Le 1er juillet 2017
de 12h00 à 12h30
Le Patio (université de Strasbourg)
22 rue René Descartes, 67000 Strasbourg
salle 3203
Séance - Teaching and Pedagogy (II)
Pré-acte / Acte
Auteur : Michiel Schuijer
There has been frequent discussion about the role of counterpoint in professional music education. What goals does it serve, and for whom is it relevant? Over the years these questions have become all the more pertinent as its links with composition faded into the background. Now, counterpoint can be taught as a historical métier, as an aspect of musical style, or as a way to discipline the minds of music students. Often, it is integrated with harmony. Although as an independent subject it has been required from decreasing number of music students, recent years have seen a steady stream of new counterpoint manuals and reprints of older ones.
This paper aims to show how counterpoint has sustained itself as a teaching discipline with respect to changing musical practices and institutional regimes. It discusses the need of counterpoint as seen by authors of manuals and treatises from different historical periods, including our own. And it compares the role of counterpoint in music education to that of Ancient Greek and Latin in secondary education.
Like the study of Classic texts, the practice of counterpoint represents values that teachers and institutions have found important enough to transmit. However, there is an ongoing concern about the breach between this practice and contemporary experience. It is remarkable that many counterpoint books do not justify their existence to a critical readership, but rather take a polemical stance towards the cultural and intellectual climate of their time. The more recent publications oppose the counterpoint teaching tradition itself.
