Notes on the historical factors that led composition become distanced from music education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.33871/vortex.2026.14.11372Keywords:
Composition, Improvisation, Conservatory educationAbstract
This paper discusses some of the historical factors that led to composition becoming detached from music education. Currently, compositional practices are peripheral components in many educational programs, necessitating an understanding of the historical paths that led to this shift. Drawing on references from music history, theory, performance, and music education, we discuss how compositional practices became distanced from musical training during the transition from Classical to Romantic aesthetics. The article provides a brief overview of the teaching model developed in Neapolitan conservatories in the 18th century, analyzes its transformations throughout the 19th century, discusses the social construction of the composer as a genius, and concludes by addressing the music education model developed in universities between the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Downloads
References
BONDS, Mark Evan. The Beethoven syndrome: hearing music as autobiography. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
BOURMAYAN, Louise; FRISCH, Jacques. Método de baixo contínuo ao cravo. Rio de Janeiro: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, 2024.
BURKHOLDER, J. Peter; GROUT, Donald Jay; PALISCA, Claude V. A history of Western
music. 10. ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019.
BURNARD, Pamela. Rethinking “musical creativity” and the notion of multiple creativities in music. In ODENA, Oscar (ed.). Musical Creativity: Insights from Music Education Research. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. p. 5-28.
COOK, Nicholas. Music as Creative Practice. Oxford: Oxford Press, 2018.
DENORA, Tia. Beethoven and the construction of genius: musical politics in Vienna, 1792–1803. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
FÉLIX, Jorge André Mouta. O Papel da Improvisação no Ensino de Música de Câmara Antiga e a sua Aplicação no Ensino Básico. Dissertação de mestrado (Mestrado em Artes). Escola Superior de Artes Aplicadas do Instituto Politécnico de Castelo Branco. 79 páginas. 2018. Disponível em: https://www.oasisbr.ibict.br/vufind/Record/RCAP_5175f9cc762faf7dcbcbcda629f0a67f
FRANÇA, Cecília Cavalieri; SWANWICK, Keith. Composição, apreciação e performance na educação musical: teoria, pesquisa e prática. Em Pauta, Porto Alegre, v. 13, n. 21, p. 5–41, 2002. Disponível em: https://seer.ufrgs.br/index.php/EmPauta/article/view/8526. Acesso em: 13 ago. 2025.
GIES, Stephan. How music performance education became academic: on the history of music higher education in Europe. In GIES, Stephan; SAETRE, Jon Helge (eds.). Becoming musicians: student involvement and teacher collaboration in higher music education. Oslo: NMH Publications, 2019. p. 31-51.
GJERDINGEN, Robert O. Child composers in the old conservatories: how orphans became elite musicians. Nova York: Oxford University Press, 2020.
GLOVER, Joanna. Children Composing. Londres: RoutledgeFalmer, 2000.
GOOLEY, Dana Andrew. Fantasies of Improvisation: Free Playing in Nineteenth-Century Music. New York: Oxford University Press, 2018.
GRASSI, Bernardo. De onde vêm minhas ideias? Estratégias para a delimitação e a resolução de problemas na composição musical. Dissertação de mestrado. Programa de Pós-Graduação em Música do Departamento de Artes, Setor de Ciências Humanas, Letras e Artes da Universidade Federal do Paraná. Curitiba. 185 páginas. 2008.
HUNTER, Mary. “To play as if from the soul of the composer”: the idea of the performer in early romantic aesthetics. Journal of the American Musicological Society, v. 58, nº 2, 2005. p. 357-398. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1525/jams.2005.58.2.357. Acesso em: 27 de jul. de 2025.
ISAZA, Andrés Benavides. La Armonía en el teclado o el partimento como estrategia metodológica para la enseñanza de la improvisación y el aprendizaje del lenguaje musical. Ricercare, v. 6, 2016. p. 1-33. Disponível em: https://publicaciones.eafit.edu.co/index.php/ricercare/article/view/4375. Acesso em 01 de abril de 2026.
JAMASON, Corey. The performer and the composer. In LAWSON, Colin; STOWELL, Robin. The Cambridge History of Musical Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. p. 105-132.
KASCHUB, Michele; SMITH, Janice. Minds on Music: Composition for Creative and Critical Thinking. Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield Publications, 2009.
KERMAN, Joseph. A few canonic variations. Critical Inquiry, v. 10, nº 1, 1983. p. 107-125. Disponível em: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1343408. Acesso em: 27 de jul. de 2025.
LAWSON, Colin. Tracing Conservatoire values past, present, and future. In LAWSON, Colin; SALAZAR, Diana; PERKINS, Rosei (eds.). Inside the contemporary conservatoire: critical perspectives from the Royal College of Music, London. New York: Routledge, 2025.
LOGES, Natasha; LAWSON, Colin. The teaching of performance. In LAWSON, Colin; STOWELL, Robin. The Cambridge History of Musical Performance. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. p. 135-168.
MCNAIR, Nicholas Anthony Hawksley. The Creative Abyss: Improvisation and the Challenge of Not-knowing. Tese de doutorado ( Doutoramento em Artes Musicais). Faculdade de ciências sociais e humanas da Universidade Nova de Lisboa. 186 páginas. 2023. Disponível em: https://run.unl.pt/entities/publication/7ec362fe-16b3-4b2f-8b30-1995758b250c. Acesso em 01 de abril de 2026.
MORTENSEN, John J. The pianist’s guide to historic improvisation. New York: Oxford
University Press, 2020.
ODENA, Oscar. Perspectives on musical creativity: where next? In ODENA, Oscar (ed.). Musical Creativity: Insights from Music Education Research. Farnham: Ashgate, 2012. p. 201-213.
SANGUINETTI, Giorgio. The art of partimento: history, theory, and practice. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
SARATH, Edward. Musical improvisation and open forms in the age of Beethoven. New York: Routledge, 2018.
SHOULDICE, H. N. Teachers’ beliefs regarding composition in elementary general music:
Definitions, values, and impediments. Research Studies in Music Education, v. 36, n. 2, p. 215–230, 2014. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1177/1321103X14556574. Acesso em: 27 de jul. de 2025.
STELLA, Gaetano. Partimenti in the Age of Romanticism: Raimondi, Platania, and Boucheron. Journal of Music Theory, v. 51, nº 1, 2007. p. 161-186. Disponível em: https://www.jstor.org/stable/40283111. Acesso em: 25 de março de 2026.
SWANWICK, Keith. A Basis for Music Education. Londres: Routledge, 2003.
TARUSKIN, Richard. Music in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries. Vol. 2. Nova York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
TERIETE, Philipp. Zimmerman’s Encyclopédie du pianiste compositeur: the musical education of piano virtuosos in Chopin’s Paris. In: REMEŠ, Derek; TERIETE, Philipp (ed.). The universal instrument: historical and contemporary perspectives on applied piano. Hildesheim; Zürich; New York: Olms-Weidmann, 2020. p. 277-324. ISBN 978-3-487-15761-0.
TREGEAR, Peter. Universities and conservatoires. In WATT. Paul; COLLINS, Sarah; ALLIS,
Michael. Music and Intellectual Culture in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. p. 271-291.
UTNE-REITAN, Bjornar. Music Theory Pedagogy in the Nineteenth Century: Comparing Traditions of Three European Conservatoires. Journal of Music Theory, v. 66, nº 1, 2022. p.63-91. Disponível em: https://read.dukeupress.edu/journal-of-musictheory/ article/66/1/63/313634/Music-Theory-Pedagogy-in-the-Nineteenth. Acesso em: 30 de jul. de 2025.
VECCHIO, M.; HOPKINS, M. Inclusion of Music Composition Activities in Secondary School Band Curricula. Journal of Music Teacher Education, online first, 2025. Disponível em: https://doi.org/10.1177/10570837241309030. Acesso em: 27 de jul. de 2025.
WILLIAMS, Benjamin John. Music composition pedagogy: a history, philosophy and guide. Tese de doutorado (Doutorado em Música). Graduate School, The Ohio State University. Columbus. 169 páginas. 2010. Disponível em: https://etd.ohiolink.edu/acprod/odb_etd/ws/send_file/send?accession=osu1274787048&disposition=inline. Acesso em: 5 de ago. de 2025.
WEBER, William. The history of musical canon. In COOK, Nicholas; EVERIST, Mark (eds). Rethinking Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001. p.349-355.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Eduardo Brasil, Fernando Lima, Fábio Ventura, Caroline Caregnato

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Autores mantêm os direitos autorais e concedem à revista o direito de primeira publicação, com o trabalho simultaneamente licenciado sob a Licença Creative Commons Attribution que permite o compartilhamento do trabalho com reconhecimento da autoria e publicação inicial nesta revista.