"Vad månde blifva af dessa barnen?" : En studie av David Björlings pedagogik och dess bakgrund i äldre sångundervisningstraditioner

Sammanfattning: The dissertation's title is: "What is to become of these children?", a study of David Björling's way of teaching and the background to it in older traditions of teaching singing.During the first decades of the 1900s, David Björling formed a singing school for children with his sons. Teaching started at a sensationally early age. David Björling's methods were controversial, and were questioned. David Björling himself asserted that his methods of teaching the children were serious and would give good results, and at the same time he emphasised that teaching singing was part of the musical upbringing he wanted to give his children.The aim of the dissertation is to deduce the methods David Björling applied to his sons. In the study, I investigate how David Björling taught, how it was recieved and which vocal pedagogical and didactic traditions David Björling can have been inspired by in his teaching of singing.The presentation is based on the tradition of hermeneutical interpretation and first and foremost on Paul Ricoeur's hermeneutics.The results show that the school was formed in accordance with the pedagogical model we understand today as the Suzuki method. Björling is also found to have been inspired by theories of teaching children singing that were proposed at the beginning of the last century. According to the analysis of the results, David Björling is found to have roots in an older Italian tradition. The results point to recurring similarities between David Björling's methods and the Lamperti school's didactic principles.