Theory and History
The Institute for the Theory and History of Music (ITG) covers areas of historical and systematic musicology as well as music theory in teaching and research. The ITG maintains close contact with the artistic departments of the university in research and teaching, as well as with scholars and artists outside the university (in Austria and internationally) through workshops, guest lectures, team teaching, and joint research and publication projects. The resulting networking with artistic and neighboring scholarly disciplines is one of the institute's central concerns.
The main focus of teaching is on central fields of music history, music theory and music analysis. In the historical-analytical subjects, an overview of interrelationships is provided, as well as changing specific topics. Further teaching focuses are applied psychology, cultural history, room acoustics and recording technology, music-related gender studies and the history of popular music.
In the area of music theory, harmony and aural training as well as form theory are taught over several semesters, coordinated with each other and following historical development. In addition, there are subjects at the interface between theory and musical practice, such as stylistics, source and notation studies, organology, rhythm training or movement/body work.
The institute's research fields are dedicated to a variety of central and current issues. They are based on the very broad expertise of the individual scientists at the institute and often work in cooperation with the artistic subjects at the institute. Particular areas of focus here are selected areas of music and media history, research into reception and interpretation, research into popular music, psycho-physiological research and digital corpus research.
