It is obvious that it was not the Liszt pupils who were the very first to make European romanticism and the preceding European musical culture known in America. We can say that the music used in American music education was the same as in Europe. (Take into consideration that American music did not exist at the time, neither geographically nor nationally. That was the reason that they were so fond of Afro-American rhythms and melodies.) Probably there was some delay and emphasis was put on slightly different things but the music was basically European. Especially because most of the music teachers were first-generation European immigrants who had their music education in Europe, even though many times these teachers were older and, because of their age, they did not respect the newest music and styles of the era.

It's worth taking a look at the map and find out where representatives of certain nations settled down within the United States.

Germans came to the Midwest, especially the states of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana and Iowa, but there were strong German colonies in Chicago and St. Louis, too. The two latter cities are especially important to us as most of the ragtime pianists and composers were from the surroundings of the one-time French St. Louis. Chicago, on the other hand, was the leading jazz city of dixieland and early jazz from 1917. The big German colonies in Pennsylvania are musically not so important. (see the Amish in whose life music played almost no role at all.)

French (mostly not first-generation immigrants) settled down in the old French territories, Italians lived in the New York, New Orleans and in the Chicago area. New York was the favourite destination for the Irish, English and later the Russian Jews.

Eastern-European nations, especially Poles and Hungarians, found their new home in the Midwest. Besides industrial towns (Pittsburg, Cleveland, Detroit, Chicago) Poles lived in smaller cities (Milwaukee, Columbus) and out in the countryside (Wisconsin, Ohio, Illinois). Hungarians mainly stayed in the metro area of the bigger cities.

First-generation immigrants seldom went to the West Coast except during the Californian (1849) and Alaskan (1896-98) gold rush. In California, however, there were no pioneer jazz movements until the forties and fifties partly because of the lack of blacks. So when investigating our main topic, we have to stay with the Eastern part of the United States.

It is easy to see that among first-generation immigrants, the potential importers of musical novelties, the Germans were the most influential. Especially in the Midwest that was the base area for ragtime. Most Eastern European immigrants settled down there, too. We may easily suppose that music teachers in the area used contemporary European teaching materials and techniques. When mentioning teaching materials, one might recognize that it is a bit different from today as there were no educational piano scores (so-called piano schools), collections of easier pieces or etudes which is absolutely natural and common today.

Still, I have to acknowledge that a few of those materials did exist, and were used by many in Europe. These included Gradus ad Parnassum consisting of three books by the Italian Muzio Clementi (1752-1832) that is still in use today as well. Clementi published his work about piano playing (Méthode pour le piano-forte) already in 1801 in Paris. We also must mention Liszt's Technical exercises which were written in 1869-71 but were published only after Liszt's death. It is known, however, that this pedagogical work was sent to Julius Schubert, music publisher in New York, in 1871. Schubert paid a thousand dollars for it but then the work remained unpublished. The Liszt-pupil Carl Tausig republished Clementi’s Gradus ad Parnassum but he died before his own Daily exercises (Tägliche Studien) came out in 1873. His How does one practise? (Wie übt man Klavier?) was published both in Berlin and New York (!) also after his death, in 1879. The School of Advanced Piano Playing by another pupil of Liszt, Rafael Joseffy was also published in New York in 1892. If we add that Frank Damrosch published A Popular Method of Sightsinging in 1904 and another work of his, entitled Some Essentials in the Teaching of Music in 1916, it is obvious that most musicians wanted to systematize, methodize and share their knowledge. Despite this, these are rare (but not lonely) examples and even though other schools were also in use (Czerny for instance), there was no common teaching material accepted by everyone, especially in the liberal United States. Everyone brought the schools and works favored by their previous teacher. These were all different, depending on grounding, education and taste but they were basically the same as the ones used in European music education. Of course, American (or at the beginning rather Americanized European) music education was effected by the patriotism of America and the popularization of works in that manner (see chapter VI about Gottschalk). German, Polish, Irish, English, French, Spanish dances and songs were (and even had to be) accepted and included in the ‘American repertoire’ of many nations. Probably due to the lack of a common musical language, only the most popular things became widely known. Serious music did not benefit from this since, as a result of this process, everybody wanted to hear only the lighter, popular pieces even from the classical repertoire. American serious musical life, including orchestras, regularly organized concerts and such, was established only after World War I. Previously it existed only in bigger cities, first of all in New York.

According to the sales statistics of piano rolls, Polish dances (Polkas and Mazurkas) and Magyar songs were among the most popular pieces.

We cannot state that there were no serious concerts and nobody played classical music but only a rather small part of the society was interested in it. At the same time, Americans, including blacks, who wanted to imitate the ‘cultured’ Europe, were not satisfied with the light repertoire but studied the more serious European music, too. It is also part of the picture of American music education that, even though the number of private academies which had music courses as well, increased from 102 in 1800 to 6083 in 50 years and between 1865 and 1885 the use of a common, centralized national musical method was initiated, everything was very typical of America (and nowadays western society): it functioned only if money was involved. The consolidation after the Civil War stimulated interest in music. Colleges competed for fee-paying students, instrument companies organized free music lessons (in the hope of catching future customers). At the National Music Conventions there were regular debates every year from 1841 on between those who favoured the performing arts and those who emphasized the importance of music education. The lower standard vocal education, which resulted in the founding of choirs of sometimes 1000 members because of business reasons, was in contrast with the high-quality instrumental education that came right from Europe. No doubt the American music scene benefited from all these movements but, according to many sources, all this was based on business considerations, resulting in poor musical productions in many cases. Even the quality of the published methods and textbooks (Silver-Burdett, American Book Company) was questionable but at least there was something. Musical educational programmes and schools were also keen on business. (‘Commercial success of the program had top priority, not artistry.’)

It is illustrative of the era and the requirements of the white and even the black middle classes that the family of Scott Joplin could afford a grand piano as early as 1881. The career of American music teachers in general can be outlined based on the life story of one of the first piano teachers of Joplin: Julius Weiss was born in Germany in 1840 or '41 and graduated from a Saxon university. He moved to St. Louis in the United States at the end of the sixties, from where he moved on to Joplin's birthplace, Texarkana at the end of the 1870's. He worked there as a private teacher until 1884. He taught astronomy, mathematics, violin, music and piano and planted the love of opera into the Rodgers children who were put under his care. He got to know Joplin and found him so talented that he taught him piano and general European musical art for free. Weiss influenced Joplin so much that, according to his widow, Lottie Joplin, the ragtime composer kept on corresponding with his one-time beloved teacher and occasionally even sent him money.

Besides private lessons, it was possible to study serious music at musical colleges and universities. As segregation did not disappear after the Civil War, whites and blacks studied separately. Blacks, of course, could not enter the most important institutions but there was high-quality education in ‘their’ schools, too.

It is worth mentioning Scott Joplin again as an example when it comes to schools founded for blacks: Joplin moved from St. Louis to Sedalia, Missouri in 1894, partly because of its unusually high-level musical and cultural life. Even though he already published a few ragtime songs by that time, he became a student of George R. Smith College, studying both piano and composition. George R. Smith, the white founder of Sedalia, had always been a supporter of Afro-Americans in his life and according to his will, after his death a 24-acre ground was donated to found a college for blacks. The Methodist Church (to be exact, Freedmen’s Aid and Southern Education Society of the Methodist Church) founded George R. Smith College in 1888 ‘to the moral and intellectual culture of the colored people of the west’. It eventually opened in January 1894 and functioned until the building was destroyed by fire in 1925. College degrees were given in seven fields, including music. The instrumental teacher was a blind black musician, W. G. Smith. He taught piano, organ, violin and voice, among others, supposedly also music theory. The great band (not a symphonic orchestra!) of the college, the Queen City Cornet Band had popular waltzes, marches, religious songs and ragtime pieces on its repertoire but they also played medleys including excerpts from the opera Carmen by Georges Bizet (1838-1875). So Joplin and the other students of the college did meet some European classical music. Also, I already mentioned the phenomenon that blacks wanted to prove their equality and wanted to acquire white culture. Achieving this seemed to be most important for blacks who sometimes seemed to prefer the culture of the whites even to their own. W. H. Huston, editor of Sedalia Conservator used derogatory words for black culture many times even though he himself had played ragtime pieces in the Queen City Cornet Band as a student of George R. Smith College.

Sedalia was more liberal than most other places. The local Republican Party had three blacks among its officers. A result of this liberalism was a thriving culture, concerts were regularly held at the college, in churches and in Wood's Opera House. The Sousa band and the legendary black blind pianist, ‘Blind’ Boone played there, too and, thanks to the local German-American Liederkranz Society, a few choral concerts were also organized every year. (The town had a great number of German settlers, even a German-American Day was held annually on September 22.)

The already mentioned Fisk University in Nashville was a similar but larger institution and many other schools were founded. One thing was always common: they all had music among the courses. Mastering white, i.e. mostly European culture was almost fundamental. In white schools students had similar goals: they had to learn about European culture not only to avoid lagging behind for long but also to know what to surpass later.

It is interesting that one of the best-known ragtime composers, Artie Matthews (1888-1958) founded a school for blacks in Cincinnati in 1921. His Cosmopolitan School of Music was in fact a conservatory where blacks could study classical music. Matthews taught here until his death.

There were a lot of other classically trained ragtime pianists and composers. Kerry Mills (1869-1948) was a classical violinist who mostly wrote cakewalks and marches.

Charles ‘Lucky’ Roberts (1887-1968) studied counterpoint, fugue and composition in private lessons. He was the teacher of both James P. Johnson (1891-1955) and George Gershwin. His piano roll Mo' Lasses (QRS 2306) is one of the greatest rolls of all time.

Talking about piano rolls, I must mention the name of Max Kortlander (1890-1961). He was a white ragtime pianist and composer and joined the QRS piano roll company in 1916. He was president and owner of QRS from 1931 until his death. Kortlander studied music in the Oberlin Conservatory and, as a pianist, graduated from the American Conservatory in Chicago.

Will Marion Cook (1869-1944), legendary black composer and jazz violinist was also a student of the Oberlin Conservatory. He was known as ‘king of music theory’ and he deeply influenced Duke Ellington (1899-1974) among others. Cook studied violin with the Hungarian Joseph Joachim in Berlin as well. He was on tour in Europe in 1921 as leader of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra. The tour was financed by a great supporter of 20th century music, the Swiss conductor Ernest Ansermet (1883-1969).

William Grant Still (1895-1978), anoher black composer, was also an Oberlin student from 1917. He became a musician in spite of the resistance of his family. He also played in the band of the ‘Father of Blues’, William Christopher Handy (1873-1958) for a while from 1916. He composed his still frequently played Afro-American Symphony in 1930. Due to his studies, European romanticism is dominant in his works. Still was especially influenced by Wagner.

Another work of black influence was the Negro Folk Symphony of William Dawson (1899-1990) from 1934.

The black British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (1875-1912) often went to America to give master classes and lectures to Afro-American composers. He was known as one of the most promising British composers, his main composition was a good half-an-hour work from 1898 entitled Hiawatha's Wedding.

Probably the best-known musical institution of America was the National Conservatory of Music in New York of which the Czech composer, Antonin Dvoøák (1841-1904) was the director between 1892 and 1895. Dvoøák wrote his Ninth (E minor) Symphony from a New World in which his Slavonic temperament is mixed with Negro and Indian folk melodies. It was premiered with great success in New York’s Carnegie Hall in 1893. One of the bravest (and for the topic of the present study, very important) achievements of Dvoøák was to urge the acceptance of women and blacks at universities. (A written announcement - in fact, an application form for entry – proves that blacks could be accepted by the Conservatory as early as 1893.) It is known that one of Dvoøák's favourite students was Henry Thacker Burleigh (1866-1949) whose ancestors were slaves. Burleigh, who later became Dvoøák's assistant, was a great tenor singer. He turned Dvoøák's interest to spirituals and arranged many spirituals for vocal quartets. He also taught singers such as, for example, Enrico Caruso (1873-1921). Among his friends was the composer MacDowell and his father, Frances MacDowell who, as the employee of the National Conservatory of Music, was also the mentor of Burleigh when he first came to town. It is worth knowing that one of Burleigh's most important experiences in his childhood was the concert of the one-time Liszt-pupil, Rafael Joseffy in the Russel house where Burleigh's mother worked at that time. Burleigh received his degree in 1896 and then devoted his time to composition and arranging besides teaching. He performed as a solo singer in churches as well for fifty years. One of the most talented students of the National Conservatory of Music was Eartha M. White (1876-?) who, despite her name, was a black soprano singer who toured with the Oriental American Opera Company in America and Europe in 1892. This company opened the Palmer Theater on Broadway, too.

Dvoøák's students then became the teachers of Duke Ellington, George Gershwin and Aaron Copland (1900-1990). We must first of all think of Rubin Goldmark, a nephew of the Hungarian composer, Károly Goldmark (1830-1915). And if we take into consideration how much Dvoøák was influenced by Wagner and Liszt at the beginning of his career and how much Brahms encouraged him, we are just a step from far-reaching conclusions. And this is the point where I leave the reader to draw their own conclusions…

It can be stated for sure that both the members of the middle classes who wished to play the piano or get acquainted with music in some other way, and professional white and black musicians got to know European music during their studies and here we must think not only of Liszt but also of Beethoven, Chopin, Schubert and many others including composers forgotten by now as well.