The Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University

The teaching of music theory has always been a priority at the Peabody Conservatory. George Peabody's charge to the original trustees of the institute was to create a music school "to furnish that sort of instruction, under able teachers, in the theory and higher branches of music, for which there has heretofore been no provision, and which students have been obliged to seek abroad."

The first director of the Academy of Music (as it was originally called) was Lucien Southard, who had recently published his Elements of Thorough Bass and Harmony (Boston: Oliver Ditson, c. 1865).

In 1871, the renowned Danish Composer Asger Hamerik became directorof the Conservatory (as he renamed it) and professor of music theory. Hamerik's teaching notes where collected by one of his students and published as Theory of Music (Baltimore: Deutsch Lithographing, 1895) for use in Conservatory classes.

A friend of Berlioz and a former student of Hans Von Bülow, Hamerik redesigned the curriculum to correct what he saw as an undue German influence; for example, his chapters on counterpoint and fugue use examples from Cherubini and amazingly, do not mention J.S. Bach. Hamerik's Preface (link below) paints a picture of what music theory must have been like in the 1880s.

In the early 20th Century, music theory at the Peabody was dominated by Otis Boise and Gustav Strube. Strube, one of the founders and the first conductor of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra, made the national media in 2003 when workers found a cache of his moonshine during the rennovation of the Peabody. Otto Ortmann, the renowned pioneer in the psychology of music, taught at the Peabody and eventually became director. The Peabody has been fortunate to have some of the finest musical minds of the 20th century on its theory faculty, including Nadia Boulanger (1942-43) and Elliott Carter (1946-7). Henry Cowell taught at the Peabody from 1951 to 1956, and during that time co-wrote Charles Ives and His Music (New York: Oxford University Press, 1955) with his wife Sidney Cowell.

The Department of Music Theory is grateful to Ms. Elizabeth Schaaf, the Peabody Archivist, for her assistance in preparing these materials.