Journal articles by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Music Theory Online, 2024
ABSTRACT: This article provides a detailed discussion of the pedagogy and legacy of Ernst Friedri... more ABSTRACT: 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.
Svensk tidskrift för musikforskning, 2024
This article presents historical reflections on relations between music theory and musicology in ... more 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 has long been a shared (regulative) music theory discourse between conservatoire 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 conservatoire 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. The article is an edited version of the author’s trial lecture for the PhD degree.
Journal of Music Theory, 2022
What characterized conservatory music theory pedagogy in nineteenth-century Europe? This article ... more 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.
Danish Musicology Online, 2022
In his treatise Tonalitätstheorie des parallelen Leittonsystems (1937), Norwegian composer Geirr ... more In his treatise Tonalitätstheorie des parallelen Leittonsystems (1937), Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt attempts to construct a theory of tonality based on Norwegian folk music as an alternative to the established “Inter-European” theories. He reframes four of the church modes as a specifically “Norwegian” or “Norse” tone system (even giving the scales new names based on Old Norse: rir, sum, fum, and tyr). The treatise received a mixed reception and has never been acknowledged by Norwegian music scholars. This article discusses Tveitt’s work discussed as a case of music theory entangled in radical nationalist ideology.
Music Analysis, 2021
This article presents an analysis of Grieg's lyric piece ‘Takk’ (‘Gratitude’), focusing on the B ... more This article presents an analysis of Grieg's lyric piece ‘Takk’ (‘Gratitude’), focusing on the B section of the piece. In that section Grieg makes use of a harmonic progression that is difficult to explain vertically (i.e. in terms of functional harmony). However, it may be explained as a result of play with chromatic voice-leading patterns. The progression in question – which is saturated with half-diminished chords – shares several formal characteristics with the well-known omnibus progression. It is thus argued that ‘Takk’ features a deformation of this chromatic voice-leading schema. The progression in question (called x) has the same sequential possibilities as the omnibus, which helps reveal an underlying logic in the complex structure of the piece's B section. Grieg's omnibus deformation in ‘Takk’ is an excellent example of how he chose to structure formal sections based on underlying systematic linearity. A comparison of ‘Takk’ with other lyric pieces sheds light on some regularities regarding systematic linearity in Grieg's music, for instance in the form of schematic deformation.
Studia Musicologica Norvegica, 2020
It is a mystery why Edvard Grieg wrote ‘must never be performed’ on the manuscript of his only sy... more It is a mystery why Edvard Grieg wrote ‘must never be performed’ on the manuscript of his only symphony (composed 1863–64). The common explication has been that Grieg was so impressed after hearing Johan Svendsen’s first symphony in 1867 that he chose to stop performing his own symphony. This article presents an attempt at comparing these two early Norwegian symphonies by way of a close reading of the treatment of form in their first movements. This is done in light of the so-called ‘new Formenlehre’, with emphasis on Hepokoski and Darcy’s ‘sonata theory’. The analyses make out the point of departure for a discussion of the music-historical mystery surrounding Grieg’s ‘forbidden’ symphony, attempting to draw a more nuanced picture of the circumstances surrounding Grieg’s rejection of the symphony.
Studia Musicologica Norvegica, 2018
This paper presents a closer look at Grieg’s music theory studies from his time as a student at t... more This paper presents a closer look at Grieg’s music theory studies from his time as a student at the Leipzig conservatory. The exercises in harmony and counterpoint, together with Grieg’s self-biographical sketch “My first success”, is among the most important primary sources in the research on Grieg’s early years. The source material is central to still ongoing debates regarding Grieg’s student years, but a detailed study presenting the structure and contents of it has, until now, been missing in the literature. The data presented and discussed in this paper, including a complete counting and categorization of the exercises in Grieg’s workbooks, is based on results from a recently finished master’s thesis on Grieg’s theory studies.
Book chapters by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Høyere musikkutdanning: Historiske perspektiver, 2023
Post-Riemannian function theory has held a strong position in Norwegian music education during th... more 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.
Høyere musikkutdanning: Historiske perspektiver, 2023
This bibliographic overview maps published texts on higher music education in Norway where the hi... more This bibliographic overview maps published texts on higher music education in Norway where the historical perspective is prominent. It is divided into four sections: general literature, literature on specific institutions, literature on specific subject areas and literature on specific pedagogues.
Edvard Grieg und seine skandinavischen Kollegen in ihren Beziehungen zu Leipzig: 8. Deutscher Edvard-Grieg-Kongress vom 15. bis 17. Oktober 2020 in Leipzig, 2021
This paper on Edvard Grieg’s relation to music theory was read at the eighth German Edvard Grieg ... more This paper on Edvard Grieg’s relation to music theory was read at the eighth German Edvard Grieg conference in Leipzig, October 15–17, 2020. It was included in the conference report that was published the following year.
Edited volumes by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Cappelen Damm Akademisk, 2023
Denne antologien inneholder historiske perspektiv på høyere musikkutdanning, med særlig fokus på ... more Denne antologien inneholder historiske perspektiv på høyere musikkutdanning, med særlig fokus på Norges musikkhøgskoles tilblivelse og utvikling. Antologien utgis i sammenheng med Musikkhøgskolens 50-årsjubileum i 2023.
Antologien inneholder kapitler som drøfter institusjonalisering av musikerutdanningen, mesterlæremodellen, utviklingen av såkalte støttefag i høyere musikkutdanning, etableringen og fremveksten av forskjellige fagområder, sjangerutvidelse i utøverutdanningen og utvidelse av høyere musikkutdannings ansvarsområde.
Musikkutdanningshistorie kan utforskes fra en rekke innfallsvinkler, både med utgangspunkt i skriftlige og muntlige kilder. Bidragene i denne antologien reflekterer forskjellige måter å arbeide med historisk forskning på i en musikkfaglig kontekst.
Antologien vil kunne være av særlig interesse for ledere, lærere og studenter i høyere musikkutdanning, og ellers alle som er interessert i musikkutdanning. Vi håper også at antologien kan tjene til inspirasjon for fremtidig historisk orientert forskning på høyere musikkutdanning.
Book reviews by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Studia Musicologia Norvegica, 2024
Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Musiktheorie [Journal of the German-Speaking Society of Music Theory], 2021
"Das Reich der Harmonien war immer meine Traumwelt," Edvard Grieg claimed in an oftquoted letter ... more "Das Reich der Harmonien war immer meine Traumwelt," Edvard Grieg claimed in an oftquoted letter to Henry T. Finck. 1 Unsurprisingly, harmony has also been a central topic in the field of Grieg research. Benedict Taylor's Towards a Harmonic Grammar of Grieg's Late Piano Music: Nature and Nationalism (2017) is the latest extensive treatment of this subject. The book is published as part of Routledge's Royal Musical Association Monographs series and is aimed at a specialist readership. Its author is a Reader in Music at the University of Edinburgh and a co-editor of Music & Letters, and has published extensively on Romantic music (particularly Mendelssohn but also Sibelius, Dvořák, Schubert, and Sullivan, among others). Grieg research was long dominated by Scandinavian and German scholars, 2 while studies on Norway's "national composer" produced in the Anglophone world remained limited. 3 During the last fifteen years, however, interest in Grieg within British music scholarship appears to have grown significantly. Key examples include the highly influential work by Daniel M. Grimley and the many Grieg-related articles by Georgia Volioti. 4 Taylor's work constitutes another contribution to this happy development. The book under review here aims to go further than the several existing studies of Grieg's
Reports by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Norges musikkhøgskole, 2024
Norges musikkhøgskoles historieprosjekt ble initiert og etablert av rektoratet ved Norges musikkh... more 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.
Theses by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Norwegian Academy of Music, 2022
The point of departure for this dissertation is one of the most fundamental questions in music th... more 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.
Norwegian Academy of Music, 2018
This thesis asks central questions regarding our understanding of Edvard Grieg’s (1843-1907) educ... more This thesis asks central questions regarding our understanding of Edvard Grieg’s (1843-1907) education, and how it may have influenced his style. Its mission is to account for Grieg’s studies in music theory (harmony and counterpoint) at the Leipzig Conservatory in the period 1858-1862 and examine to which extent these studies might have played a role in shaping his harmonic style. Every exercise in Grieg’s workbooks has been studied. The exercises have been counted and categorized, and selected passages are commented on and analyzed in the thesis. The study shows that Grieg wrote 967 exercises. This alone proves his diligence and dedication towards the subject. From the study of the exercises, it is evident that counterpoint, to a greater extent than harmony, was the main subject of his theory training. The last part of the thesis clarifies how Grieg may have benefited from this contrapuntal education. This is shown both through examples from passages containing polyphony in Grieg’s production, and through examples of linear harmony. Through viewing Grieg’s innovative harmony as built on linear grounds, it has become clear that his training in counterpoint in Leipzig has played a significant role in shaping his style.
Conference papers by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Music and the University, 2022
Introduction 1 Music entered academia rather late in Norway. It was first at the middle of the tw... more Introduction 1 Music entered academia rather late in Norway. It was first at the middle of the twentieth century that a musicologist was permanently hired, and a musicological department established, at a Norwegian university. There had, however, been professional music education in Norway since the late nineteenth century-most notably in the form of conservatoires, but also in the contexts of teacher-training seminars and military bands. A central subject in all of the mentioned educational contexts was that of music theory, particularly harmony-and, for advanced students, counterpoint. It is such music-theoretical subjects, or more generally what I call 'the music theory discourse', in Norway I will discuss in this paper, focusing on the period from roughly 1945 to 1975. As already hinted to, and which I will elaborate on more thoroughly below, this was a period coloured by notions of academisation in the context of higher music education in Norway. I, therefore, ask the following question: How did the music theory discourse in Norway change in the wake of the notions of academisation in Norwegian higher music education in the period c. 1945 to 1975? This paper presents selected findings from my recently completed PhD dissertation, where I discuss the discursive construction of music-theoretical subjects in Norwegian conservatoire education throughout the long twentieth century. 2 This is the first extensive study in the history
Articulating Form, 2022
Introduction 1 Norway got its first conservatoire-or, more precisely, its first lasting conservat... more Introduction 1 Norway got its first conservatoire-or, more precisely, its first lasting conservatoire-when father and son Lindeman opened their organist school in Christiania (now Oslo) in 1883. The school soon expanded to include other instruments as well and changed its name to 'The Music Conservatoire' (Musik-Konservatoriet) in 1894. From the beginning, music theory was one of the most central elements of the education. Apart from elementary theory, i.e. learning the musical rudiments needed for reading sheet music, harmony was (and to a certain extent still is) the most fundamental music-theoretical discipline in any professional Western-classical music education. One of the conservatoire's teachers, Gustav Fredrik Lange, would also author the very first Norwegian harmony textbook, published in 1897. 2 It would go half a century before a similar book on the topic of musical form was published in Norway. In my soon-to-be-finished PhD dissertation, 3 I investigate how the mandatory theory training in conservatoire education-i.e. subjects such as harmony and counterpoint, today usually called satslaere in Norwegian-has been discursively constructed in Norway during what I call the long twentieth century (c. 1880-2020). Using a Foucauldian lens, I have studied formal curricula from the Oslo Conservatoire (MKiO) and the Norwegian Academy of Music (NMH), music theory books published in Norway and debates on music theory in Norwegian periodicals (journals, magazines and newspapers). As harmony clearly has been the most central element in this mandatory theory training, my PhD project gives much focus to this subject. Both harmony and counterpoint focus on more 'local' elements in music, i.e. at phrase level or in smaller formal designs. In this paper, I will instead explore the treatment of larger forms in the history of music theory in Norway. In particular, I will discuss how this topic has been treated in the Norwegian music-theoretical literature. In short, I pose the following question: How has musical form historically been conceptualized in Norway? Before zooming in on the topic of musical form, I will briefly summarize the key findings from my PhD project which addresses the historical construction of what I label 'the music theory discourse' in Norway.
Nordic Network for Research in Music Education, 2021
Introduction 1 In my ongoing PhD project, I investigate the role of music theory in the history o... more Introduction 1 In my ongoing PhD project, I investigate the role of music theory in the history of higher music education in Norway. I am especially interested in the mandatory training in harmony and counterpoint in the context of undergraduate training of performing musicians. This kind of music-theoretical training is today often called satslaere. This term, with German roots, is not easily translatable to English. The simplest explanation would be to say that it is an umbrella term that covers a collection of music-theoretical subjects. The two most central are harmony and counterpoint, but it may also include related subjects, such as form, instrumentation and arranging. I do not want to pursue any further definition of satslaere at this stage. It suffices to say that the term is, and has been, rather loosely defined. In this paper, I will discuss how this term emerged in music-theoretical discourse in Norway and I will argue that satslaere is not a particularly old term in Norway, at least not compared to the names of the specific disciplines that it often is associated with (harmonilaere, kontrapunkt etc.). Central questions are: What were the implications of the introduction of this term? How did it differ from the mentioned older established terminology? Why was the new term needed? What made its emergence possible? To be able to discuss these questions, I have studied material from the archives of the Oslo Conservatoire and the Norwegian Academy of Music as well as the digital collection of the Norwegian National Library. Theory and method Following Michel Foucault (1969/2002, p. 54), I understand discourses as "practices that systematically form the objects of which they speak". As Foucault has shown in his archaeological and genealogical studies, discourses are not static, but subject to changes and transformations through history. It is in the sense of this social-constructivist premise, I will investigate the emergence of the term satslaere in music-theoretical discourse in Norway.
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Journal articles by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Book chapters by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Edited volumes by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Antologien inneholder kapitler som drøfter institusjonalisering av musikerutdanningen, mesterlæremodellen, utviklingen av såkalte støttefag i høyere musikkutdanning, etableringen og fremveksten av forskjellige fagområder, sjangerutvidelse i utøverutdanningen og utvidelse av høyere musikkutdannings ansvarsområde.
Musikkutdanningshistorie kan utforskes fra en rekke innfallsvinkler, både med utgangspunkt i skriftlige og muntlige kilder. Bidragene i denne antologien reflekterer forskjellige måter å arbeide med historisk forskning på i en musikkfaglig kontekst.
Antologien vil kunne være av særlig interesse for ledere, lærere og studenter i høyere musikkutdanning, og ellers alle som er interessert i musikkutdanning. Vi håper også at antologien kan tjene til inspirasjon for fremtidig historisk orientert forskning på høyere musikkutdanning.
Book reviews by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Reports by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Theses by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
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.
Conference papers by Bjørnar Utne-Reitan
Antologien inneholder kapitler som drøfter institusjonalisering av musikerutdanningen, mesterlæremodellen, utviklingen av såkalte støttefag i høyere musikkutdanning, etableringen og fremveksten av forskjellige fagområder, sjangerutvidelse i utøverutdanningen og utvidelse av høyere musikkutdannings ansvarsområde.
Musikkutdanningshistorie kan utforskes fra en rekke innfallsvinkler, både med utgangspunkt i skriftlige og muntlige kilder. Bidragene i denne antologien reflekterer forskjellige måter å arbeide med historisk forskning på i en musikkfaglig kontekst.
Antologien vil kunne være av særlig interesse for ledere, lærere og studenter i høyere musikkutdanning, og ellers alle som er interessert i musikkutdanning. Vi håper også at antologien kan tjene til inspirasjon for fremtidig historisk orientert forskning på høyere musikkutdanning.
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.