2006 Volume 36 Issue 2 Pages 12-22
Music education and music culture in German-speaking Switzerland in the first half of the nineteenth century were characterized by the reform of school music education, based on Pestalozzianism and the rise of the choral movement. Hans Georg Nägeli (1773-1836) was closely involved with both of these movements. The aim of this paper is to revaluate the historical meaning of his ideas and activities from both of these viewpoints. Although researchers of the history of music education have formerly tended to value Nägeli as a methodologist of Pestalozzianism, this view does not fully describe his accomplishments. Nägeli's aim in music education was to elevate human nature. While he began his activities with music education in schools, he subsequently extended the scope of his activities to public art movements, in this manner building up the image of modern Swiss people as possessing both “Selbstständigkeit” as human beings and “Mitständigkeit” with others, through polyphonic choral singing. He formed and practiced a consistent theory to that extent. Moreover, he established and developed this practice as an association movement, which emphasizes the modernity of his music education and choral movement. That is to say, Nägeli's reform of music education was a movement towards the reformation and creation of public culture in a broad sense.
