In the beginning was the organ: On the institutionalisation of professional music education in Norway

Abstract

This article examines the early years of the institutionalisation of professional music education in Norway. Against the background of a social and political debate on the need for a national conservatoire, the central question is why the first Norwegian music conservatoire did not develop out of a nationally motivated initiative but rather from a private organist school. By comparing the Organistskole of Ludvig Mathias and Peter Lindeman with the Musik-Akademi of Otto Winter-Hjelm and Edvard Grieg, different approaches to the realisation of a national conservatoire are outlined. One of the decisive points for the lasting success of the Organistskole was the underlying family pedagogical tradition within the Lindeman family, which had been established over several generations and adapted to local conditions. This tradition was based on a functioning work process, a proven method and public recognition. Winter-Hjelm and Grieg, on the other hand, first had to build these structures by adapting a foreign model (in this case, the Leipzig model) and then attempting to establish a similar network through the founding of the Musik-Akademi itself. If one traces the teaching tradition of the Lindeman family back to the Bach reception of the Berlin School around C. P. E. Bach and J. P. Kirnberger – the so-called ‘golden chain’ – one can speak of an international education transfer in the case of both the Organistskole and the Musik-Akademi, the time frame of which, however, differs considerably. As the example of the present article shows, the longer time frame of cultural transfer in the Lindeman family had a decisive influence on the success of the exchange process.