In music, as in any other discipline or society, there are successful professionals, regular hard-working members, amateurs, dilettantes, and failures. When a musician has studied with a successful performer or composer, it is not unusual for the musician to use that relationship to help establish his or her credentials. After all, even if a student ends up rejecting the methodology or ideology of a teacher, that teacher has undoubtedly left some impact on the student. This is why violinists, pianists, composers, and many others may refer to themselves as part of the “school” or lineage of a particular musician.
The idea for this book first came to me through the combination of several ideas and conversations after I started grad school for composition. I learned that one of my composition teachers had studied with Aaron Copland, and I said, “That sort of makes Copland my compositional grandfather, doesn’t it?” One of my other composition professors said that he had traced his compositional lineage all the way back to Tartini, which broadened my idea of composer influences and the lineage of teachers.
These discoveries caused me to examine how Copland and others may have influenced my teachers and how that may have been passed on to me, which naturally led to examining the bigger picture and how I fit into the compositional “family.” How did my teachers’ teachers influence them? And their teachers? And further back? If I am a compositional descendant of Beethoven or Mahler or Widor or Chadwick, has their compositional style affected me? Can I see it in how I write or the types of pieces I choose to compose? Another example might be Richard Strauss, who taught Alberto Franchetti, who taught Michael Schelle, who taught Frank Felice. The last two were both my teachers, and there is a noticeable tendency all the way down to write orchestral music using large ensembles and dense, highly chromatic instrumentation.
This way of thinking can easily drive composers to begin more closely analyzing the music of their predecessors, examining the various traits of those composers’ writing. When learning how a teacher’s teacher wrote music, it can be a revelation when composers discover that they are using similar techniques or characteristics, like typical chord progressions or tonalities, how thickly the instrumentation is scored, or even favoring certain instruments. As David Conte wrote in a eulogy for Conrad Susa, “Artists may or may not have children, but in the words of Plato, they produce ‘eternal progeny.’ These progeny are their musical works. They also aid in the creation of the works of others.”1 And all the more when those musical works were written by a composer in one’s “lineage.”
For a composer, the character or style of writing music is made up not only of internal creativity and motivation but also the accumulated influences of countless other musicians and composers. We are a product of all the musical input we receive throughout our lives, when studying scores, listening to concerts, performing music ourselves, or even just listening to the radio. One of the most personal and profound influences, though, is that of individual composition teachers. When we study with another composer, the personal relationship colors what is taught and touches much closer to our compositional hearts. Whether the relationship involves years of personal mentoring or simply attending a master class, the respect we have for these composers urges us to make their teachings part of ourselves, part of who we are as composers.
There are many articles written about composers as teachers and about teaching composition, but there is a noticeable dearth of information about composers teaching composers and the importance of examining compositional lineage. In the study of composers and compositional styles, though, it can be very informative to take a look at who taught those composers and how the teachers may have influenced them. One example is how Leon Kirchner’s second string quartet “is imbued with the spirit of Schoenberg, with whom Kirchner studied in California.”2 In Kirchner’s music, the spirit of his teacher lived on. The same might be said of Rimsky-Korsakov’s effect on Stravinsky’s orchestration.
Many biographies of composers talk about the influence of their teachers. Sometimes the effects are easy to trace, while other times those effects are more subtle, and most of the time the discussion is limited to only those direct teachers, without looking further at those composers’ teachers or even further back. Many also analyze composers’ creative processes, but there is rarely a connection to the processes of their own teachers. For some, writing music is taking the knowledge of musical structure and form that have been learned and attempting to create something new with those tools. For others, composition can be abandoning all preconceptions and considerations of what makes “good music” in the attempt to create something new.
In one study, undergraduate music majors spent time as teachers/mentors for elementary students learning composition. Reflection on the teaching process encouraged the teachers to appreciate the intent of the composer and helped them develop their own composer identity.3 Anyone wanting to teach music composition should first learn to compose and should examine their own creative process.
One must first do before one can teach. It is therefore the belief of the authors that educators who are serious about teaching composition first learn to compose themselves. While engaging in the process of composition, the reflective teacher will likely develop strategies for teaching composition that will enlighten their teaching practice.4
Yet an excellent composition teacher does not require being an excellent composer. Nadia Boulanger claimed to have taught more than one thousand students, but she disliked much of her own music and gave up composing to become a teacher. “So the question is posed: Can we have great teachers of composers who are not great composers themselves? Fortunately, the record has shown this to be true.”5
As new composers study the music of earlier ones, they can learn from them, as though building on their foundation. These earlier composers, especially in a “compositional lineage,” should be appreciated and learned from, but not venerated. If we put the earlier composers on a pedestal, we will stagnate. Instead, we should view them as a base upon which we can build. This will encourage growth and experimentation. As Tilo Medek wrote,
Living composers are like bases of monuments. That is to say, we bear the monuments as a base, although, due to the heavy burden, we might rather say “endure.” Every composer that is raised to a monument becomes a base for other living composers, although he himself has contributed to the raising through deepened understanding. Only a fraction of the monuments are alive today, and everything that persists in worship leads to paralysis.6
And at the same time, successful teachers should inspire their students to explore new ways of writing music rather than encouraging them to write the same way they do.
Some composers that I have spoken with about this topic express a similar view, using their teachers as a steppingstone rather than putting them on a pedestal. One composer learned independence from prevailing orthodoxies; rather than writing trendy serial music, his teacher wrote fascinating music in C Major. Another learned to appreciate the difficulty of writing solo passages, since full orchestras can hide individual parts. One teacher imparted the wisdom that the focus should not be on “the numbers” but on how the music sounds. Many of these kinds of lessons stick with composers and are passed down to their students.
As I began researching my own compositional lineage, I made a chart that quickly became too complex to easily navigate. I also saw the potential to help other composers learn about their own lineage, so I began to broaden my focus, eventually going as deep and broad as possible, all the time focusing on composers that wrote music in the broader classical tradition. Many of these composers were academic, teaching the craft of writing music in a university setting. Others wrote film music or electronic music or only dabbled in composition while their primary musical activity was conducting or performing.
What I discovered after beginning research for this book was that this information was widely scattered and not collected anywhere. Many sources and websites were incomplete, only referring to composition teachers, if at all, that composers had during one particular phase of their life, such as when they studied at a particular university. Some sources had spelling errors, incomplete names, or falsely attributed teachers. No comprehensive work existed. As I constructed this book, I used traditional reference sources such as Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians, Dictionary of American Classical Composers, and Greene’s Biographical Encyclopedia of Composers (refer to the selected bibliography at the end of this book for a more thorough list). Other resources that proved useful included obituaries, published interviews, articles in specialized encyclopedias such as the Jewish Encyclopedia or Dizionario Biografico degli Italiani, dissertations, online encyclopedias, tributes, articles, profiles on university websites, CD liner notes, album covers, musical association websites like American Composers Forum or local civic associations, and modern composers’ own websites to fill in the gaps. Sometimes a direct email to the living composer was required. Occasionally the Virtual International Authority File (VIAF), a worldwide standard for library metadata, was consulted to determine the dates or the order of names to use (as with some Asian and Eastern European languages). When various spellings were encountered, the primary entry in Grove’s was used when available. The result is a musical genealogy of more than 17,300 composers listing their teachers and notable students, drawing from countless sources.
The larger this book became, the more important it became to limit the focus. If a composer was influenced by someone or inspired by the music of someone else, that relationship has not been mentioned. Only actual teacher–student relationships have been included, and only if the teacher was also a composer—the focus of this book is on composers teaching composers. Since it can be difficult to determine the nature of the instruction, and since a piano teacher or conductor who is a composer (Nadia Boulanger, for example) may also function as a composition teacher or may impart compositional information in the course of teaching their other subject, the relationships have been included if both the teacher and student were composers, regardless of whether the teacher was a nominal instrument or theory teacher. And vice versa, if the teacher was not also a composer, they were not included even if they taught composition.
References to teachers have been omitted if only a name or partial name was mentioned in the literature but no facts about the teacher are known. If no teachers who were also composers were found, the term “self-taught” has been used. “Unknown” is used if teachers or students were unable to be located. Composers of orchestral, keyboard, vocal, or instrumental music were included as long as they participated in the tradition of what is called “classical music,” including electronic music and film scores. Omitted were singer-songwriters, pop music composers, and jazz composers, unless they crossed over into classical or film music. Those other categories of composers deserve their own book.
It is my hope that this book may serve as a resource for music historians, composers, and theorists who want to analyze the pedagogical influences of particular composers on their students, whether to describe particular “schools” of composition or just to trace their own compositional lineage and learn how they fit in the big picture of composing music. As writers and researchers examine the relationships of composers, they will be able to more readily access the composition teachers that a particular composer had, who taught those teachers, and their national origins. Since this information has never before been gathered into one place, it is the author’s hope that this book will lead readers to making connections in new and previously difficult ways.
As with standard genealogies, this book of composer genealogies is a reflection of life. Things change, people are born and die, composers study under new teachers, and it is even possible that there are mistakes in this book. If you have corrections, additions, or updates, please email them to composergenealogies@gmail.com.
This book is an alphabetical list of composers around the world and throughout history, including the dates they lived, the primary countries where they lived, their teachers, and their notable students. No index is provided because the entire work serves as an index with comprehensive cross-referencing. For example, someone listed as a student of Olivier Messiaen will also have Messiaen listed as a teacher. To eliminate the possible confusion of complex surnames such as d’Indy, Saint-Saëns, or Le Sueur, entries have been organized alphabetically, letter by letter, ignoring spaces, hyphens, and apostrophes.
Notes
1. David Conte et al. “Conrad Susa (1935–2013): Composer Teacher Friend.” Choral Journal 55, no. 1 (2014): 44.
2. Corinna da Fonseca-Wollheim. “A Composer’s Genealogy.” New York Times, May 24, 2016.
3. Elizabeth A. Menard and Robert Rosen. “Preservice Music Teacher Perceptions of Mentoring Young Composers.” Journal of Music Teacher Education 25, no. 2 (February 2016): 66–80.
4. Clint Randles and Mark Sullivan. “How Composers Approach Teaching Composition: Strategies for Music Teachers.” Music Educators Journal 99, no. 3 (March 2013): 51–57.
5. Barrett Ashley Johnson. Training the Composer: A Comparative Study between the Pedagogical Methodologies of Arnold Schoenberg and Nadia Boulanger. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2010.
6. Tilo Medek. “‘Lehret die Lehrer!’ (Hanns Eisler): Lebende Komponisten sind wie Sockel von Denkmälern.” Mitteilungen der Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Mittelrheinische Musikgeschichte 69 (1998): 463–471. “Lebende Komponisten sind wie Sockel von Denkmälern. Es soll besagen, dass wir die Denkmäler wie Sockel tragen, wenngleich es—bei der drückenden Last—eher ertragen heissen müsste. Jeder zum Denkmal erhobene Komponist wird zur Last für den lebenden Komponisten, auch wenn er selbst zur Denkmalerhebung durch das vertiefte Verstehen beigetragen hat. Nur ein austariertes Verhältnis von Denkmal und Heutigem ist lebendig, alles in Verehrung verharrende führt zur Lähmung.”