Music Theory Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century

Abstract

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 in/as musicology in Norway

“…In the case of music theory pedagogy, this development was especially tied to the influence of Ernst Friedrich Richter's 1853 harmony textbook (Richter, 1853). Among other things, Richter's hugely influential work popularised the use of Weberian Roman numerals in conservatoire harmony teaching and propagated a very practical pedagogy (see Utne-Reitan, 2022b). As Richter states in his preface: 'Here the question to be asked is not Why?…”

“…Function analysis had first been introduced in German music theory in the late nineteenth century by Hugo Riemann (Riemann, 1893). It would, however, undergo a long process of transfer and transformation -including an earlier reception in Sweden and (particularly) Denmark -before it was gradually introduced in Norway from around 1950 and finally replaced the older Roman numerals as the dominant system in the 1970s (see Utne-Reitan, 2022a. Various developments in musicology contributed to this transition.…”

“…23 I will not go into the technical details here, as this is well covered in the existing research literature on post-Riemannian function theories in Scandinavia (seeHvidtfelt Nielsen, 2019Kirkegaard, 2024;Kirkegaard-Larsen, 2018Utne-Reitan 2022a.24 No volumes were published in the period1969-1975. …”