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Towards the Exploration of National Idiosyncrasies in Wandering Song-Tunes
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 March 2019
Extract
IT has often been shown that wandering song-tunes are genuine expressions of national idiosyncrasies; that the physiognomy of a people and a province can be judged from folk songs, which, as Goethe says, ‘crystallise the characteristics of a nation.’
The wandering of melodies and melodic patterns over time and space was discussed by W. Tappert as early as 1865 in a very stimulating musical study, without, however, resulting in any direct solution of the present problem. Further progress was made by 0. Fleischer in his publications in SIMG, Vols. 1 and 4, which were later followed by several shorter essays. In more expansive style and with the assistance of indispensable synoptic melodic tables, W. Danckert continued these attempts at analysis and description, chiefly in his book, Das Europäische Volkslied (1939), in a manner which, for the most part, was neither free from prejudice nor convincing.
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- Research Article
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- Copyright © International Council for Traditional Music 1954
References
Notes
1. It is by no means true that only the melodic contour constitutes differences of national character, as S. Poladian maintains in the Journal of IFMC, III, 1950, p. 33. These depend rather upon stylistic and other conditions which contribute little to the present enquiry. Some fundamental discussion of this problem is included in my essay: “Zur Erforschung landschaftlicher Eigentiimlichkeiten in den Weisen des westfalischen Volksliedes” in Rheinisches Jahrbuch fur Volkskunde, III, 1952, p. 135 ff.
2. The degree of assimilation which adaptations can attain, from trifling alterations in the opening and cadential patterns such as are everywhere demonstrable in living singing, to farreaching structural alterations such as change the whole framework.
3. Cf. W. Wiora, “Zur Formgeschichte der europaischen Liedweise,” in Anuario Musical, 1951, and other parallels in W. Wiora, Europaischer Volksgesang, Koln, 1952, p. go f. 4. Another primitively simple type of song is discussed by W. Wiora in “Alpenlandische Liedweisen der Friihzeit und des Mittelalters” in Angebinde fiir J. Meier, Jahr, 1949, Tafel I.
5. In the course of comparative song research the majority of the Basses danses of the Brussels Ms. 9085 can be determined by their typographical and musico-historical place; whereby in most cases it can be seen that simplicity, compactness and general familiarity with the content led to the choice of the substance as dance-pieces. For these Basses danses see also H. Besseler, ‘“Kalalonische Cobla und Alta-Tanzkapelle,” in Congress Report of the International Musicological Society, Basel, 1949, p. 64 ff.
6. Cf. also H. Besseler, Die Musik des Mittelalters und der Renaissance, Potsdam, 1931, p. 87 f., and also the melodically stimulating dissertation by E. Koechlin, Wesensziige des deutschen und franzbsischen Marchens, Basel, 1945.
7. Cf. also the Glogauer Liederbuch, No. 250, in Reichsdenkmaler, 4, No. 19, and Dreves, Analecta Hymnica, I, p. 193, from Ms. Strahov, of 1598.
8. In this connection a very informative little table of examples from Hungary, Slovakia and Rumania is given by E. Riegler-Dinu in Das rumanische Volkslied, Berlin, 1940, p. 54. Cf. also No. 8 of the Lochamer Liederbuch, “Mein frewd mocht sich wol mehren” (in W. Salmen, Das Lochamer Liederbuch, Leipzig, 1951, Supplement No. 6) and Kantional Franus, fol. 242a (ed. Orel, p. 61).