The mystery of teaching composition

Summer study courses for young composers have been popular for a few generations. After the second world war, up-and-coming experimental composers started flocking to places like Darmstadt in Germany for the Internationale Ferienkursen für Neue Musik. Olivier Messiaen taught there in the late 1940s and 1950s, when among his students were Stockhausen and Boulez. Attending the 1980 course as an undergraduate, I benefitted from a lesson with Brian Ferneyhough and conversations with Wolfgang Rihm, who died last week and was described in one obituary as ‘the last great German composer’.

In the US, the summer activities at places such as Tanglewood and Aspen have become part of the learning process for many young composers over the years. In the UK, the composer-led festivals of Aldeburgh and St Magnus (in Orkney) have been magnets for new generations of fledgling composers, attracted by the opportunity of being around the likes of Benjamin Britten and Peter Maxwell Davies in the past, and a range of more recent mentors including Oliver Knussen, Mark-Anthony Turnage and Thomas Adès.