The Department of Music: General Education Versus Well-Tempered Theory and Scholarship

In light of President Pusey's announced intention of strengthening the Humanities at Harvard, the CRIMSON is running a series on significant departments in the field. This is the first in the series, the rest of which will appear next fall.

At a time when the University is placing increasing emphasis on both General Education and the Humanities, the Music Department is faced with the difficult problem of how to fulfill is responsibility to both. It must, on the one hand, retain a certain minimum degree of intensity for the concentrator in what is by nature a highly technical branch of Humanities. On the other, as one of the most popular fields for the generally-educated, it must be nontechnical and historical enough for the non-concentrator.

At present this basic duality is enormously compounded by the decimation of the department's staff over the past year and a half. Nearly half of the permanent faculty members were lost death and retirement. The retirement of Archibald T. "Dee" Davison, '06, the grand old man of the department, was followed in quick succession by the deaths of Professors Stephen D. Tuttle and Otto J. Gombosi. Then, during the past term, Assistant Professor Alan D. Sapp has been sidelined by illness. All this has been resulted in the dropping of several courses in an already none too large offering, substituting of instructors for professors, and doubling up in courses and tutorial.

As far as manpower situation is concerned, the department is finally emerging from "the valley of the shadow of death" according to Chairman Randall Thompson '20. At least one new professor and one instructor will be appointed next year, and possibly more. But, even if this problem is solved, the more difficult question of the function of a music department in a liberal arts college will still remain.

Harvard's attempt to combine the technical with the general education aspects of musical instruction is virtually unique. In the first place, the University is one of the few in the country which has retained musical education within the faculty of Arts and Sciences. Even at such institutions as Yale and Oberlin, courses in Music are given in special schools on both the undergraduate and graduate levels.

In its efforts to maintain the liberal arts tradition, Harvard, along the certain other universities, notably the University of California, has not followed this trend. In a system in which music is retained as one of the liberal arts, the approach to it as an art form deserving of scholarly research in theory and history is stressed over the more practical aspects. This has always been especially true at Harvard, where the department holds in its combined library facilities one of the fines music research collections in the country.

But in addition to retaining music within the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard is doubly unusual in its attempt to combine the technical and general education approaches to musical instruction within the same courses. Obviously, a conflict arises, and it is the problem of reconciling these two aspects which is the chief one of the department.

The trend towards the general education has been evident in recent years. There has been a consistent effort to increase the number of courses of interest to non-concentrators, such as Music 128, "Elizabethan Madrigals and Songs." In addition, there has been a departure from the traditional nucleus of basic theory courses for concentrators to allow a wider selection of courses for a major in the History and Literature of Music.

This trend clashes with the continuing need for the basic musical theory courses which form the basis of concentration: Harmony, Counterpoint, and Orchestration. The number of concentrators in the department--65 at both Harvard and Radcliffe--is considerably smaller than that in the Fine Arts and the Literatures, and would therefore imply that relatively few students major in Music in order to get a broad liberal education.

Clash With Necessary Theory

This trend among the concentrators, and hence the need for the theory courses, is borne out by the interests of the students themselves. Interviews reveal that some are talented performers others wish to be composers, a third group is largely composed of "Radcliffe girls who want to be artsy but don't want to work too hard of it."

Most of these concentrators, then, major in Music for semi-professional training and seek their liberal education through a wide range of outside courses, since only six are required for honors concentration. The typical attitude is expressed by a sophomore: "I am majoring in Music because I wanted a thorough training in the field. But because I also wanted a first rate liberal education in addition to my Music, I came here rather than to a conservatory."

The General Education aspect of Music, then, has been aimed primarily at the non-concentrator. The prime example of this is Music 1, felt by many students to be too sketchy for concentrators, who are encouraged to take Music 123 and 124, a two-year survey. Generally, however, the department does not make such a clear distinction between courses offered for concentrators and non-concentrators. The unexpected popularity among non-concentrators of "The Art of Bach" has created something of a problem for the department in planning the course that will have appeal to concentrators and non-concentrators alike.

This problem will be magnified by the increase number of history courses to be offered after replacing faculty vacancies. At present, the department has attempted to solve the problem by assigning different types of work to concentrators and non-concentrators in such courses as "The Art of Bach." Larger institutions are able to offer wholly separate history courses of varying technicality, but the limit on the number of permanent appointees here prohibits that arrangement.

The general philosophy of the courses in Music History and Literature is unlike those of the other Humanities in that it emphasizes depth rather than breadth. To Thompson, whom Dr. Davison has called "first among our native composers of choral music," education should be a deepening rather than a broadening experiences. If you take a survey course in the History of Music and then a survey course in, say, the Baroque period, are you necessarily more educated?

Radical Shift in Concentration

"Depth is achieved by a variety of types of courses, such as a survey, an analysis of musical form, a course in opers, a course in chamber music, or some other type. To take a course in Beethoven's string quartets and than another in Haydn's is not deepening one's intellectual experience."

Perhaps the most radical shift in the department away from the technical and specialized is its revision of the requirements for concentration. A student may now take a few as two undergraduate courses in theory, and spend the rest of his time in history. This practice is in general, not favored by very many other institutions. Where theory courses are still regarded as a fundamental irreducible nucleus of material to be mastered, as well as a test of the student's musical aptitude. Despite this provision, however, most students here take more than a minimum share of theory courses.

Finally, the department has traditionally avoided specialized training by refusing to give practical music instruction, beyond its Basic Piano requirement for all concentrators. This has began in keeping with the University's genera policy of the separation of liberal arts an professional training, but the department is more explicit to its position. "We strongly favor the student's following up his particular musical talent outside of his curriculum; but the University is not a conservatory, and does not offer his training," stated that Arthur T. Meritt, Fanny P. Mason Professor of Music. "We feel that we have time only to teach thoroughly what is to us most important: the theory and history of Music." Meritt is also the author of a curriculum whereby the Music major may receive departmental credit for taking three University and one conservatory course per year, and graduate in five years, but this plan has not proved popular.

Because of the present reduction of the department, it is not completely possible to compare it with similar faculties in other institutions, yet the angling of the curriculum and the courses offered do invite such a comparison. If the present offerings are considered as Thompson expresses it, "a basic core curriculum for those wishing to concentrate," this becomes more feasible.

The Harvard Music Department is particularly fortunate in having Thompson and Walter H. Piston, Jr. '24 the former on both undergraduate and grad