Recent tendencies in education highlight the need to align the system of general education in Latvia with the tenets of sustainability. In keeping with this broad target orientation, this paper re-examines international and Latvian experiences and perspectives on the application of a holistic approach to the content of primary education. This review of good practice is set against the backdrop of different theories and approaches concerned with the essence and principles of holism. More specifically, the paper addresses the issue of ensuring successful acquisition of musical cultural values in primary school via a holistic approach. In this regard, the latter is construed as movement towards the new that facilitates positive attitudes towards musical cultural values among learners and is both physically and spiritually nurturing. The paper proposes a theoretically and empirically grounded model for the usage of a holistic approach with a view to enabling acquisition of musical cultural values in primary school. The gradual development of the model is traced in the course of theoretical and empirical inquiry, the latter involving a survey and an interview with five experts.