Village life and Concert Hall: Is There a Connection?

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Diana Lawryshyn
Keyword(s):  
Creative Process ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Western Music ◽  
Concert Hall ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
Contemporary Classical Music ◽  
One Step ◽  
Village Life ◽  
Insight Into

Ukrainian folk music has been embedded into much of the classical music we hear. Mykola Leontovych and Peter Wilhousky are credited for the ever-famous piece Carol of the Bells, an arrangement of a Ukrainian Epiphany carol called Shchedryk (Щедрик). Despite the applicability of Ukrainian folk-inspired music in our society, people are generally unaware of its origin. In fact, researcher Yakov Soroker provides evidence of Ukrainian folk inspiration in various classical pieces being misclassified as Russian, Polish, and/or Hungarian. Ukrainian classical music, for many reasons pertaining to its unstable history, is not well known outside Ukraine and, therefore, is rarely discussed. This has limited potential insights it might bring to those who have interest in its place in Western music. My research explores the influence that Ukrainian folk traditions have had on contemporary classical music. My research has come from gathering and sifting through historical literature about the origins of classical, Ukrainian classical, Ukrainian folk, and other folk music works. I have also listened to selected works and examined the critiques of experts to form conclusions about how composers today have been influenced, knowingly or otherwise, by Ukrainian folk music. Going one step further, in order to provide a deeper, practical insight into the creative process of composers who have been influenced by Ukrainian folk music, I have composed a piece of my own influenced by Ukrainian folklore. 

scholarly journals Miodrag Vasiljevic’s margin notes on Béla Bartók’s study Morphology of Serbo-Croatian vocal folk melodies

Muzikologija ◽  
2006 ◽  
pp. 365-393 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jelena Jovanovic
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Work Experience ◽  
Traditional Music ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Great Work ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
First Time ◽  
Source Of Information ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Empirical Insight

The founder of modern Serbian ethnomusicology, collector of folk songs ethnomusicologist, and music pedagogue, Miodrag A. Vasiljevic (1903?1963) was a younger contemporary of the famous Hungarian composer and ethnomusicologist B?la Bart?k (1881?1945). Bart?k was the author of the first synthetic study of Serbian and Croatian vocal folk traditions, which was also the first such study in English. During the same period and immediately after Bart?k had completed his study, Miodrag Vasiljevic, along with other pioneers of modern ethnomusicology in former Yugoslavia, started to research musical folklore on field at home. Bart?k's study was published a year after Vasiljevic's first book; by 1965 Vasiljevic's other collections, studies and articles had been published (most of them in Yugoslavia, i.e. in Serbia). Independently of Bart?k, yet almost simultaneously, Vasiljevic had written down hundreds of melodies and studied some elements of Serbian and South Slavonic traditional culture: tonality, rhythm, melodic modes and terminology. This was in addition to his great work experience on field and his empirical insight into the fundamental characteristics of musical folklore in this area,. The final result that he wished for, but unfortunately, did not manage to complete, was a synthetic study of Serbian and South Slavonic musical folklore. Vasiljevic's margin notes, handwritten comments on Bart?k's findings, published here for the first time, are considered to be a source of information about his attitude towards Bart?k's assumptions and explanations, as well as showing the results of Vasiljevic's own work, and the ambit of his study focus. Bart?k's and Vasiljevic's primary motives in their approach to South Slavonic traditional music were different. While Bart?k was interested in features of South Slavonic tradition, so that he could note the particular features of the Hungarian music heritage more clearly, Vasiljevic studied the regularities of Serbian folk music approaching it in comparison with other South Slavonic traditions. This diversity determined their approach to the material. Bart?k often leaned on his excellent knowledge of other traditions and drew conclusions from facts that were familiar to him. In contrast, Miodrag Vasiljevic paid more attention to questions relating to the wider issue of the autochthonous development of Serbian musical folklore. Many of Vasiljevic's comments on Bart?k's study are classified here in the following categories: 1) comments in which he expresses agreement with Bart?k; 2) comments in which he gives precious supplements to Bart?k's observations; 3) comments in which he expresses disagreement with Bart?k: a) argument and b) with no evident arguments; 4) comments in which an incomplete understanding of Bart?k's findings is reflected; and 5) comments which indirectly refer to a professional aspect of Bart?k's work. Some of the comments, according to their wide, still unstudied subject matter, demand greater added elaboration and thus have not been covered in detail in this paper. Insight into Vasiljevic's comments on Bart?k's study is significant for experts outside Serbia who have little information on continuity in the development of the Serbian school of ethnomusicology, and are also important because of the huge degree of disproportion in the two scholars' work display.

scholarly journals Living With the I-Word: Improvisation and its Alternates

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Labaree
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
General Concept ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Critical Approach ◽  
Full Spectrum ◽  
Music Making ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The 19Th Century ◽  
Insight Into

The word improvisation is burdened with limitations placed on it by changes occurring in Europe in the 19th century, the period when the model of the hyphenated performer-composer prevailing in Europe up to that point was being split into two specialties. By the 20th century, composition and improvisation had been cast in bronze as mutually defining opposites, the presumed starting point of any approach to how music is made and heard, regardless of historical period or cultural origin. As a way of creating a more critical approach to discourse dependent on the ubiquitous "I-word," this essay seeks to problematize it by focusing on the more general concept of variability itself, or mouvance, as the French literary scholar Paul Zumthor described it in his studies of medieval lyric poetry. More than a century of scholarship on the music of Chopin, the songs of the medieval troubadours, folk music of the British Isles and Balkans, and Turkish classical music—all repertoires which do not rely on the conventions of I-discourse—will provide examples of differing levels of tolerance for performer control of musical events, of different definitions of musicianship, and of different performance poetics. Reflex jazz-related I-genres intentionally play no role in this exercise, forcing us to reflect on I-qualities where we least expect to find them and thus to re-examine our dependence on the I-concept in our thinking about the full spectrum of music-making. None of the I-alternates offered here—musicianship, mouvance, control, variability, or poetics—can be considered competitors for the I-word’s universalizing pretensions, but rather offer insight into what I believe is the I-word’s real content.

scholarly journals Transformations of folklorism in 20th-century Slovak composition

2015 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-395
Author(s):  
Branko Ladič
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Large Body ◽  
Art Music ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
Simple Arrangement ◽  
Musical Practices ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Post War ◽  
The 1960S

Folkloristic musical works played an essential role in the creation of a ‘Slovak idiom’ in classical music of the post-war period. From the simple arrangement of folk songs to a more autonomous art music (which may have been only partly influenced by folk traditions) there existed a broad spectrum of musical practices, including also film music and music for the professional ‘folk music ensembles’ that appeared after 1948. By referring to specific examples from this large body of music, I will show how composers worked with harmonic and poetic elements that were particular to folk music: my discussion of examples from the breadth of this music — including music for the film Zem spieva ([The land sings], music by F. Škvor), the ‘model’ compositions for the ensemble SĽUK (A. Moyzes) and, finally, the subjective folklorism of the avantgarde in the 1960s and 1970s — shows how Slovak composers worked under changing ideological influences to bring about an ‘ennobling’ of folk music.

Nationalist Composers and Fiddle Music: A Reflection of Removal from Traditional Culture, with Specific Attention to Copland and Grieg

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel D Baiman
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Traditional Culture ◽  
Romantic Period ◽  
Folk Traditions ◽  
Fiddle Music ◽  
Edvard Grieg ◽  
Aaron Copeland ◽  
Fiddle Tunes

The late Romantic period of classical music was characterized by a new enthusiasm for the inclusion of folk music in classical composition. Edvard Grieg and Aaron Copeland are two composers who characterize this period, and both used traditional fiddle tunes from their respective countries in their Nationalist compositions. This essay explores the extent to which folk traditions were honored and exploited in each composer’s music. The author concludes that while Grieg was more successful in authentically portraying the fiddle music of his nation, Copeland’s comparable work became a much more popular Nationalist symbol.

Art School Manifestos, Classical Music, and Industrial Abjection: Tracing the Artistic, Political, and Musical Antecedents of Punk

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Dines
Keyword(s):  
Case Studies ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Situationist International ◽  
Political Activities ◽  
Sex Pistols ◽  
Contemporary Classical Music ◽  
Cultural Origins ◽  
Art School ◽  
Music Tradition

This chapter charts and explores the complex cultural origins of punk in Britain through three different case studies, beginning with an exploration of the influence of the Situationist International (SI) on the punk ethos and aesthetic around the Sex Pistols. Second, it looks at the musical and artistic trajectory of the anarcho-punk band Crass and, in particular, the contemporary classical music tradition that informed the work of Penny Rimbaud et al., from the late 1960s to the formation of Crass in the 1970s. Third, the chapter turns to the artistic influences of Neil Megson, later to be known as Genesis P-Orridge. Here, emphasis is placed on a timeline of artistic and political activities by P-Orridge, from his time in school, through his forming of COUM Transmissions in the early 1970s, to the early days of the innovative musical ensemble Throbbing Gristle (TG), formed in 1975. The case studies contribute to a wider understanding of the richer cultural references, practices, and traditions that early punk drew on.

scholarly journals Comparing rhythm in speech and music: The case of English and Polish

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateusz Jekiel
Keyword(s):  
Folk Music ◽  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Initial Study ◽  
Music Notation ◽  
Temporal Patterning ◽  
Speech Rhythm ◽  
Musical Notation ◽  
Variability Index ◽  
Point Of Departure

Abstract The point of departure for the following study is Patel and Daniele (2003), who suggested that the rhythm of a culture’s language is reflected in its instrumental music. The former study used the normalised pairwise variability index (henceforth nPVI), a measure of temporal patterning in speech, to compare the variability of vocalic duration in recorded speech samples with the variability of note duration in music notation on the example of English and French speech and classical music. The aim of this experiment is to test whether the linguistic rhythm conventionalised in the language of a community affects the rhythm in the musical practice of that community, by focusing on English and Polish speech and classical, as well as folk music. The nPVI values were obtained from a set of English and Polish recorded news-like sentences, and from musical notation of English and Polish classical and folk musical themes. The results suggest that reflections of Polish speech rhythm may be more apparent in folk music than in classical music, though more data are needed to test this idea. This initial study suggests that the method used might bring more fruitful results when comparing speech rhythm with less formalized and more traditional musical themes.

scholarly journals Musical Practices in the Funeral Context: A Case Study of Cemeteries in the Ljubljana Region in 2016

2017 ◽  
Vol 53 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-241
Author(s):  
Anita Prelovšek
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Folk Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Instrumental Ensemble ◽  
Vocal Ensemble ◽  
Musical Practices

In Ljubljana and in its surroundings the music at a traditional funeral still consists usually of a vocal ensemble or a trumpet, but in 2016 this has increasingly tended to be replaced by a girl’s vocal and instrumental ensemble. The choice of music depends largely on the wishes of the relatives of the deceased. Folk music predominates, followed by popular music; the music requested least is classical music. The most frequently performed songs of the year 2016 were: Gozdič je že zelen, Lipa zelenela je and Nearer my God to Thee.

scholarly journals Interdisciplinary Interaction between Music Education and History: Shaping the Musical Preferences in Classical Music of the 20th Century

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jerneja Žnidaršič
Keyword(s):  
Music Education ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Primary Schools ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
Control Group ◽  
History Teachers ◽  
Contemporary Classical Music ◽  
Interdisciplinary Interaction ◽  
Western Classical Music ◽  
Experimental Group

The purpose of the current study was to investigate whether an experimental programme, based on interdisciplinary interactions between music education and history and the implementation of arts and cultural education objectives, could influence pupils’ interest in Western classical music of the 20th century. The programme was designed on the basis of collaborating with music education and history teachers at two Slovenian primary schools and a Slovenian composer. Classes of pupils, aged fourteen and fifteen, were divided into an experimental and a control group. According to the outcome, the pupils in the experimental group showed a higher level of interest in contemporary classical music after the experiment than their peers in the control group. Furthermore, the pupils in the experimental group reported having listened on their initiative, to more classical compositions after the experiment than the pupils in the control group had.

What's your music? Subjective theories of music-creating artists

2009 ◽  
Vol 13 (2) ◽  
pp. 207-230 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Holtz
Keyword(s):  
Electronic Music ◽  
Classical Music ◽  
The Self ◽  
Modus Operandi ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Musical Structures ◽  
Contemporary Classical Music ◽  
Intergroup Conflicts ◽  
Rational Construction ◽  
Musical Communication

In an interview study with 17 music-creating artists (composers of contemporary “classical” music, electronic music, musicals, movie scores, and jazz musicians) from Southern Germany, three types of music-creating artists could be discerned: the avant-gardists, the neo-romantics, and the self-disclosing artists. These types represent social groups that are prone to typical intergroup conflicts. The different types of music-creating artists adhere to different aesthetic ideals: the avant-gardists emphasize the abstract beauty of musical structures and try to develop their music from within the music itself, the neo-romantics view music as the true language of the heart and try to express something through their music, and the self-disclosing artists feel the drive to express their feelings and sensations by means of music. As a consequence, different dimensions of musical communication are pivotal: formal aspects, the relationship between the musician and the listener, and self-disclosure. The three types of music-creating artists resemble the types of composers analyzed by Julius Bahle in the 1930s ( e.g. Bahle, 1930). Regarding their modus operandi, the musicians differ on a continuum between a purely rational creative work and the creation of music in an unconscious outburst of inspiration. Nevertheless, most musicians experience an alternation between phases of intuitive inspiration and phases of deliberate rational construction during the creative process. Therefore, a typology of musicians based on their modus operandi seems unhelpful.

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