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Music Theory Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century: Comparing Traditions of Three European Conservatories

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What characterized conservatory music theory pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe? This article discusses the traditions of music theory pedagogy associated with the conservatories in Paris, Vienna, and Leipzig, specifically focusing on the middle of the nineteenth century (ca. 1830–70). In the first section, the characteristics of the three individual traditions are discussed separately. The second section compares these traditions from three perspectives: theoretical framework, pedagogical approach, and historical legacy. Although the traditions are different on several central points (e.g., ties to Italian partimento pedagogy in Paris, to Ramellian fundamental bass in Vienna, and to Weberian Roman numeral analysis in Leipzig), they also have some fundamental similarities that drew the borders—the defining limits—of conservatory music theory. The author argues that in the nineteenth century the idea of music theory as a primarily written discipline (centered on textbooks and written exercises and largely separated from musical performance) became a central element of these general characteristics of music theory pedagogy that would be taken for granted and accepted as self-evident across institutional traditions.
Music Theory Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century
Comparing Traditions of Three European Conservatories
Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
The attached manuscript is the POSTPRINT/ACCEPTED VERSION of an article
published in the Journal of Music Theory. It differs somewhat from the published article. You
are advised to consult the final printed version before citing from the text. Full citation:
Utne-Reitan, Bjørnar. 2022. “Music Theory Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century: Comparing
Traditions of Three European Conservatories.” Journal of Music Theory 66, no. 1 (April): 63–
91. doi.org/10.1215/00222909-9534139.
© 2022 by Yale University
Abstract
What characterized conservatory music theory pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe? This
article compares the nineteenth-century traditions of music theory pedagogy that are
associated with the conservatories in Paris, Vienna, and Leipzig, specifically focusing on the
middle of the century (ca. 1830–70). Through this comparison, it discusses the general
characteristics of conservatory music theory pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe. In the
first section, the characteristics of the three individual traditions are discussed separately. In
the second section, the traditions are compared from three perspectives: theoretical
framework, pedagogical approach, and historical legacy. Although the traditions are very
different on several central points (e.g., ties to Italian partimento pedagogy in Paris, to
Ramellian fundamental bass in Vienna, to Weberian Roman numeral analysis in Leipzig),
they also share some fundamental similarities. These drew the borders—the defining limits—
of conservatory music theory. The article argues that in the nineteenth century, the idea of
music theory as a primarily written discipline (centered on textbooks and written exercises
and largely separated from musical performance) was made into one of the most central
elements of these general characteristics of music theory pedagogy that were to be taken for
granted and accepted as self-evident tenets across institutional traditions.
Keywords Paris Conservatory, Vienna Conservatory, Leipzig Conservatory, music theory
education, history of music theory
1
Music Theory Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century
Comparing Traditions of Three European Conservatories
Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
How did students at European conservatories in the nineteenth century learn music theory?
This article examines this broad and fundamental question, focussing on the middle of the
century (ca. 1830–1870) and comparing the pedagogical traditions of three central
institutions: the Paris Conservatory, the Vienna Conservatory, and the Leipzig Conservatory.
These institutions loom large in the history of higher music education as well as in the history
of music theory pedagogy through their influential teachers and textbooks.
1
Comparing their
pedagogical traditions gives scholars insights into the character of higher musical education in
mid nineteenth-century Europe.
A central part of the present article is a discussion of the turn toward writing in music
theory pedagogy, a historical development that had far-reaching consequences—both negative
and positive. The claim that such a turn took place from the eighteenth to the nineteenth
century is not novel. It figures in several recent studies of different traditions of music theory
pedagogy. I will discuss these studies in due course. The original contribution of this article is
a broader understanding of this turn—a bird’s eye view—through addressing how it
manifested itself across different traditions of music theory pedagogy.
In addition to displaying the many important differences between the three traditions, I
will thus also discuss the fundamental similarities between them. I argue that the idea of
music theory as a primarily written discipline—centered around textbooks and written
exercises and largely separated from musical performance—is one such similarity across the
institutional traditions. Thus, it constitutes a central part of the general characteristics of
This article is a revised and extended version of an essay written as part of my Ph.D. studies. I am grateful to
Peter van Tour, Geir Johansen, Astrid Kvalbein, Anders Førisdal, Ingrid Loe Landmark, Alfred Fidjestøl, and
the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful feedback on different versions of this text.
1
Holtmeier (2012: 5) claims that although there were things going on elsewhere in Europe—for instance, in Italy
and England—the development of a “modern” theory pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe mainly took place
in Germany and France. This attitude is also reflected in Wagner’s (1974) study of harmony textbooks from the
first half of the nineteenth century; he outlines three national circles (Kreise): a French, an Austrian, and a
German. Although the inclusion of institutions in other capitals of culture in nineteenth-century Europe (London,
Berlin, Prague, etc.) certainly would have enhanced the discussion, it was not feasible within the scope of this
article.
2
conservatory music theory pedagogy in the nineteenth century. For many students and
teachers in today’s higher music education, this might seem like a rather self-evident claim
regarding music theory pedagogy. However, these general characteristics of music theory
pedagogy are historically contingent constructs, not a priori givens. That the conclusion may
seem rather self-evident only attests to the lasting influence of nineteenth-century traditions.
Over the past thirty to forty years, scholarly interest in the history of music theory has
been steadily growing. The history of music theory has come of age as a substantial field of
research in English-language as well as German-language music scholarship. Although there
have been written several studies of the individual conservatory traditions—which the current
article will outline and take as its point of departure—not much has been written much about
the bigger picture of conservatory music theory pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe. The
current article contributes to filling this gap by comparing music theory pedagogy at three
nineteenth-century conservatories. The article is structured in two parts: (1) Discussions of
three individual pedagogical traditions centered in Paris, Vienna, and Leipzig; (2)
Comparisons of these traditions from the perspectives of theory, pedagogy, and historical
legacy.
Defining Traditions
Tradition “may be commonly understood as sets of beliefs and practices that are transmitted
across generations to form a context that then becomes a framework for subsequent cultural
activity … and interpretation” (Beard and Gloag 2005: s.v. “Tradition”). In this sense, a
tradition of music theory pedagogy is a set of music-theoretical beliefs and pedagogical
practices that are transmitted from one generation to another. Robert Wason (2002: 59) claims
that by the end of the eighteenth century, previously distinct national traditions of music
theory had blended so much that it is difficult to distinguish among them, and while Carl
Dahlhaus approaches this period in terms of national traditions, he makes it clear that the
instruction in music theory had moved into an institutional from a national frame, mentioning
the three conservatories studied in this article (Dahlhaus 1984: vii). In accordance with this, I
will speak of traditions in institutional rather than national terms, bearing in mind that a
tradition, of course, is conceptually different from an institution. However, a specific
pedagogical tradition most often has one institution with which it is associated as well as
specific teaching methods and/or textbooks that to a certain extent defines it.
As Ivor Goodson (1994: 118) has claimed—borrowing the term invented tradition
from Eric Hobsbawm (1983)—“the written curriculum, whether as courses of study,
3
syllabuses, guidelines or textbooks, is a supreme example of the invention of tradition; but as
with all tradition it is not a once-and-for-all given, it is a given which has to be defended,
where the mystifications have to be constructed and reconstructed over time.” The main
primary sources for our understanding of the traditions of music theory pedagogy are
curricula in some sense, textbooks being of particular importance. Thus, teachers and
textbook authors are inventors of traditions who construct the curricula of their various
institutions. The continued use and adaptation of the curriculum over time establishes it as a
distinct tradition.
The Paris Conservatory
The first conservatory in the modern sense of the word was established in Paris. In 1795, the
existing schools of singing (the École Royale de Chant) and playing (the Institut National de
Musique) merged to become the Paris Conservatory (the Conservatoire de Musique), which
offered its first classes in 1796–97 (Holoman 2015). There had, however, already existed
conservatories in Italy for several centuries, the most famous in Naples. These were
conservatories in the old sense of the word, meaning a kind of orphanage and boarding school
to learn a craft (e.g., music). Whereas the old Italian conservatories had been European
centers of institutionalized music education in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, they
would soon be overshadowed by the modern conservatories that were established in the first
half of the nineteenth century (Tregear 2020; Weber et al. 2001).
2
Although there are many
differences that distinguish the modern institutions from the old ones, there are also several
important links between the old Italian conservatories and Paris, the first modern
conservatory.
Defining the tradition of music theory pedagogy is more complicated at Paris than the
other two conservatories because many theory teachers at the Paris Conservatory wrote
numerous textbooks. Judging by the number of published textbooks, harmony was the most
important music-theoretical subject.
3
A strict division at Paris between harmony and
2
The decline of the old conservatories, and the rise of the modern ones, was closely connected with the
Napoleonic Wars. As Cafiero (2005) noted, following the invasion of Naples in 1806, the remaining Neapolitan
conservatories were merged into one new institution. Furthermore, Rubinoff (2017) argues that the pedagogical
model developed at the Paris Conservatory was strongly influenced by military training. Peters (1990: 18–19)
claims that the instruction at the Conservatory in the first decades centered on two arenas: military music and
opera.
3
Groth (1983: 22–25) provides an overview of the many harmony books published in nineteenth-century France.
4
counterpoint is challenging to maintain, however, since significant counterpoint training was
integrated into the harmony course, especially through so-called harmonie pratique (Groth
1983: 77–79), while most training in the discipline contrepoint focused on strict stile antico
vocal polyphony in the Fuxian tradition (80–82), in which there appears to have been
considerably less interest (82, 85) and which was also subject to much public criticism for
being outdated and irrelevant for contemporary composition (117–23). Sight-singing (solfège)
was another part of the Paris curriculum, which also had been the case at the Italian
conservatories (solfeggio; see Baragwanath 2020). It functioned as preliminary training in
theory, laying an important foundation for the courses in harmony and counterpoint.
4
Among the vast amounts of material on harmony some works have had a more lasting
influence upon “inventing” this pedagogical tradition than others. Chief among them is the
Traité d’harmonie (1802) of Charles-Simon Catel (1773–1830), which was chosen as the
official harmony theory for the conservatory in 1801. Although it only remained the single
official harmony textbook until 1815/1816, Catel’s work would continue to be a main point of
reference for later textbooks used at the conservatory (Groth 1983: 7–14; Peters 1990). Catel
creates a pragmatic divide between harmonie simple ou naturelle (chords one can derive from
a ninth chord, natural or flat) and harmonie composée ou artificielle (other chords, mainly
explained by way of suspensions). Although few adopted the derivation based on the ninth
chord, “Catel’s distinction between ‘natural’ and ‘artifical’ chords became the model for most
nineteenth-century French theorists.(Peters 1990: 41; see also Groth 1983: 30–36)
5
According to Penelope Peters (1990: 18), “Catel’s treatise was used at the Paris
Conservatoire until 1816 when he was forced to resign because his sympathies lay with
[former Conservatory Director Bernard] Sarrette and the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras.”
The Conservatory, closely associated with the revolution and the empire, was briefely closed
4
According to Rubinoff (2017: 486), who focus on the early years of the Paris Conservatory, the students “were
educated according to a carefully gradated methodology. Tuition proceeded in three stages: solfège, instruction
in singing and instruments (especially winds), and instruction in music theory and history, accompaniment, and
advanced instruction on the student’s chosen instrument.”
5
Catel’s theory also incorporates an understanding of dissonance where deviation from an underlying simple
harmonic structure is a defining feature. Thus, dissonant chords could “appear” to be consonant (syncope
consonnante apparente), for example, a 6–5 suspension turning an apparently consonant six-three chord into a
properly consonant five-three chord or a 5–6 sequence turning apparently consonant five-three chords into
properly consonant six-three chords. This has some affinity with the later Riemannian notion of
Scheinkonsonanzen.
5
in late 1815 as a natural consequence of the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy (Holoman
2015). It reopened the following year. The reorganizations in this politically turbulent
period—including the dismissal of Sarrette—thus explains how Catel’s book lost its official
monopoly. By 1822, newly appointed Director of the Conservatory Luigi Cherubini (1760–
1842), however, supported re-adopting Catel’s book—in spite of there now being other
textbooks in use, most prominently the Cours de Composition Musicale (1818) by Antoine
Reicha (1770–1836).
6
Cherubini requested François-Joseph Fétis (1784–1871) to write an
official textbook dedicated to counterpoint and fugue that would complement Catel’s work on
harmony (Groth 1983: 10–11).
7
The continued relevance of Catel’s work also at mid-century
is underlined by the fact that Aimé Leborne (1797–1866), professor at the Paris Conservatory
from 1836, published an extended edition of it (i.e., Catel and Leborne 1847). As a result of
this move to conserve Catel’s ideas rather than to refine a theory of harmony itself, the many
textbooks appearing from about 1830 on focused on improving its pedagogy. According to
Groth (1983: 19), attempts at theoretical simplification, popularization, and methodological
reworking largely replaced attempts at further theoretical experimentation. At the same time,
it is also from the 1830s that explanations of increasingly more chromatic progressions are
included in the textbooks, as Penelope Peters (1990) carefully documented.
Thus, at mid-century, there was an established theoretical tradition largely revolving
around the theoretical framework put forward by Catel. On the practical side of the
curriculum there is a clear link to the partimento pedagogy,
8
the hallmark of the old Italian
6
Reicha’s work, which Groth characterizes as by being close to actual compositional practice, is built on
completely different principles than Catel’s (Groth 1983: 10, 41–45). According to Christensen (2021: 293–294),
Reicha’s pedagogy was “one of relentless exemplification and iteration” where he would “show over and over
how these chords and melodies might be used in practice.” This focus on learning through studying and imitating
examples had precedents in eighteenth-century Italian, particularly Bolognese, pedagogy (e.g., Martini 1774–76;
Paolucci 1765–72). Reicha’s work was “met with resistance” (Peters 1990: 20), for instance, from Fétis ([1840]
1994: 143–145; see also Christensen 2019b: 220–221). See Morabito and Bernard de Raymond 2021 for recent
discussions of Reicha and his works.
7
Fétis’ most important contribution to music-theoretical discourse in nineteenth-century France was probably,
however, his theories of the historical development of tonality (Groth 1983: 58–68). See Christensen 2019b for a
recent in-depth account of nineteenth-century concepts of tonality centered around the writings of Fétis.
8
A partimento is “a sketch, written on a single staff, whose main purpose is to be a guide for improvisation of a
composition at the keyboard” (Sanguinetti 2012: 14). For discussions of partimento pedagogy in eighteenth-
century Italy (which also included other disciplines than partimento), see Sanguinetti 2012, van Tour 2015, and
Gjerdingen 2007a, 2020. One could argue persuasively that there were several different traditions of figured-bass
6
music theory pedagogy, which emerges as a key for understanding and defining the Parisian
tradition of music theory pedagogy. A central figure in this link is Alexandre-Étienne Choron
(1771–1834), who praised Catel’s work for being closer to the Neapolitan partimento
tradition than the fundamental bass theory associated with Rameau (Masci 2013: 12–14).
Choron’s own contribution was his published editions of partimenti by Italian masters, hence
securing their dissemination in early nineteenth-century France (Gjerdingen 2020: 42–45).
9
The core of the Parisian tradition, based on Italian models, was learning a handful of
harmonic voice-leading patterns associated with specific bass motions. These may be realized
contrapuntally in a number of ways, thus integrating elementary counterpoint (qua voice
leading) with studies of harmony. This was practical training that did not need theoretical
justification for all progressions (as in, for example, fundamental bass theory). In Robert
Gjerdingen’s (2019: 249) words, the Parisian pedagogical tradition taught students “a rich
repertoire of harmonic contexts without claiming that there was one progression to rule them
all.” In addition to cadences and the rule of the octave, standard bass motions (mainly
sequences) were a central part of the training. These, closely related to what were known as
movimenti (or moti del basso) in Italy, were called marches d’harmonie in France. They are
found in a range of French textbooks spanning the whole nineteenth century (Gjerdingen
2020: 197–205).
10
Arguably the two most prominent where those of François Bazin (1816–
1878, text 1857) and Henri Reber (1807–1880, text 1862), which contain a rich repertoire of
marches d’harmonie.
11
These provided training in tonal idioms that the students had to
pedagogy centered around partimento-like exercises, but for the sake of simplicity, I will refer to it as a single
tradition.
9
Italian music theory pedagogy was, however, nothing new in Paris at the time. There had been a growing
interest in partimento in Paris at least since the 1770s (Cafiero 2007: 139), culminating in the 1814 edition of
partimenti by Fedele Fenaroli (1730–1818) published by Emanuele Imbimbo (1765–1839) in Paris.
10
Groth (1983: 73) claims that these exercises are found in almost all nineteenth-century French harmony
textbooks and are varyingly called marches, tours, or progressions d’harmonie. In 1847, Cherubini published a
book wholly dedicated to marches d’harmonie (i.e., Cherubini 1847), testifying to its centrality in Parisian
pedagogy at mid-century. Cherubini had been trained in Bologna, and in addition to the many Neapolitan
influences on French theory pedagogy, there were also several ties to Bolognese pedagogy (Gjerdingen 2020:
264–65).
11
Masci (2013) discusses Reber’s work while Gjerdingen (2020: 172, 186, 197–98, 296–98) discusses Bazin’s.
Masci (2015) and Gjerdingen (2019) discuss these theory teacher’s influence on the next generation of theory
teachers, testifying to how the established tradition was kept alive in the late nineteenth century.
7
recognize and creatively exploit when harmonizing a basse donnée (“given bass,” the French
equivalent of partimento), for example, when participating in one of the conservatory’s
official competitions in harmony.
12
A page with marches d’harmonie exercises by Reber is
reproduced as Figure 1.
<INSERT FIGURE 1 NEAR HERE>
The tradition of music theory pedagogy associated with the Paris Conservatory has been
referred to as a seamless continuation of the Neapolitan tradition (Holtmeier 2012: 6). Indeed,
as Gjerdingen (2020: 272) claims, “the marches harmoniques taught at the Paris Conservatory
were the direct descendants of the four-voice dispositions of movimenti taught in Naples.”
Rosa Cafiero, however, reminds us that the Italian tradition was indeed transformed when
adopted in Paris.
13
Her assessment of a partimento realization by Fétis, following a set of
realization principles he has put forward, is that it “is severe in style and gives no
opportunities for the ‘improvising’ instrumental voices that were supposed to be still in use in
Naples. … Fétis has cast a stereotyped model upon a living and continuously evolving
tradition” (Cafiero 2007: 154).
Some professors stayed truer to the eighteenth-century Italian tradition than others.
Gjerdingen (2020: 201, 266) points to treatises on practical harmony by conservatory
professors such as Hippolyte Colet (1808–51, text 1846) and Auguste Panseron (1795–1859,
text 1855) which demonstrate partimento realizations not only in a simple chordal style, but
also in the more artful and contrapuntal style of the eighteenth century. Even so, the general
tendency throughout the century was that a “largely improvisatory tradition … had slowly
transformed into something more strictly defined and notated” (Gjerdingen 2020: 298), and
by the 1870s, the typical partimento realization by students at the Paris Conservatory was
probably “characterized by block chords and simple resolutions of suspensions” (300).
The focus on textbooks and written exercises in Paris distinguishes it from the Italian
partimento pedagogy, which focussed on practical training by the keyboard, including
improvisation. This change in emphasis was not a drastic rupture: eighteenth-century Italian
students had to do written exercises, and their nineteenth-century French counterparts did not
12
Bazin (1857) explicitly labels his basse données as partimenti. When the students were given a melody rather
than a bass line, it was called a chant donnée. Gjerdingen (2020: 202–3) discusses the basse donnée for the 1854
competition, as well as the winning realization.
13
Ijzerman (2021: 210–211) puts forward a similar argument.
8
abandon teaching harmony by the keyboard entirely.
14
Nonetheless, the production of
textbooks in an Industrial-Age pedagogical setting of the classroom contrasts with the earlier
more personal and practical emphasis. Although they build on the older Italian tradition, the
works by Catel and his successors were modern textbooks that present “a harmonic and
systematic approach foreign to any Neapolitan set of regole” (Ijzerman 2021: 210). It is thus
important to avoid equating the Parisian tradition with the older Italian one while still
acknowledging the very strong link between these two traditions of conservatory music theory
pedagogy.
The Vienna Conservatory
The great influence the French Enlightenment music theorist Jean-Philippe Rameau (1683–
1784), especially his Traité de l’harmonie (1722), has had in the history of music theory is
indisputable. Ironically, since the Parisian pedagogy mainly relied on practical methods
associated with the old Italian conservatories, the more speculative theory of Rameau,
especially the analytical tool of “fundamental bass” (basse fondamentale), did not have much
impact there.
15
In Austria—or more specifically the Vienna Conservatory, which was
established in 1817—the case was, however, quite different. There, the fundamental bass
would become the foundation for its tradition of music theory pedagogy thanks to Simon
Sechter (1788–1867), “perhaps the most influential teacher of music theory in Vienna during
the nineteenth century” (Bernstein 2002: 788), and his magnum opus—the three-volume Die
Grundsätze der musikalischen Komposition (1853–54). Robert Wason’s (1985) authoritative
study of nineteenth-century Viennese harmonic theory analyzes Sechter’s main contribution
as a mixture of established figured-bass thinking that had dominated earlier Viennese
harmonic theory since Johann Georg Albrechtsberger (1736–1809) and Ramellian
14
According to Stella (2007) and Gjerdingen (2007b: 127), there was a similar turn away from improvisation
toward a written pedagogy in nineteenth-century Italy as well.
15
Although it was considered an alternative at first, Rameau’s fundamental bass—or at least most of it—was
rejected when the treatise by Catel (1802) was chosen as the Paris Conservatory’s official harmony textbook in
1801 (Gessele 1989, 1992, 1994; see also Christensen 1993: 302). According to Fétis ([1840] 1994: 138), this
“was the coup de grâce given to Rameau’s system, and the destruction of the latter was more complete and rapid
because the remaining sectaries were excluded from public teaching at this time.”
9
fundamental bass.
16
A characteristic trait of this latter theory is that the fundamental bass may
only move by intervals of a third or fifth.
17
Building on Rameau and Johann Philipp
Kirnberger (1721–83), Sechter would analyze progressions by step using a tacit “intermediate
fundamental”—thus reducing it to an allowed progression of thirds and fifths (Caplin 1980:
76; see also Grant 1977).
Anton Bruckner (1824–96)—Sechter’s student and later theory teacher at the
conservatory—continued to teach Sechter’s doctrines after his teacher’s death in 1867.
Bruckner never published a textbook, but his lectures given at the University of Vienna have
been published posthumously based on student notes (i.e., Bruckner 1950). Although there
probably were differences between Bruckner’s pedagogy at the university and at the
conservatory, the lectures prove his loyalty to Sechter. Ernst Decsey (1907) additionally
recalls that Bruckner treated Sechter’s Grundsätze like a religious text when teaching theory
at the conservatory. Thus, the tradition was kept alive in the late nineteenth century.
Music theory pedagogy at the Vienna Conservatory in the mid-nineteenth century—
with Sechter as a dominating figure and his Grundsätze the most central resourcewas
characterized by a mixture of remnants of a primarily practical approach (figured bass) and
those of a primarily speculative approach (fundamental bass). According to Wason (1985:
46), Sechter managed “to a surprising extent … to make his system of fundamental bass
compatible with figured bass practice.” Sechter himself claimed that it was consistent with
figured-bass practice throughout his life, even when criticized for this exact point (Wason
1985: 32). Nevertheless, Sechter’s magnum opus represents a move in the direction of a
16
Dahlhaus ([1968] 1990: 33–38) also argues that Sechter’s Grundsätze represented a—theoretically not
unproblematic—mixture of a theory of chordal scale degrees and a theory of fundamental progressions. The
problematic part that Dahlhaus points to is that Sechter downplays a key principle in Rameau’s theory: that all
chords are reducible to dissonant seventh chords striving towards consonant triads (see also Sprick 2016a: 266–
67). This, a product of the mechanistic philosophy of the enlightenment (Christensen 1993: 103–32), was
essential for Rameau’s fundamental bass. Although Sechter’s mixture was closer to practice than Rameau’s
theory, it simultaneously reduced an important part of its theoretical rationale.
17
Rameau’s theory also had its practical aims and goals and should not be reduced to pure speculative theory. It
is beyond the scope of this article to discuss Rameau’s theory at the level of detail it deserves. See Christensen
1993 for one such discussion. Recent research has also shown the reception history of Rameau’s writings to be
immensely complicated and multi-faceted (cf. Christensen 2019a; Holtmeier 2017; Petersen 2016). Suffice to
say is that Sechter was not only influenced by Rameau, but also by the previous receptions of his theories
(hence, “Ramellian”).
10
theory pedagogy built on a more speculative foundation than what had previously been the
case in Vienna. Compared with the earlier Viennese figured bass textbooks (e.g.,
Albrechtsberger 1826; Preindl 1827), Sechter’s work has more text and fewer music
examples, and the direct link to contemporaneous compositional practice is missing
(Holtmeier 2005: 225–27). According to Felix Diergarten and Ludwig Holtmeier (2016),
Sechter’s Grundsätze effectively marks the end of the purely practical figured-bass tradition,
derived in turn from Italian partimenti models, that had dominated Viennese music theory
pedagogy in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
18
The earlier practice had been
the basis of Sechter’s purely practical figured-bass manual (i.e., Sechter n.d.)—published
around 1830—which is similar to the movimenti pedagogy of the Italian tradition.
The distance to contemporaneous compositional practice is echoed in the infamous
phrase that Bruckner allegedly said when teaching Sechter’s theories: “Look, gentlemen, this
is the rule. Of course, I don’t compose that way.”
19
Wason (1985: 61) additionally points to
the fact that Sechter’s Grundsätze does not contain a single example from the literature and,
thus, “can only be called dogmatic.”
20
Although one looks in vain for examples from the
repertoire in his magnum opus, Sechter ends his three-volume work by claiming that the best
way to understand his theories is by studying the works of renowned masters. However, he
adds in the last sentence that “he who has studied the theory thoroughly will understand better
and more correctly everything that is contained in a composition” (Sechter 1853–54, 3:356,
my translation and italics). This suggests a deductive rather than inductive attitude, placing
theory before empirical reality. Nicholas Cook (2007: 61) pointily sums up the problems with
the anti-empirical foundation of the Viennese tradition by stating the following:
Time and time again, as Robert Wason shows (1985), Sechter and Bruckner forced
themselves either into a position of denial when faced with music that did not conform
to a largely anachronistic theoretical mold, or into sometimes ludicrously convoluted
18
Holtmeier makes the same argument elsewhere as well (see Holtmeier 2007: 6n4).
19
The quote stems from Schenker ([1906] 1954: 177n2), who studied with Bruckner at the conservatory.
Bruckner scholars have, however, recently argued that there are clear ties between Bruckner’s practice as a
composer and as a theory teacher (e.g., Chapman 2014; Stocken 2009). Schenker’s Bruckner quote nevertheless
clearly indicate that the connection between theory training and composition was questioned in late nineteenth-
century Vienna.
20
Wason compares Sechter’s work to the other popular Kompositionslehren (such as Marx 1837–47 and Lobe
1850–67) claiming that—since these refer to examples from the musical literature—they may be called “critical”
in contrast to Sechter’s “dogmatic” approach.
11
explanations of apparently straightforward progression, usually involving substitutions
of “intermediate fundamentals.”
A key premise in Sechter’s understanding of music is the primacy of diatonicism. In his
theoretical system, a key is manifested through its diatonic circle-of-fifths motion in what has
been labeled the “Sechterian Chain” (Bernstein 2002: 788–89). Chromaticism could be a
result of the melodic elaboration of a diatonic fundamental bass or as chords based on tones
from neighboring diatonic keys (790–91). Thus, chromatic music would be essentially
diatonic in nature in Sechter’s system. An example from the first volume of Grundsätze
where he demonstrates how a diatonic progression may be elaborated into a chromatic one is
reproduced as Figure 2. This method of analytical reduction (or the reverse; compositional
elaboration) would later be associated with Heinrich Schenker (1868–1935), and Wason
(1985: 48–49) claims that what in Schenkerian terms is called “tonicization” (Tonikaliserung)
was a key principle in Sechter’s theory, even though he did not introduce a new term or
notation for it.
<INSERT FIGURE 2 NEAR HERE>
To summarize, the tradition of music theory pedagogy associated with the Vienna
Conservatory was a mixture of a practical figured-bass approach and a more speculative
fundamental bass approach that had its roots in the French Enlightenment in general and
Rameau’s work in particular. Borrowing Gjerdingen’s Tolkien-allusion quoted above, in this
tradition there indeed was “one progression to rule them all.” For the music to be “correct,” it
had to be reducible to an acceptable fundamental bass built on progressions of thirds and
fifths.
The Leipzig Conservatory
Ten years following the foundation of the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843, two of its theory
teachers published their magna opera: Die Natur der Harmonik und der Metrik, by Moritz
Hauptmann (1792–1868), and Lehrbuch der Harmonie, by Ernst Friedrich Richter (1808–
79).
21
The authors had been colleagues at the conservatory since it opened, but their works are
21
In the same year, the Leipzig publisher that published Hauptmann’s and Richter’s books also published the
first volume of the Sechter’s Grundsätze. Thus, 1853 stands out as an important year in German-speaking music
theory both for the northern Leipzigian tradition and the southern Viennese tradition (Holtmeier 2005).
12
vastly different from each other. Using the distinction introduced by Hugo Riemann ([1882]
(1900): s.v. “Theorie”) and adopted by Carl Dahlhaus (1984: 5–9) and Thomas Christensen
(2002: 13–17), Hauptmann’s treatise is speculative music theory and Richter’s textbook is
practical (also called regulative) music theory.
22
Whereas speculative music theory is defined
as the “ontological contemplation of tone systems” (Dahlhaus cited in Christensen 2002: 13),
practical music theory “seeks to draw from practice normative rules of syntax and models of
structure, while at the same time disciplining that practice through pedagogical strictures”
(Christensen 2002: 14). Dahlhaus (1984) also adds a third category to Riemann’s framework:
analytical music theory. This is music theory centered around analyses of individual works—
a paradigm that emerged in the transition to the nineteenth century in parallel with romantic
aesthetics.
23
I will return to this third paradigm shortly.
Both books proved to be hugely influential but in different music-theoretical domains.
This is also made clear by what seems to be their targeted audience: experts in the case of
Hauptmann and students in the case of Richter. I will focus on Richter’s textbook because its
impact was the greatest in the pedagogical domain, which is the focus of the present article.
Hauptmann’s ideas were also posthumously published in the more accessible form of a
harmony textbook (i.e., Hauptmann 1868), but this work did not have anywhere near the
impact of Richter’s work.
24
Richter’s Lehrbuch der Harmonie set the standard for modern harmony textbooks,
popularizing Gottfried Weber’s (1779–1839) take on a Roman numeral analysis in the
Versuch einer geordneten Theorie der Tonsetzkunst (1817–21). This Weberian Roman
numeral approach is a descriptive type of music theory (Rummenhöller 1967: 11–17; Kopp
2002: 40–45) that threw emphasis onto “the individual character of a chord rather than the
22
Rummenhöller (1967: 27–28) and Rehding (2003: 65) discuss this Riemannian distinction.
23
This tripartite systematization is central in the modern historiography of music theory.The categories are
variously called “paradigms” (Dahlhaus 1984, 1985), “styles” (Christensen 2002), and “genres” (Christensen
2007). How the three categories should be understood and used is, however, much discussed (cf. Christensen
1988; Heidlberger 2017; Martin 2017; Sprick 2016b). Here, they are used purely as heuristic categories.
24
In Munich, in contrast, Hauptmann’s speculative theory actually was the foundation for the theory courses
from the founding of the conservatory in 1867 until they were replaced by Richter’s practical harmony textbook
twenty years later (Petersen and Zirwes 2014; see also Petersen 2018). Generally, however, Hauptmann’s
speculative ideas had little impact on practical music theory pedagogy prior to Riemann’s pedagogical works of
the late nineteenth century (Holtmeier 2005: 229; 2011: 6). How Riemann’s work relates to Hauptmann’s is
discussed elsewhere (e.g., Harrison 1994; Klumpenhouwer 2002; Rehding 2003).
13
place that it occupies in a progression” (Bent 1994, 1:131). Figure 3 reproduces a page where
Richter summarizes the diatonic triads in major and minor with their respective Roman
numerals.
Richter’s book went through many editions, was translated into several languages, and
served as a model for many later harmony textbooks, thus having a long, lasting, and
international impact on Western music theory pedagogy (Holtmeier 2005: 227–29; Wason
2002: 64).
25
The book would later become the first volume of Richter’s three-volume Die
praktischen Studien zur Theorie der Musik. The second volume of this work, published last,
covered simple and double counterpoint (Richter 1872), and the third covered canon and
fugue (Richter 1859). Together, these three textbooks largely comprise the three-year
curriculum in music theory at the Leipzig Conservatory during the middle of the nineteenth
century, something to which Edvard Grieg’s exercise books from his time as a conservatory
student from 1858 to 1862 testify (Utne-Reitan 2018).
26
Richter’s student and later successor
at the conservatory, Salomon Jadassohn (1831–1902), would continue to disseminate his
teacher’s ideas to students at the institution, keeping the tradition alive into the late nineteenth
century.
27
<INSERT FIGURE 3 NEAR HERE>
Although Richter is best known for his harmony textbook, the main part of the Leipzig
curriculum was studies in counterpoint ending with fugal writing. The exercises in writing
four-part harmony (e.g., chorale settings) served as preliminary studies prior to exercises in
writing counterpoint (e.g., chorale preludes and fugues). The transition from harmony to
counterpoint was seamless. Here, Richter followed the example of Kirnberger by starting with
counterpoint in four parts and only later introducing two-part writing (Bent 2002: 582).
28
25
In addition to several English translations, it appeared in Russian, Danish, French, Spanish, Dutch, and Italian.
The German original went through thirty-six editions by 1953 (Damschroder and Williams 1990: 266).
26
The course design for male students, that is. According to the conservatory regulations (cited in Phillips 1979:
74–79), female students would follow “special classes in harmony designed to meet their needs” for two years.
27
Wason (2002: 64) claims that Jadassohn’s (1883) harmony textbook is hardly distinguishable from Richter’s,
with the only exception being Jadassohn’s more extensive treatment of chromatic chord progressions.
28
This smooth transition is underlined by the fact that some of the exercises at the end of Richter’s harmony
book are very similar to those at the beginning of his counterpoint book (see Utne-Reitan 2018: 67–73).
14
The theory education in Leipzig was centered around what Carl Dahlhaus (1989: 26)
has coined “poetic” counterpoint—Bachian fugal writing combined with Schumannian-
Mendelssohnian aesthetics. Dahlhaus argued that this approach shows how the idea of the
“poetic” was understood linearly and attempted to be taught through training in
counterpoint.
29
Indeed, the Leipzig tradition was heavily invested in the “conservative” side
of the so-called “war of the romantics,” championing the genres of absolute music and
“poetic” aesthetic of the early nineteenth century, so much so that die Leipziger Schule is
established as a term that associates Leipzig with this aesthetic position (Forner 1997;
Wasserloos 2004: 54–55). That the pedagogy championed conservative romantic aesthetics—
and was not restricted to a more archaic ideal in the sense of strict Fuxian or quasi-Bachian
counterpoint—is indicated by Richter’s textbooks and the exercises written by students at the
conservatory.
30
Joshua Navon has recently claimed that the music theory education at the Leipzig
Conservatory helped produce an ideology of Werktreue.
31
He paraphrases Richter when
claiming that “knowledge of music theory would ensure that a student’s interpretation of a
work, rather than relying on pure instinct, was built upon recognizing (erkennen) the musical
laws (musikalische Gesetze) employed by the work’s author” (Navon 2020: 75). This
overarching claim of the production of Werktreue in nineteenth-century music education in
general and in Leipzig in particular is almost certainly correct. However, he further claims
that “theory pedagogy, which was relatively narrow and repertoire focused, functioned
primarily as a means to cultivate knowledge deployable in performing works” and that it
“helped instill analysis and understanding of musical works as prerequisites for performing
them successfully” (Navon 2020: 81). I am not convinced that it is appropriate to define this
29
Elsewhere, Dahlhaus ([1978] 1989, [1980] 1989) has argued that the the idea of the musically “poetic”—
which is notoriously hard to define as it “thrives on its own internal contradictions” (Dahlhaus [1980] 1989:
142)—was central to early nineteenth-century music aesthetics.
30
Richter (1859: 1–4) presents the training in fugue both as the final stage of mechanical training in
compositional technique and as a bridge between the theory classroom and poetical composition. Grieg’s
expressive Fugue in F Minor for String Quartet (EG 114), written for Richter in 1861, is a good example of this
ideal. For recent studies of student exercises by Grieg and Svendsen from their Leipzig years, see Christophersen
2016 and Utne-Reitan 2018.
31
Goehr ([1992] 2007: 231)—whom Navon cites—defines Werktreue as the ideal that “performances and their
performers have respectively been subservient to works and their composers” and that “to be true to a work is to
be true to its score.”
15
tradition as one primarily focusing on repertoire and analysis, and a somewhat distorted
picture of it emerges as a consequence of his presentation.
32
Navon concludes his presentation of theory education by comparing the Leipzig
tradition with the partimento tradition of eighteenth-century Italy,
33
drawing the following
conclusion: “At Leipzig, where these exercises [partimenti] were replaced by extended
regimes of written work, music theory became a tool primarily of analysis, not composition or
improvisation(Navon 2020: 87). It is not clear why Navon equates written exercises with
analysis, and why this should additionally exclude composition.
34
Roman numeral notation
was indeed an important part of Richter’s pedagogy, and there are a few examples from the
repertoire in his textbooks (the great majority being his own constructed examples), but this
alone does not mean that it was primarily focused on the analysis of repertoire. It certainly
“helped instill” the practice in a very broad sense (so do the other traditions discussed in the
present article), but this is not the same as being “a tool primarily of analysis.” The central
aim of Richter’s pedagogy remains—as he himself proclaims (Richter 1853: v)—that the
students learn how and not why.
35
Certainly, the Leipzig tradition was practical in another way
compared with the partimento tradition, but it still remained in the general practical (i.e.,
regulative) paradigm of music theory, not the analytical. The students were expected to learn
a craft (writing chorale preludes and fugues in a specific stylistic idiom) by following a set of
given abstract rules. This was, of course, a way of learning the “musical laws” to understand
the repertoire that the students performed, but it was nevertheless mainly done through the
32
This does not entail that Navon’s otherwise strong main argument regarding the production of Werktrue is
flawed.
33
Figured-bass pedagogy related to the Italian partimento tradition had also been wide-spread in the German
states and was in some contexts still practiced in the nineteenth century (cf. Diergarten 2011; Hust 2002; Menke
2018).
34
Earlier in the article Navon (2020: 80) writes: “Because music theory was taught separately from performance
[at the Leipzig Conservatory], it is fair to assume that its purpose was, as Alexander Rehding has recently put it,
‘to prepare students both for more complex composition tasks and for analysing pieces of music along the same
lines.’” This phrasing—where Navon cites Rehding (2016: 251)—emphasizes training in (written) compositional
technique as the primary focus and analytic skills as a bi-product seems much more reasonable. However, this
has somehow changed when Navon reaches the above-cited conclusion regarding Leipzigian theory pedagogy.
35
Richter did also write a short book on musical form and analysis (i.e., Richter 1852). This book was aimed at
students in composition specifically and was not included in his Die praktischen Studien zur Theorie der Musik.
16
writing of compositional exercises. There are few indications that the analysis of works was a
central part of the pedagogy.
36
As Holtmeier (2011: 13) argues, a decisive turn toward the analysis of works in music
theory pedagogy first came at the turn of the century together with a fin-de-siècle “New
Empiricism.” Dahlhaus (1989: 100–101) points to how the textbook by Johannes Schreyer
(1856–1929, text 1911) intentionally moved the focus from learning rules to the analysis of
masterworks. Holtmeier (2011: 48n80) adds that the textbooks by Joseph Leibrock (1808–86,
text 1875) and Bernhard Ziehn (1845–1912, text 1887) are early examples of this trend.
37
Dahlhaus and Holtmeier portray this as a break with the pedagogical traditions that relied on
abstract rules and used few (if any) examples from the repertoire in their works. Holtmeier
(2011: 13) explicitly mentions Hauptmann, Richter, Sechter, and Riemann as examples. In
light of the above discussion, I find the labels “repertoire focused” and “a tool primarily of
analysis” to be misleading. The practice of writing technical exercises in harmony and
counterpoint based on abstract rules—a form of “compositional etudes” (Christophersen
2016: 225–31)—stands out as the most salient feature of music theory pedagogy associated
with the Leipzig Conservatory in the nineteenth century.
Comparing Traditions
Having characterized the three nineteenth-century traditions of conservatory music theory
pedagogy, I now intend to compare them from three perspectives: (1) music-theoretical
frameworks, (2) pedagogical approaches, and (3) historical legacies. The first being a large
36
I do not claim that analysis played no role at all in Leipzigian music theory pedagogy—it is certainly
mentioned in the curriculum, though only as one of the parts of the composition course and not part of the more
extensive three-year training in harmony and counterpoint (Phillips 1979: 94)—only that Navon overemphasizes
its importance. While he cites Riemann’s critique of nineteenth-century conservatories, he does not mention that
a part of this critique—which implicitly had the Leipzig Conservatory as its main target—actually alleged a lack
of focus on music analysis in conservatory music theory pedagogy: “The ‘analysis of classical compositions’
looks very attractive in the advertisements of the institutes; in reality it has little meaning and is limited, where it
is attempted at all, to common sayings” (Riemann [1895] 1994: 231–32).
37
One could point to even earlier examples of analysis-oriented theory textbooks. The growing interest for
music analysis in the nineteenth century—both inside and outside musical education—is well-known (see Bent
1987, 1994, 1996; Damschroder 2008). The point is not to locate the “origin” of this development but to
emphasize that its major impact in conservatory pedagogy came late in the nineteenth century. Schreyer’s work
stands out as a turning-point (or culmination) as analysis explicitly is made into the primary aim of the harmony
training (Diergarten 2005).
17
topic also beyond the scope of interest on pedagogy, I will discuss it only briefly here and
focus more on the other two perspectives.
Theoretical Frameworks
A fundamental similarity between the actual theories of the three traditions is adherence to a
relatively conservative stylistic idiom, incorporating more contemporary issues, such as
chromaticism, later into the century. Even then, chromaticism was essentially viewed in light
of an underlying diatonic framework, as is most explicit in Sechter’s work. In the middle of
the century, however, there was a surge in music theories that treated chromaticism in a
manner more in touch with the “progressive” contemporaneous compositional practice. In
German-speaking territories, this was probably best exemplified by the theory competition
announced by Neue Zeitschrift für Musik in 1859 (Rehding 2003: 39–46; Wason 1988). The
important point for the present article is, however, that these “progressive” theory
developments had little impact on teaching at the conservatories. In France, there was a
similar divide between the conservatory tradition and the generally more “progressive”
theories outside of this tradition (Groth 1983; Peters 1990: 3).
However, while retaining rather conservative theoretical frameworks, the three
theoretical traditions propagate different kinds of conservativism, which may be seen in light
of larger cultural factors. In Paris, there were ties to the galant style associated with the
partimento tradition and interest in dramatic genres (e.g., opera), as reflected in the cantatas
written for the Prix de Rome. In Leipzig, conservative romantic aesthetics combined with the
Protestant musical genres often associated with Bach (e.g., four-part chorale settings, the
chorale prelude, and the keyboard fugue) constituted the framework of reference. The
Viennese tradition’s very strict reliance on underlying diatonicism might also be tied to the
Catholic music tradition and its high valuation of der strenge (or reine) Satz. Although both
the latter two institutions were closely tied to the church music of the respective cities (most
of the theory teachers were prominent organists as well), no categorical distinction based on
this can be made. For example, the insistence on strict diatonicism as the natural foundation
for music is not only found in Catholic Vienna but also in Protestant Leipzig, being a central
tenet in the speculative work of Moritz Hauptmann. Thus, distinctions between Leipzig and
Vienna on the foundational relationship of diatonic with respect to chromatic is about how
this foundation should be interpreted. Whereas Hauptmann presented a full-blown speculative
interpretation based on Hegelian dialectics, Sechter turned to Ramellian fundamental bass
theory. The important difference is that whereas practical theory and speculative theory were
18
clearly separated in the Leipzigian tradition—the former represented by Richter’s pragmatic
approach that composed the core of the conservatory’s music theory curriculum, the latter
represented by Hauptmann’s extremely philosophical work—they were mixed in the
Viennese (Dahlhaus 1989: 25). Returning to Paris, we note a general skepticism toward
whether abstract tonal theories were of any use at all for learning practical harmony. This
became clear in 1801 when Catel’s pragmatism was preferred over a Ramellian approach. By
pointing to statements by Théodore Dubois (1837–1924), Michael Masci (2013: 14–15)
demonstrates that this “ambivalence regarding the value of tonal theory for the study of
practical harmony” remained a full century later.
Pedagogical Approach
“Stick a farm boy with straight fingers and healthy ears in one end, and after a year the
finished composer or virtuoso comes out at the other” (Riemann [1895] 1994: 235). This is
how Riemann ends an 1895 critique of contemporaneous professional music education. In
many ways, he was right. As Yvonne Wasserloos (2004) has argued, the Leipzig
Conservatory was often criticized for taking in too many students and for leaving an
impression of a machine where a young person would follow a set of courses (all of which,
performance and theory, were taught in groups for maximum efficiency) before taking exams
and, upon successful completion of them, would have been transformed into a composer or
virtuoso. Citing Hauptmann (1892, 2:5, 2:20) and Wasielewski (1897: 38), Joshua Navon
portrays the Leipzig pedagogy along these lines:
The general setup of music theory lessons seems to have followed the format
Hauptmann pursued during the institution’s first few semesters, even though he
himself admitted, just weeks before the conservatory’s opening, that not a single
instructor had any idea of how to go about teaching classes. According to
Wasielewski, Hauptmann would set a “harmonic exercise” for the six to eight students
in his class to solve on the blackboard, during which time he would simultaneously
correct the work students had completed outside of the class and lecture them on the
mistakes they were making on the board. Writing again to Hauser, Hauptmann noted
that his harmony and counterpoint students “learn their drill like a company of
soldiers; it is only the awkward squad that gets noticed” (Navon 2020: 83).
The tradition had its flaws and problems, but it would nonetheless be considered to be among
the most prestigious musical educations in the late nineteenth century. The Leipzig model was
imitated many places across the globe when—to borrow Riemann’s ([1895] 1994: 226)
metaphor—conservatories would shoot out of the earth like mushrooms.
19
The pedagogical approaches changed in several ways when music theory was
“schoolified.” Change was not only reflected in the teaching of larger groups, but also in the
general turn toward the classroom and typical artifacts associated with it. Most important here
is that practical music theory became a written discipline. As Navon claims:
Conservatory training instituted pens, pencils, and notebooks (and sometimes chalk
and blackboards) as the dominant media of assessment in music theory. In an ironic
turn of events, a system so focused on the “practical” aspects of music education
actually encouraged students to consider musical writing rather than their musical
instrument(s) as the medium through which they should develop their music-
theoretical knowledge and demonstrate it most directly to their teachers. (Navon 2020:
86–87)
This fundamental turn is also quite visible in Paris, which specifically builds on a pedagogical
tradition of a largely oral nature. At the old Italian conservatories, music theory was primarily
taught through practice (especially improvisation) by the keyboard. In Paris, however, the
textbook takes center stage and, with it, the written exercise. The importance of writing is
further proven by the harmony and fugue contests at the Paris Conservatory, where the
students would not have access to a piano (Gjerdingen 2020: 192). The approach propagated
at the conservatories in Leipzig and Vienna also challenged and gradually overshadowed the
partimento-like figured-bass traditions that had been common in German-speaking territory.
The centrality of writing intensified during the course of the century and was part of
the more general separation of theory from performance (and improvisation) in music
education, a division that is still operative today. This division proves to be a result of the
modern conservatories’ “schoolification” of music education, which included the introduction
of the modern theory textbook. As Navon (2020: 66) argues, the separation of what in Italy
had been one unit (composition, improvisation, performance) into several disciplines
(effectively separating theory and performance) was a fundamental precondition of
Werktreue. It may be understood as part of the fundamental changes around 1800 when, as
Lydia Goehr ([1992] 2007) observed, the work-concept became regulative. The composer
became an artist (and a genius) more than a craftsman, and each musical work produced had
to be marked by individuality and originality. Thus, it was natural that the re-creative
performance of music be separated from the creative production of music.
This fundamental turn toward Genieästhetik also lead to suspicion regarding the
“learnability” of composition. Learning free composition did not, however, have to be the
primary aim of the theory training, despite what, for instance, was maintained by Richter
20
(1872: 12–13, 89–92). Theory teachers could rather point to the learning of compositional
craft as perfected in older styles, or more vaguely “to the strengthening of the discipline of
musical thinking” (Dahlhaus 1984: 117, my translation), making it easier to justify the
education as being somewhat conservative when compared with contemporary compositional
practice.
38
Moreover, harmony was a mandatory subject for all students, and most textbooks
were aimed as much toward performers as composers (Groth 1983: 68; Holtmeier 2005: 228).
This meant that all the traditions held contemporaneous compositional practice—especially
the progressive strands—more or less at arm’s length. This is further underlined by the
prevalence of theoretically constructed (and rather “dry”) examples and exercises, and a lack
of examples from the literature in several of the textbooks. Schenker, among others, saw this
as a major flaw in music theory pedagogy, claiming that his own theoretical work was an
attempt to bring harmony and counterpoint closer to free composition, the “actual life of
music” (Cook 2007: 60–63). Earlier, in Paris, Reicha had attempted to build a theory
pedagogy closer to compositional practice, but his work is “an anomaly among the
nineteenth-century Conservatoire treatises” (Peters 1990: 19).
39
In all three conservatories, composition was taught as a separate subject, apart from
harmony.
40
In Vienna, this separation seems to have been institutionalized rather late, as
praktische Komposition was offered as a class separate from music theory first in 1860 (Tittel
1967: 35). Bridging theory and composition was, however, considered as a problem, as the
38
Dahlhaus (1984: 116–22) discusses this under the fitting heading “Das Dilemma der musikalischen
Handwerkslehre.” Diergarten and Holtmeier (2016) also point to the suspicion towards the “learnability” of
composition that accompanied the Genieästhetik as an important factor in the decline of partimento pedagogy.
39
Aimé Leborne—Reicha’s successors at the Paris Conservatory—would, however, add an appendix with
examples from several opera composers (Auber, Donizetti, Gluck, Halévy, Méhel, Meyerbeer, Rossini, Verdi,
and Weber) to Catel’s much-used textbook (Catel and Leborne 1847: 114–129). He thus tried to bridge the gap
by showing how principles presented in Catel’s dry constructed examples were put to use in actual compositions.
This is something of a compromise compared to Reicha’s more radical attempt at reframing the theory
pedagogy.
40
In Leipzig, composition was, however, a smaller discipline than harmony and counterpoint. Grieg’s studies are
symptomatic (Utne-Reitan 2018). Whereas he studied composition only in the last year of his studies (with
Reinecke), he studied harmony and counterpoint all of the years and always in the class of two different theory
teachers parallelly (first with Richter/Papperitz, then Richter/Hauptmann). This practice of “team-teaching”
(Phillips 1979: 179)—practiced in theory classes and in performance classes—was a hallmark of the Leipzig
Conservatory. It seems like while the theory teaching exclusively focused on harmony and (especially)
counterpoint, the composition teaching focused on free writing in larger formats (Christophersen 2016: 220;
Utne-Reitan 2020: 50–51).
21
infamous Bruckner remark mentioned above emphasizes. Another example is a 1853 letter
from Hauptmann, where he complained that there was a complete separation between
counterpoint and composition at the Leipzig Conservatory:
The composition class takes no notice of counterpoint, the pupils are not taught to let
the one affect the other—everything that pleases is permissible, they are told—and
they consider themselves let out of jail, so to speak, into beautiful Nature. To be sure,
this beautiful Nature is often ugly enough, for such vulgar, harsh, unmusical stuff as
our youngsters treat us to now and then, was never before heard of. It is nothing but
vexation at their own inability, set to music. (Hauptmann 1892, 2:254)
A key similarity between the three traditions is the centrality of harmony in the pedagogical
approach. Written harmony exercises comprised the core of all three curricula, most often
realizations of given figured basses. The big difference between them is how students were
taught to understand harmonic relations to solve these practical tasks. Crudely put,
partimento-inspired schematic patterns reigned in Paris, Ramellian fundamental bass theory
in Vienna, and Weberian Roman numeral analysis in Leipzig.
Training in counterpoint continued after studies in harmony, though in Paris, it was
integrated into the harmony training in addition to existing as a separate subject. The school
fugue—or, as Robert Wason (1986: 300) called it, “that Frankenstein monster of nineteenth-
century theory pedagogy”—was the common culmination of conservatory music theory
training in the nineteenth century. In Leipzig, fugal writing was the final part of the theory
course, and in Paris, there was a separate competition in fugue.
Historical Legacy
All three traditions would influence later music theory pedagogy both inside and outside
conservatories. About the latter, ties between the Parisian tradition and Nadia Boulanger
(Gjerdingen 2019) and the Vienesse and Heinrich Schenker (Wason 1985) are noteworthy.
The Leipzigian tradition, in contrast, strongly influenced developments in conservatory music
theory pedagogy. This is because both the “Leipzig model” was widely imitated at many
conservatories founded in the late nineteenth century (Wasserloos 2004) and Richter’s
textbooks—both the original German editions and the translations and adaptations—were
broadly disseminated and remained in print long into the twentieth century.
Dahlhaus ([1977] 1983: 67) claims that “so long as a tradition is still in full flower it is
taken for granted and needs no further justification.” Part-writing in the manner of four-part
22
chorales accompanied by Weberian Roman numeral analysis has been one such Leipzigian
practice so taken for granted in the context of music theory pedagogy that, until recently, it
has scarcely needed any further justification.
41
This does not mean that no developments have
taken place since Richter, but rather that his fundamental framework for modern music theory
pedagogy is more or less intact. It is useful to be reminded that in the eighteenth century, it
was common to take three-part textures as a point of depature, such as Corelli’s trio sonatas,
instead of the four-part structures exemplified in Bach’s chorales (Holtmeier 2007: 9).
42
Several critiques by prominent music theorists in the early twentieth century, often
aimed directly at Leipzig and Richter, suggest that a nearly hegemonic paradigm of music
theory pedagogy had been established there. In a chapter polemically titled “Critique of
current methods of teaching,” Heinrich Schenker ([1906] 1954: 175–181) argued that such
methods (represented by Richter) taught the students neither harmony nor counterpoint.
Rudolf Louis (1906)—co-author of one of the most influential harmony textbooks of the early
twentieth century (i.e., Louis and Thuille 1907)—also attacked Richter’s book (which he
portrayed as having some kind of monopoly), calling it completely outdated that had
moreover been bad from the start. Arnold Schoenberg ([1911] 1978: 15, 165) criticized
Richter, specifically his treatment of modulation, in his influential Harmonielehre. The
above-mentioned turn toward the analysis of works, mostly associated with Schreyer (1911),
was an additional break with the established “dogmatic” traditions. Although these attacks
certainly led to several radical changes (for example, causing a decline in the use of Richter’s
textbooks), the basic tenets of nineteenth-century music theory pedagogy in general—and the
Leipzigian tradition in particular—largely remained intact throughout the twentieth century.
These tenets were taken for granted at such a deep level as to be equable to music theory
pedagogy itself. Hence, music theory pedagogy remained textbook-oriented and revolved
41
In some areas (e.g., parts of Germany and Scandinavia), Roman numerals were replaced by (post-)Riemannian
function symbols—a later tradition stemming from Leipzig. Nevertheless, the main point—what Brian Hyer
(2011: 111) calls “the mania for naming and labeling chords”—remains more or less the same.
42
This is also part of larger structural changes. Byros (2009) and Gjerdingen (2010) have shown how modes of
listening and musical understanding changed from the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries. Changes in music
theory pedagogy certainly played a part in these developments, but they are also intertwined with more
fundamental aesthetic and epistemological changes, such as the work-concept becoming regulative (Goehr
[1992] 2007) and the transition from a “classical” to a “modern” épistémè (Foucault [1966] 2002).
23
around written exercises and often took four-part chorale settings and Weberian Roman
numeral analysis as its point of departure.
These practices are, however, historically contingent constructs, as has been
highlighted by recent critiques. Robert Gjerdingen (e.g., 2019, 2020), for example, has
criticized modern music theory pedagogy for teaching students “about” harmony rather than
teaching them to “do” or “make” harmony.
43
As he puts it, modern music theory pedagogy
does not teach the students harmony, which in the form of figured bass was taught practically
at the keyboard, but rather “fairy tales about harmonic forces, functions, wills, or essences”
(2019: 252). He presents this turn as a massive failure and indicates that to teach students
actually to master harmony, a return to the tenets of the partimento pedagogy is necessary.
Gjerdingen aims his critique towards the pedagogy that characterized the turn of the
twentieth century, with Riemann’s function theory as his main target. However, the general
move away from “doing” and “making” harmony toward learning “about” it is a legacy, and
logical continuation, of the earlier nineteenth-century trends discussed in this article. To put it
in less categorical terms, this move was from one kind of “doing” (realizing exercises by the
keyboard through guided improvisation) to another (writing exercises following theoretical
principles codified in textbooks). It is hard to disagree that this had negative consequences.
Nevertheless, it is unhelpful to discredit modern music theory pedagogy entirely. Arguably, it
has been successful in teaching harmony to large groups of students simultaneously and in
getting students to a decent level in a limited amount of time. The different “fairy tales” play a
key part in this success by providing students with different verbal scaffolds (some certainly
more speculative than others) for understanding and conceptualizing tonal music. These
scaffolds also enable discourse, spoken and written, about music and its structures.
That said, there is certainly room to incorporate insights from other pedagogical
traditions, such as partimento. The emphasis on tonal idioms (schemata) rather than chord-to-
chord progressions, and the integration of performance (improvisation) in theory instruction
are but two promising developments. That a modern textbook in harmony and counterpoint
drawing on the partimento tradition was published recently (i.e., Ijzerman 2018) provides an
example of one such mediation between old and new approaches.
43
For other examples of critiques of modern theory pedagogy, see Masci 2013 and Holtmeier 2004, 2007, 2012.
24
Conclusion
By the middle of the nineteenth century, several traditions of music theory pedagogy
competed in professional music education throughout Europe, coalescing around and
associated with the conservatories in Paris, Vienna, and Leipzig. Harmony was a central
subject in all the traditions, but the concepts taught for solving the exercises in harmony (and
understanding tonality) were quite distinct. Very broadly speaking, the individual traditions
were characterized by a partimento-inspired pattern-based approach in Paris, Ramellian
fundamental bass in Vienna, and Weberian Roman numerals in Leipzig. In the late nineteenth
century and continuing into the twentieth, the Leipzigian approach was imitated worldwide as
the standardized way of teaching harmony: part-writing chorales and analyzing them chord by
chord according to some system. The strong position of the Leipzig model is indicated by the
amount of criticism it received in the early twentieth century, which negatively affirmed its
position as the “industry standard.” Ultimately, the nineteenth-century German
Harmonielehre tradition, in which Richter’s work was central, proved to be “a global export
success” (Holtmeier 2007: 13; see also Holtmeier 2010).
The most important legacy of nineteenth-century conservatory music theory pedagogy
is not, however, any characteristic of one particular institutional tradition but rather the shared
characteristics among them. Most important were the ideas that music theory was largely
separated from musical performance and improvisation, and that it was primarily a written
discipline centered on textbooks and written exercises. Although such exercises certainly
were part of earlier traditions of music theory pedagogy, it is safe to say that they dominated
the pedagogy of the nineteenth-century conservatory and continue to play an important role to
this day. How much longer they will continue to do so is now a question.
25
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... For my master's project (Utne- Reitan, 2018a), I conducted a study of theory education at the Leipzig Conservatoire in the period 1858-1862, analysing the exercises of the young Edvard Grieg. 21 In a more recent essay, I have discussed traditions of conservatoire music theory pedagogy in 19th-century Europe more broadly (Utne- Reitan, 2022a). The case of music theory in Norwegian higher music education studied in the present dissertation will also -as a study of European institutions that have only barely been covered previously -be a contribution to this part of the research field of history of music theory. ...
... These manuscripts, including a draft for an original harmony textbook (possibly the first of its kind in Norway) are now digitally available through the National Library of Norway's web services.54 For a discussion of music theory pedagogy at three different European conservatoires in the 19th century, see Utne-Reitan (2022a). 55 The number of textbooks dedicated to harmony compared to textbooks dedicated to counterpoint, form or analysis published in Norway -as well as the inclusion of fundamental harmony and harmonic analysis in many of ...
Thesis
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The point of departure for this dissertation is one of the most fundamental questions in music theory education: Why do music performance students need to study music-theoretical disciplines such as harmony and counterpoint? The dissertation addresses this question through a historical study of music theory education in Norway in general, and Oslo in particular, and concentrates on the role of these disciplines in the mandatory portion of the conservatoire training of professional musicians in the tradition of Western classical music. The focus is on the Oslo Conservatoire, which opened in 1883 and became the Norwegian Academy of Music in 1973, but this case is also related to wider national and international contexts. More broadly, the dissertation investigates how the music theory discourse in Norway has been constructed and transformed from the late 19th century to the early 21st century. The aim of the study is to develop a wide-ranging historical understanding of how music-theoretical disciplines such as harmony and counterpoint have been constructed and justified as part of higher music education. This understanding can challenge and inform current practices, as well as future developments, in conservatoire music theory. Theoretically, it is inspired by Michel Foucault’s studies of historical discourse. The source material encompasses a wide range of historical documents, primarily formal curricula, textbooks and periodicals. After presenting a survey and close readings of the source material, the dissertation discusses how the construction of the music theory discourse in Norway transformed during the long 20th century. It is argued that several important ruptures and transformations occurred c. 1945–1975. What until then had almost exclusively been a craft-oriented discourse was transformed into a broader discourse that constructed music theory as, among other things, being about ‘understanding music’. Connected to this, Roman numerals were replaced by function symbols in harmonic analysis and the theory training was renamed satslære. The dissertation highlights the complexity of these changes, showing how the idea of theory as craft, coupled with an aversion to theoretical complexity, nonetheless remained strong throughout the 20th century and into the 21st century.
... In the 19 th century, various musical institutions were founded in Europe or reorganized following the model of the Parisian Conservatoire National de Musique, whose structure and educational paths had been reformed in 1795 (Bjørnar, 2022). Aligning with the artistic theories in vogue at the time, conservatories were structured as places to study and reflect on music, separated from the society in which they were situated. ...
Article
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While in the 19th century conservatories were seen as ivory towers, distant from social and economic matters, today the theory termed Socially Engaged Music (SEM), analogous to the already established theory of Socially Engaged Art (SEA), proposes to modernize the mission of these institutions to serve the aspirations and needs of the society in which they operate. This article outlines the key aspects of SEA and SEM and identifies Luigi Nono’s work La fabbrica illuminata as an enlightening example of music focused on social issues.
... Den regulative musikkteorien gjennomgikk tidlig på 1800-tallet store pedagogiske omveltninger: Det skjedde en dreining mot skriftlighet i musikkteoripedagogikken gjennom større fokus på laerebøker og skriftlige øvelser (Utne- Reitan, 2022b). Den eksplosive veksten i produksjonen av moderne, systematiske og tidvis teksttunge laerebøker inkluderte mange verker ment for et voksende publikum av musikkstuderende, både i og utenfor universitetene og konservatoriene. ...
Chapter
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Post-Riemannian function theory has held a strong position in Norwegian music education during the past fifty years. How has this tradition in Western music theory in general, and in Norway in particular, been historically constructed? The article provides a historical overview of (post-)Riemannian function theory, its pre-history and its reception. It does so based on the extensive literature on this topic in English-, German- and Scandinavian-language music research as well as central primary sources. In addition to providing the first survey of this literature in Norwegian, a central contribution of this article is to relate this field of research to the music theory context in Norway. The article discusses how Norwegian music theorists adopted function theory rather late (compared to, for instance, their Swedish and Danish colleagues) and how they preferred to adapt it in a manner that made the function symbols as similar to the older Roman numerals as possible. Drawing on the historical overview and the discussion of function theory in Norway, the final section of the article briefly addresses some general challenges with (post-)Riemannian function theory.
Article
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This article provides a detailed discussion of the pedagogy and legacy of Ernst Friedrich Richter (1808–79). A theory teacher at the Leipzig Conservatory since its founding in 1843, Richter is most famous for authoring one of the most enduring harmony manuals—the Lehrbuch der Harmonie (1853)—which, among other things, was instrumental in popularizing the use of Roman numeral analysis in harmony pedagogy. Gaining a hegemonic position in the Western music theory discourse of the late nineteenth century, he played a key role in shaping the common practice of modern music theory pedagogy. Richter’s legacy has been tainted by critiques from several later theorists. Applying a Foucauldian discourse-theoretical lens, this article attempts to look beyond this historically negative assessment by asking what enabled Richter’s work to become so influential. The article is structured in six sections. Following the introduction and a brief overview of E. F. Richter’s life and works, two sections discuss what characterizes “Richterian” pedagogy. As source material, these sections draw on Richter’s writings as well as the exercises of one of his most famous students, Edvard Grieg (1843–1907). The last section before the conclusion investigates Richter’s legacy, considering both his initial broad international success and later critiques of his influence on modern music theory pedagogy.
Research
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Norges musikkhøgskoles historieprosjekt ble initiert og etablert av rektoratet ved Norges musikkhøgskole og styret i Lindemans Legat i fellesskap. Dets overordnede mål har vært å få frem forsking om, og dokumentasjon av, Musikkonservatoriet i Oslos og NMHs tilblivelse, utvikling og virksomhet, samt se dette i relasjon til kultur- og musikk-utdanningshistorien generelt, nasjonalt og internasjonalt. Prosjektet har vært aktivt fra desember 2017 til juni 2024. Denne sluttrapporten søker å gi oversikt over prosjektets målsetninger, virksomhet og resultater. Prosjektets virksomhet har vært omfattende og dets resultater mange, men det har likevel ikke vært mulig å dokumentere og undersøke alle aspekter ved Musikkhøgskolens historie, forhistorie og bredere utdannings- og kulturhistoriske kontekst. Målet er at sluttrapporten og dens vedlegg kan være en ressurs for fremtidige forskere som ønsker å plukke opp tråden og fortsette utforskingen av norsk musikkutdanningshistorie.
Article
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This article presents historical reflections on relations between music theory and musicology in Norway. More specifically, it asks two questions: What roles has music theory played in musicology in Norway (i.e., as part of musicology education and research)? To what extent has music theory been considered as musicology in Norway (i.e., existing as a distinct subdiscipline of research)? Taking these questions as its point of departure, the article presents the first discussion of the broad intertwining of the histories of music theory and musicology in Norway. It argues that there long has been a shared (regulative) music theory discourse between conservatory education and university musicology education. The picture is more complex regarding music theory in/as musicology research. Music theory in Norway has existed uneasily between being an established practical-pedagogical field (in both conservatory and university contexts) and having a somewhat unclear position within musicology research. There are, however, recent tendencies that indicate a stronger focus on music theory research in Norway, including closer contact with the established international (primarily Anglo-American) field of academic music theory.
Article
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Sammendrag Det er et mysterium hvorfor Edvard Grieg skrev «må aldrig opføres» på manuskriptet til sin eneste symfoni (komponert 1863–64). Standardforklaringen har vært at Grieg ble så imponert etter å ha hørt Johan Svendsens første symfoni i 1867 at han besluttet å ikke fremføre sin egen symfoni mer. Denne artikkelen presenterer et forsøk på å sammenlikne disse to tidlige norske symfoniene gjennom en nærlesning av formbehandlingen i førstesatsene. Dette gjøres i lys av den såkalte «nye formlære», og da særlig Hepokoski og Darsys «sonateteori». Analysene brukes som utgangspunkt for en diskusjon av det musikkhistoriske mysteriet rundt Griegs «forbudte» symfoni, i et forsøk på å tegne et mer nyansert bilde av omstendighetene rundt hvorfor Grieg forkastet symfonien.
Chapter
These music articles were commissioned by an editorial board as part of our former online-only review article series. We are offering them here as a freely available collection.
Article
The teaching of harmony in the United States, if judged objectively, has been a massive failure, even though a dedicated corps of fine musician-scholars labors to impart the curriculum to eager if not always adequately prepared students. These students are taught "about" harmony, as if the topic were really about tonality or the imaginary desires of chords. The only students who can perform and create harmony at a professional level are those who learned such skills outside the academy. The situation was not always so bleak. Nadia Boulanger, for example, learned the art of harmony from her teacher at the Paris Conservatory, Paul Vidal. Even though she was not taught roman numerals or chord functions, she learned harmony as a performative art, as something to express what was implicit in a given melody or bass. The article describes what Paul taught Nadia, and how the incredibly high standards for crafting harmonic-contrapuntal musical fabrics at the Paris Conservatory could be mastered by students willing to memorize the intricacies of a centuries-old art.
Book
The book is the first study of the solfeggio tradition, which was fundamental to the training of European musicians c. 1680–1830. It addresses one of the last major gaps in historical research concerning eighteenth-century performance and pedagogy. The method flourished in Italian conservatories for disadvantaged children, especially at Naples. The presence of large manuscript collections in European archives (almost three hundred in Italy alone) attests to the importance of this kind of exercise. Drawing on research into more than a thousand manuscript sources, the book reconstructs the way professional musicians in Europe learned and thus conceived the fundamentals of music. It reveals an approach that differs radically from modern assumptions. Solfeggi underpinned an art of melody that allowed practitioners to improvise and compose fluently. Part I provides contextual information about apprenticeship, the church music industry, its associated schools, and the continued significance of plainchant to music education. Part II reconstructs the real lessons of an apprentice over the course of three or four years from spoken to sung solfeggio. Part III surveys the primary sources, classifying solfeggi into four main types and outlining their historical origins, characteristic features, and pedagogical purposes.
Book
The original music conservatories were orphanages. Through innovative teaching methods the masters of these old institutions were able to transform poor and often illiterate castoffs into elite musicians, many of whom became famous in the history of classical music. The book tells the story of how this was done. It shows what the lessons were like, what a typical day was like for an orphan, and how children progressed from simple lessons to ones more advanced than any seen today in colleges and universities. Recent rediscoveries of thousands of the old lessons have allowed us to understand how children’s minds were systematically developed to be able to “think” in music. That is, the lessons slowly built up the mental ability to imagine the interplay of two or more voices or instruments. Today we think of Mozart as having a miraculous ability to imagine musical works in his head, but in truth many of the conservatory graduates of that era had attained a similar level of controlled musical imagination. They could improvise for hours at the keyboard, and they could quickly compose whole works for ensembles. The book is accompanied by 100 YouTube videos so that readers can hear what the lessons sounded like.