Ideas about male genius and national character inform both the teaching and the repertoire in some of the most prestigious European classical music programmes. The academies examined are in different countries and their identity is largely based on notions of nation and gender. This can be partly explained by the countries’ ongoing struggles for independence at the time when the academies were founded. This is described by researchers in a new book in which they have studied higher classical music education in Budapest, Tallinn and Helsinki.
The study focuses on the Liszt Ferenc Academy of Music (1875) in Budapest, Hungary; the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre (1919) in Tallinn, Estonia; and the Sibelius Academy (1882) in Helsinki, Finland.
“What they have in common is that they were founded during periods when the countries were negotiating or fighting for independence, during the Habsburg Empire, when Finland was part of Russia and just after the First World War,” says Ann Werner, a musicologist at Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, who is one of the book’s authors. “The national states and their music education emerged in mutual interaction. The idea of male genius was central to classical music in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, typified by great musicians and composers such as Franz Liszt, Jean Sibelius and Béla Bartók. This still influences the education provided today. More recent geniuses from their own nation are also held up as masters and set their mark on the music education, like Arvo Pärt in Estonia.”
The researchers have built up a picture of contemporary teaching through interviews with leaders and teachers of classical music, along with students from four instrument groups: piano, voice, strings, percussion. They have also analysed marketing and policy documents and observed degree concerts, lessons, class concerts and public concerts at the academies.
National sound ideals
The book discusses, for example, how the nation’s own composers are given prominence both by their appearance in concert programmes and by the emphasis they receive in interviews. They come to symbolise the music institutions through their names and images on the websites. The book also shows that national sound ideals differ as described by the teachers and that teaching methods are reproduced, as observed by the researchers in their fieldwork.
“Although the repertoire that the students encounter often consists of works that are over 100 years old, composed by white, European, long-dead men, there are examples of the repertoire being reinterpreted and turned into something avantgarde, perhaps even feminist, by reinterpretations of classical pieces in concert performances staged in contemporary style, with female musicians wearing garish colours,” Werner says.
Even though the academies differ in their teaching styles, they have many similarities. This applies both between the institutions and between the instrument groups within an institution. However, the set-ups for the different instruments vary in how traditional or innovative they are. Percussion stands out as having the most progressive teaching and repertoire at all three institutions.
Some conclusions in brief:
Hoping for self-reflection
“I hope that our study can prompt institutions of higher music education to reflect on their own activities and their role in society,” says Cecilia Ferm Almqvist, researcher at Södertörn University, Stockholm, Sweden, who is one of the researchers behind the study.
Book: Werner, A., & Ferm Almqvist, C. (2026). Nation and Gender in Higher Classical Music Education: Intersectional Perspectives (1st ed.). Routledge. DOI: 10.4324/9781003513544, https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003513544