On Folk Music
[originally a set of program notes]
What is easy to sing, has a highly repetitive modal melody, a small range, simple harmony and is immediately danceable?
Folk music!
It’s easy enough to describe but terribly difficult to define, since, although there are common features, the form folk music takes and the purpose for which it is quoted or mimicked varies widely.
Used most often in the music of German, Russian, Czech, Hungarian and Polish composers, folk songs instantly evokes a particular culture and by extension its language, customs and geography. The mania for folk music in the late 19th century was, in part, a product of astute music publishers taking advantage of the nationalist movement happening in Europe but also due to composers’ genuine affection for the music and, in the case of Verdi, their own political ideas.
Of special interest to the Romantics was the idea of revaluing their heritage by working with the music of their people. The rationale was that since folk music was created and performed largely by self-taught amateurs, it was somehow more pure, and therefore desirable, than the learned style favoured by those trained in a conservatory.
The concept of purity would become even more entrenched in the early 20th century thanks to the relative portability of recording equipment. Much like the organic food movement in the 21st century, the idea discovering music that was free of the intellectual tentacles choking the art music world was largely a middle class affection.
19th century Romantics weren’t fussed about authenticity, however and composers such as Borodin, Brahms, Bruch, Smetana and Dvorak regularly wrote pieces in a folk style. Brahms became so good at it that his second set of Hungarian Dances, written in 1880, were entirely his own creation. Dvorak used the rhythms from the music of his native Czechoslovakia but created his own melodies. Some of these original compositions were so popular they actually became folk tunes in their own right.
By the time Bartók, Kodály, Grainger and Vaughan Williams were at work, it had become very noble to spend time recording, cataloguing and working with folk music. The cruel irony is that the recording industry that grew from this early technology is, in large part, responsible for destroying the very thing these infant ethnomusicologists were trying to preserve.
The oral transmission of culture that has kept folk song going for centuries is quickly losing ground in the individualist culture of the 21st century. It is no longer common in the West for people to live with Aunt Ruby and their Nan, which inevitably means that less people are learning folksong. Despite this gap in knowledge, we seem to grasp almost innately what a folk tune signifies when it is heard. We may have a deeper understanding if we know what the tune is or the accompanying words but, on the whole, it is not a barrier to understanding its meaning
Mieczyslaw Karlowicz
Lithuanian Rhapsody
Born in 1876 in Wizniewo, Lithuania, Polish composer Mieczyslaw Karlowicz studied composition in Warsaw between 1889 and 1895. After failing to get into Joseph Joachim’s violin class at the end of his studies in Poland, Karlowicz decided to become a composer. His unapologetically Romantic style earned him much criticism from his contemporaries who were afraid of being, “affected by some evil spirit that would deprave their work, strive to strip it of individual and national originality and turn them into parrots lamely imitating the voices of Wagner and Strauss.”
Although he uses folk song in his other works, the Lithuanian Rhapsody is his only composition based entirely on authentic folks song. The Rhapsody’s themes are recollections of childhood, with the portrayal of the family home and children’s games. When asked about his intentions, Karlowicz replied that he was trying to, “encapsulate within [the piece] the total grief, sadness and eternal servitude of native Lithuanians” and that he was hoping it would contain, “a particle of that which hangs vanishing in the air in every part of that region.”
Rather than create a mash-up or medley of folk tunes, Karlowicz instead chooses a more episodic structure loosely based around five through composed sections. Harmonic conservatism is typical of folk music, so to counteract this, Karlowicz emphasizes colour changes to create interest. His music is highly visual and it seems likely that he would have been a very gifted film composer had he not been hit by an avalanche at age 33.
The Rhapsody begins with rustling in the strings and a bass clarinet solo. A hint of a tune appears in the lower strings but fades away to allow the flute to have the starring role. The second section is a lovely pastorale complete with bird song as well as lots of oboe and clarinet. Section three is a sort of lullaby fashioned out of a thoroughly tonal six-note theme. The endless repetition brings to mind a brook bubbling gently in the summer sunshine.
A piccolo breaks the idyll as the strings transform the lullaby motive into a decoration of another tune. Eventually, the ornament is developed into its own tune and takes over. The brass announce the beginning of the final section by repeating the opening theme. Karlowicz’ colleagues would be horrified but as the section develops it is not difficult to hear the influence of Strauss. More of the opening is heard as the last section arches towards the end. The solo bass clarinet returns, a flute appears and it all fades, as memories do, into the ether without a trace.
Bela Bartók
Dance Suite BB 86a
Moderato
Allegro molto
Allegro vivace
Molto tranquillo
Commodo
Finale
In a discussion of folk music in an art music context it is not long before Bela Bartók’s name is mentioned. He and fellow composer Zoltán Kodály spent a good part for their life collecting and cataloguing folk tunes from Southern and Eastern Europe as well as North Africa and the Middle East. The pair travelled together, analyzing and systematically classifying the songs they collected. One of their major discoveries was that authentic Magyar folk music was vastly different to the Hungarian gypsy music that was regarded as the country’s only folk style.
Written in 1923 to celebrate the union of the cities of Buda and Pest into the present-day Hungarian capital, the Dance Suite contains a smorgasbord of folk melodies from throughout Easter Europe. The Dance Suite is through-composed and divided into six sections with a riternello in Hungarian style linking the parts together.
Bartók’s most well-known piece, Concerto for Orchestra wasn’t composed until 20 years after the Dance Suite but they make similar demands on the orchestra. Always trying to replicate the sounds he heard while collecting folk songs, Bartók uses imaginative instrument combinations to create unusual colours. He also very often scores for one or two instruments at a time as if the orchestra is a super-sized folk band rather than one big unit. Bartók was careful to retain the non-diatonic and modal scales he encountered in the field rather than shoehorn the melodies into the tonal structure of Western art music. Because of this, the music has a certain wild, untouched quality to it.
The suite opens with solo bassoon and becomes increasingly animated as oboes and then cor anglais take centre stage. Rather than settling in on one tune, Bartók flits between ideas, changing colours and moods without notice. Both the first and second dances contain tunes of Magyar origin. Romanian traditional music from the Wallachia region ups the energy level considerably as solo bassoon and clarinet passages give way to a full orchestra folk party. The mood mellows for a moment but then, like and excited child, starts off again in another direction.
Bartók didn’t confine himself to the music of his homeland, choosing to use Arabic inflections in the sensuous fourth dance. He combines the cor anglais and bass clarinet to create a truly unique colour. The section alternates between an almost Debussyian string motive and the bass clarinet/cor anglais or oboe theme.
An archetypical peasant dance form the basis for the fifth section. Quiet, mysterious strings and a drone in the bass are the foundation for short unison figures scored for varying timbres.
The sixth section draws together thematic and rhythmic ideas of the previous dances in an exhilarating synthesis. An energetic brass opening begins a sort of canon that spreads throughout the orchestra. Rhythms and melodies twist and turn back over themselves with abandon in what Bartók described as, “the brotherhood of peoples…in spite of all wars and conflicts.” The piece ends as it began, out of nowhere.
Johannes Brahms
Symphony No 1 in C minor Op 68
Un poco sostenuto. – Allegro
Andante sostenuto
Un poco allegretto e grazioso
Adagio – Piu andante – Allegro non troppo, ma con brio
Brahms’ approach to folk music was more like Karlowicz’ than Bartók’s. He had a deep love for German folksong and mimicked the style often in his lieder, the two sets of Hungarian Dances and many other compositions. Brahms’ first symphony is neither a collection of folk tunes nor a reflection on the struggle of a people. It is far more abstract, with the folk-inspired sections included as a sort of indication of contentment and triumph over darker times.
Although Brahms was desperate to get out from under the shadow of Beethoven, he couldn’t help but reference the giant’s work. The key of this symphony, C minor, and the struggle between darkness and light are archetypical of Beethoven. When asked if the chorale in the last movement was related to Beethoven’ s Ninth Symphony, Brahms gruffly replied, “Any ass can see that!”
The premiere of the First Symphony was given in Karlsruhe, with Otto Dessoff conducting, on November 4, 1876. It was a triumph, and the influential conductor Hans von Bulow did not hesitate to proclaim it “the Tenth”. It was a tribute given in good faith but Brahms had mixed feelings. Even though he had created the most important symphony since Schumann, he was still connected to Beethoven.
The introverted turbulence of the first movement is established immediately by an insistent tympani line and an searing motive in the strings. Thematic material is jagged and eventually takes shape but the nervous drive of the opening doesn’t fully resolve until the very end.
In the second movement, the prevailing mood is one of heart-easing calm and solace. There is no need for a display of technical fireworks, merely serenity. The main thematic motive, while not a folk tune as such, is reminiscent of one. It is introduced by a solo violin and then echoed in turn by various wind soloists.
Easy cheerfulness and gentle restraint are the hallmarks of the third movement. More an intermezzo than a scherzo, it is not without its moments of autumnal melancholy courtesy of the clarinet. A short-lived trio is more animated but it is not long before the more relaxed pace of the opening section returns.
Without a doubt, the massive finale is the jewel of this symphony. The previous movements have set up the drama and now all will be resolved in the last act. A slow introduction full of suspense creates a sense of deep expectancy. All the uncertainty of the previous movements is washed away as the horn bursts through the clouds like a ray of sunshine with an Alphorn tune. The melody is one Brahms sent Clara Schumann on a birthday card in 1868 after he heard it played in the mountains while on holiday in Switzerland. After a benedictory brass chorale, the strings enter with the majestic theme of the finale proper. The mood becomes progressively more exultant, culminating in a blazingly assertive reincarnation of the introductory brass chorale.
