"Don't only practice your art, but force your way into its secrets"
Ludwig van Beethoven
As one of the world's leading summer academies, European Music Institute Vienna, founded in 1975 as Wiener Meisterkurse by Günther Theuring, under the artistic direction of Jörg Birhance, we want to pursue this tour de force together with our students, young musicians from all over the world: Through the study and practice of the masterworks of the classic epoch we believe to consign a key to the understanding of all musical styles and epochs of the international concert repertoire up to contemporary music.
The epoch of Viennese Classics, the period in which music as art has found to its "highest clarity of inner and outer appearance" (Hans Swarowsky), is thus a key for our musical education. It can provide those striving for full understanding of all parameters of a musical piece – insofar they have learned to combine theory and practice – with the skills to accomplish every style of art music.
We introduce young artists to musical analysis, performance practice and to the various criteria for evaluating compositions. With additional features, European Music Institute Vienna aims to prepare students for the versatile and challenging future of the musician’s profession.
Music keeps its secrets, and yet, we can never stop striving to disclose them, even with the awareness that we might never disclose them at all. Therefore, as musicians, who feel compelled to our art, we must indeed follow the demanding and beautiful imperative Beethoven has left to us.
