Ethnicity in classical music

[Ouled Nails]

Sometimes it can be heard loud and clear because its creator has been listening closely to an area's folkloric traditions, studying every detail. The ethnic "sound" is so obvious in Bartok, Kodaly, Janacek, Villa-Lobos, Revueltas that there's no need for a dissertation. It's there! Before them, composers who aspired to communicate this ethnic identity might not always have done justice to the "folk" because they either were disconnected or endeavored to ennoble the sound to such an extent as to divorce it from its humble origins (Chopin, Liszt, Brahms, Dvorak). And, then, there are all these "cultural areas" where that sound is not so distinct, so easily earmarked. For instance, what are the "folk" sounds of North Americans? Indian?! African-American?! British? French? Spanish? There were plenty of folk songs in French Canada, collected by Marius Barbeau, but how do these songs find their way into classical music? More pertinent to potential Scandinavian contributors, what's a Scandinavian "folk" sound? Is it discernible in the music of Carl Nielsen? Can it be clearly detached from Germanic influence in Grieg's works? Did Sibelius tap into the folkloric potential of northern Finland? Or did Grieg, Nielsen, Sibelius "construct" an entirely new sonic culture absolutely unrelated to popular music?

Why is folklore more easily detectable in some national classical music than in others?

 

[Ouled Nails]

Do you view Aaron Copland as a composer very much atuned to the traditional sounds of his country?

 

[Ouled Nails]

I forgot Ravel's Basque inspired music. De Falla's and Albeniz's contributions to their cultural heritage. Much of the classical music originating from Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries, from Albeniz to Golijov, sounds to me like it has deep cultural, distinctive roots.

 

[Ouled Nails]

Thinking about the Austrian/German big schools of classical music, is it conceivable that the institutionalization of "formal" musical education, over several generations, completely obliterates any ethnic identity? What is folklorically Germanic about all the music originating from the German and Austrian conservatories?

 

[Ouled Nails]

And, then, there's the French schools of music. They were all conscious of differentiating themselves from the Austro-German institutionalized sounds -- Saint-Saens, d'Indy, Faure, Debussy, Chausson, Ravel, les Six -- all believed in creating works that would be different from their eastern neighbors. Milhaud endeavored to generate works inspired by French regional musical traditions. Poulenc derived inspiration from French poets. D'Indy, before them, aspired to write orchestral works that depicted regional identities. So did Ropartz and Emmanuel. I guess the French were at least attempting to capture some ethnic flavor in their works.

 

[Ouled Nails]

And now the British Isles and the great reawakening of the turn of the century. Truly British, this Elgar! Particularly conscious of the need to be British during World War I. Bridge, VW, the few works from Butterworth, Holst, etc., they, too, aspired to some sort of "ethnic" sound for their national raison-d'etre. Certainly inspired by folklore but with a new touch -- pastoralism -- and much, much emphasis on sea-inspired music.

 

[Ouled Nails]

Why are folklore and national identity more easily detectable in some countries than in others?

 

[Ouled Nails]

It's interesting to track the origin of this "ethnic" phenomenon in classical music. I don't think it was French; Saint-Saens was much too much influenced by Germanic composers (wasn't his teacher a student of Kalkbrenner?). He was totally captivated by the works of Beethoven and his successors. Chopin, Smetana, Grieg, Liszt conveyed features of their nationality with great imagination but did so via a romantic idiom that was not particularly folkloric or ethnically distinct. Time to introduce yet another nationality, the Russians, with particular attention not to Tchaikovsky but to this raw genius, this alcohol addicted pianist, Modest Mussorgsky. While he failed to complete many works, while he failed to orchestrate many remarkable piano pieces, while he did not display the refinement of his peers, boy, was M.M. an original artist, a truly Russian composer. For the time being, I see Mussorgsky as the originator of the "folk" inspired music, the culturally-driven compositions of all who followed his premature death.