Oslo Conservatory of Music

The Conservatory of Music in Oslo was built in 1883 as a private school for organists, established by the collector of Norwegian folk music and organist Ludvig Mathias Lindeman and his son Peter. In 1885, the school was transformed into a conservatory of music. Until its takeover by the state, in 1973, it was the only musical institution in Norway that, besides teaching instruments to adults and children, offered professional musical training.

Arne Nordheim came to Oslo from Larvik to become an organist and enrolled at the Conservatory on 26 August 1948. He took lessons in piano from Nicolai Dirdal, pipe organ from Anfinn Øien, and harmony and counterpoint from Conrad Baden. Later, he took theory lessons from Karl Andersen and learned instrumentation with Bjarne Brustad. He finished his education at the Conservatory in the spring of 1952, failing to take any of the exams. He never showed any ambition to excel in performance and opposed the conservative teaching of theory. He benefitted the most from the lectures on music history given by Jon Medbøe, who in his study book Prolegomena… (1958) presented the history of music in a philosophical, historical context, as well as the context of the history of other forms of art.

http://nmh.no