Music Education
As mentioned, the rise of celebrity composers began to experience would be tempting—as well as the practical appeal of a steady church job. The negative points of being a composer was the limited number of these jobs available.
Few composers were lucky enough to get court or church positions. However, becoming a composer was not available to all who wished to seek it. How someone became a composer depended greatly on his or her location, wealth, and social standing.
The Rich and Noble Class
For the Noble and Royal class, becoming a composer was not so much a career choice as it was a hobby. As part of courtly life, music—along with dance and arms—were taught to as a means to prepare young wealthy individuals for court life and leisure activities.[1] Rarely do members of the Noble or Royal class become composers, but for those that do occasionally write music, such as Frederick the Great, it is merely for hobby and/or self-entertainment.
The Merchant and Middle Class
If one were lucky enough to be born into a family of court musicians, a few more options were available. Music training was most likely passed down to you by parents or an older family member. An example of a composer that followed this route is François Couperin. Couperin came from a, what some referred to as, a “veritable dynasty of artist.”[2] Bach also comes from a musical family, and was taught to an extent his craft by siblings. For those not born of a musical family but still part of the noble or middle class, options for music education was still available. Private lessons from older composers were often the choice for young men looking to develop there composing skills. Established composers would also seek out lessons from other composers, typically from other countries. This was done usually out of the request of their patrons who wished to bring the musical styles of other countries to their courts. Monteverdi is an example of this method, as well as the students he teaches later on. Monteverdi would learn his musical skills first from Vincenzo Ruffo, Cipriano de Rore, and Marc’ Antonio Ingegneri.[3] Later in life Monteverdi would have students of his own such as Fransasca Caccini, Franscaso Cavalli, and Heinrich Schütz—an established composer in his own right who was sent to Italy by his patrons to learn the Italian style.
The Poor and Lower Class
For those in the lower classes, options for music education are limited to the cathedral schools, orphanages, or Latin grammar schools. We know through letters and documents that, despite coming from and being taught by a musical family, Bach attended a Latin grammar school after the death of his parents.[4]All throughout Europe and England, Cathedrals and Orphanages would act as a means to not only educate young boys (and girls in their respective covenants), but to house and feed them as well. For families who could not afford to pay for private lessons or even to keep their children, these schools became a means of survival. In exchange for their education and lodging, the children were required to fulfill musical duties, namely singing as part of the liturgical service. Depending on their talent and the institution, these duties varied from singing on the streets around the church, in service, or for special events such as weddings and funerals. Books on the how to’s of music written by Martin Agricola would form the complete curriculum for the practical musician; basic rules of notation are found in these books.[5]
[1] Wendy Heller, Music in the Baroque,
[2] Julien Tiersot and Theodore Baker, “Two Centuries of a French Musical Family--The Couperins,” The Musical Quarterly, Vol. 12, No. 3 (Jul., 1926): 406-431
[3] Leo Schrade, Monteverdi: Creator of Modern Music. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1950), 71.
[4] Hans T. David, Arthur Mendel, and Christoph Wolff, The new Bach reader: a life of Johann Sebastian Bach in letters and documents, (New York : W. W. Norton & Company, 1998)
[5] John Butt, Music Education and the Art of Performance in the German Baroque, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 2-6.
