the applications in psychiatry, psychoses and autism seemed to be the more promising issues. The congress, from the project to the realization, was a very exciting moment because it was the first time we discovered many music therapists from different countries who never knew about the existence of music therapy in the other countries!
Photo 2: The room was full! (this was a relief for us because there was a strike of the post office just at that time!) Prof. Rett from Austria is speaking
Photo 3: Another picture of the full room; Claus Bang is sitting in the front row
Photo 4: - Presentation of different countries during the opening left to right: Jacques Jost (France), Dr Tadeusz Natanson (Poland), Claus Bang (Denmark), Dr Darko Breitenfeld (Yugoslavia), behind him Alfred Schmölz (Austria), Marie-Aimée Guilhot (France), Dr Harm Willms (West Germany), Michel Kieffer (Luxembourg), Di Pâncaro (Brazil).
Photo 5: From the round table Organisation de la musicotérapie: Claus Bang (Denmark), M.A. Guilhot (moderator), Edith Lecourt (France), Juliette Alvin (UK)
Photo 6: A working group with Dr. J. Bohusz (Belgium), Dr. André Gay (France) and Angela Fenwick (UK)
Photo 7: Edith Lecourt (France), Graziela L. Cintra Gomez (Portugal), Serafina Poch (Spain)
Photo 8: Claus Bang presenting
Photo 9: Claus Bang and the audience
Photo 10: . Benenzon & Poch in audience
Photo 11: Workshop with Dr. Rolando Benenzon
Photo 12: Three small pictures with the exhibition “Music and painting: The ‘musicalist painters’” -the opening with on the left: Dr Ferdière, a famous psychiatrist who was in the surrealist movement and who had Antin Artaud as a patient; a young man; Edith Lecourt; and on the left: the galerist (the paintings are behind) - Alfred Schmölz (Austria) and Darko Breitenfeld (Yugoslavia), - Darko Breitenfeld, Edith Lecourt, Serafina Poch Blasco (Spain).
