Folk Elements Research Articles

The Musical Language of Kindertotenlieder No. 2

Three times during his compositional career, Mahler turned to the medium of the orchestral song cycle either to experiment with or to refine certain technical procedures. This resulted in a variety of methods for establishing large-scale tonal coherence, using song as a resource for later symphonic composition, and stylizing folk material, melodically and rhythmically. These compositional techniques are clearly exemplified in Mahler's three cycles, Lieder eines fahrenden Gesellen (1883-85), Kindertotenlieder (1901-04), and Das Lied von der Erde (1907-08).' Aside from general compositional matters, the specific analytical issues raised by these works are perhaps most acute in Kindertotenlieder. Although the central issue remains the nature of Mahler's musical language, other considerations, notably the possibility of autobiographical associations and the source of the profound expressivity of this music, have been mentioned by various commentators.2 Certainly, there is no doubt about the delicate expressivity of the melodic lines in No. 1, the reinterpretation of these in an atmosphere of Tristan-like harmonies in No. 2, the folk elements in Nos. 3 and 4, and the intense drama which pervades No. 5 and subsides, almost ironically, in a Wiegenlied. Of the five songs, however, No. 2 stands out because of the complexity of its musical vocabulary and the concentration of its expression. This paper attempts to elucidate some of the technical procedures in this song as an introduction to the nature of Mahler's musical language. Three aspects of the song are addressed: Mahler's reading of Riickert's poem, the melodic process, and the tonal/harmonic structure. The following remarks are not meant to represent a complete analysis of the song; rather,

Folk Element and the Theatre in India

Folk Element and the Theatre in India

Folk Element in Sanskrit Literature (As in Bhasa's Pratima Nataka, circa 700–600 B.C.)

Folk Element in Sanskrit Literature (As in Bhasa's Pratima Nataka, circa 700–600 B.C.)

Folk Elements in American Dance Music, Ragtime, and Jazz

Folk Elements in American Dance Music, Ragtime, and Jazz

Is Appalachian Literature an Ethnic Literature?

Deutach: The Appalachian stock is derived primarily from the Scotchlrish group which wigrated to America between 1700 and 1776. About half a million people of Scotch-Irish extraction from tie Ulster area of Protestant Northern Ireland came to this land and a significant number of these found their way to Appalachia.... These people axe too removed in time and circumstance to be cognizant of any European relatives. So what, if any, carry-over is there, of values or attitudes or folk elements that might have been derived from that Scotch-Irish background?

Folk Elements in a Non‐Folk Game: The Example of Basketball

Folk Elements in a Non‐Folk Game: The Example of Basketball

The Sculpture of Brancusi in the Light of His Rumanian Heritage

There is a great deal of controversy regarding Brancusi's person: was he a bearded peasant living in isolation in his Paris atelier, or was he a sophisticated intellectual? In my view he was both; as part and parcel of his avant-garde environment he reached back to his peasant background and utilized the folk elements in a new context. This paper is the synopsis of a dissertation (The Sculpture of Brancusi in the Light of His Rumanian Heritage, University of Pittsburgh, 1973) to explain this specific dualism in Brancusi's personality and art. Most Western analysts of Brancusi's art believe that the unfamiliar features in his work grew out of an assimilation of African sculpture. I have tried to refute this belief and prove that the source of the above-mentioned features is to be found in Brancusi's Rumanian background.

The Skogsrå of Folklore and Strindberg’s The Crown Bride

The Skogsra of Folklore and Strindberg’s The Crown Bride Larry E. Syndergaard Strindberg seems to have a folklore element at every turn in The Crown Bride (Kronbruden): herders’ calls and songs, the wild hunt, riddles, the castle submerged in a lake, curses, the child-haunt, horn-calls, the despairing riverman (forskarl or nack), the bridal crown itself—even a ballad-like interrogation at the beginning of the play. But the most surprising and per­ plexing folk element appears when the midwife turns her back. Suddenly we are aware that Strindberg has given us a hybrid: not just an old crone, but the fox-tailed skogsra or wood-nymph as well. This is the erotically tempting but later derisive “cour­ tesan of the forest” who, when she wears no animal tail, is foul and hollow behind,l Granted, her most general associations fit the play. The skogsra is an ominous figure in Swedish folklore,2 and the midwife -skogsra is a direct accessory in the two basic transgressions of the play: Kersti’s bearing an illegitimate child, and its death. The very reappearances of the midwife-sfcogsra help build the atmosphere of lurking evil. And her delivering the illegitimate child, her insisting on attending the wedding as payment, her helping get rid of the child, and her appearing to Kersti at the wedding support the theme of the evolution and inescapability of sin. Yet these points alone can hardly explain Strindberg’s graft­ ing of the skogsra onto the midwife. The wood-nymph of folk­ lore, after all, preys on men; in the play she pursues Kersti. And there is a visual anomaly in fusing the normally young and seductive skogsra with the older midwife. There were alterna­ tives. A midwife alone would seem to have been ominous 310 Larry E. Syndergaard 311 enough.3 Strindberg might also have chosen a witch,4 or he might have constructed a troll-midwife, the success of whose blandishments on Kersti would reflect trolls’ abilities to bewitch humans.5 Clearly, however, the skogsra figure seemed more useful—enough so to compensate for the anomalies. In this paper I will seek to sketch the way in which the skogsra is useful to the dramatist and essential to the play, and hence to suggest a possible rationale for Strindberg’s choice. I will proceed by examining the way he adapts the qualities in­ herent in the skogsra of the folklore sources available to him,6 and by analyzing his dramatic use in general of the midwifeskogsra figure. I Certain factors may have played a specific if limited role in Strindberg’s choice and use of file skogsra. For example, the raucous and wanton skogsra provides a better figurative counter­ weight to the bridal crown, an emblem of virginity, chastity, and decorum, than could witch or midwife alone. The skogsra was sometimes identified as the quarry of the wild hunt, an­ other of Strindberg’s folk motifs.7 Even one bit of the play’s auditory embellishment, the thunder in the stove into which the midwife has ducked at the wedding celebration, seems suspi­ ciously like an adaptation from legends in which thunder can strike down the heathen skogsra8—particularly when we note that the Christlike White Child issues forth immediately after­ ward in apparent symbolic victory. The problems of fusing skogsra and midwife may have seemed less formidable in view of the minor tradition of skogsra as shapeshifter who was known to appear as an old crone.9 And Strindberg may have inferred what later statistical studies show: the skogsra tradition is asso­ ciated with the old “summer-dairy culture” or “chalet culture” generally and with the region of Dalama in particular. These form, of course, the setting of the play.10 Such factors, however, are not deeply organic to the play. More important is the fact that, in contrast to the other creatures we have mentioned, only the skogsra is always finally inimical to man.11 The midwife of folklore can help as well as hurt, and trolls can often treat men fairly.12 Neither leaves as strong an impression of an actual malevolent principle at work as does the skogsra. And, this is...

The Position of Folk Elements in Hindi Literature

The Position of Folk Elements in Hindi Literature

Negro Folk Elements in Classic Ragtime

Ragtime was similar in many ways to the marches and dances popular in the 1890's, for like them it consisted of short melodic sections repeated according to a formal pattern, with accompanying harmonies that relied heavily on tonic-dominant progressions. Unlike its contemporary musical fashions, however, emphasized a highly developed rhythmic syncopation, and melodies and harmonies which contained a full and subtle use of Negro folk elements. Present-day students of early Negro music have tended to ignore the melodic and harmonic resources, but these aspects of the music deserve comment, for in the classic pieces, the early Negro composers developed the possibilities of their folk idiom to a remarkable extent. Ragtime was first heard as part of the musical entertainment in the wine rooms and sporting houses in the mid-Western United States. It was played by Negro and a few white itinerant pianists, many of them highly gifted and all of them close to the sources of folk music. They drifted from one town to the next, following the fairs, the races, and the excursions, and when their evening job was finished, they would meet at a piano in some back-room to play on into the morning. Ideas were exchanged freely and rags were patched together from the bits of melody and scraps of harmony that all contributed. During these formative years, each pianist desired only the making of music and the achievement of a personal playing style, but by 1897, with the first publication of a piece, a distinct kind of composition known as ragtime had developed (Blesh, 1958:17). Many of the ideas of these traveling musicians had begun to enter the stream of popular music when a white band leader, W. H. Krell, published his Mississippi Rag in 1897. More pieces followed by both white and Negro composers, and in 1899, Maple Leaf Rag, by the Negro Scott Joplin, was published in Sedalia, Missouri by John Stark. It had such an unprecedented success that finally came to the attention of a nationwide audience. Thousands of people responded to the lilting melodies and exciting syncopation, and bought copies of the sheet music to play on their parlor pianos. The lively melodies and rhythms shocked conservative listeners, but for the first time in American history, Negro composers were impressing their ideas onto the country's popular instrumental music. If the content of the music was unfamiliar, its form was not. The pieces were organized into highly formalized patterns (not unlike nineteenth century lancers dance patterns, cake walks, and marches) which controlled the exuberance of the syncopation and shaped the music so that it was at least structurally familiar to the parlor pianists. A rag was characteristically written in duple meter, although there were a few waltzes and tangos. The compositions were divided into three, four, or five sections or of 16 measures each, usually with a separate melodic development in each strain. The sections were often repeated according to simple patterns like A A B B A C C D D, with the later strains C and D in a key a fourth higher than the key of strains A and B. 174

Variety and Integration in the Pattern of Indian Culture

EVEN if one uses Sanskrit only as the instrument of investigation, it is apparent that Indian culture was a current which, as it flowed and spread, was fed by many a stream and absorbed many a small and stagnant pool. With volume, it gathered often bewildering variety, which was synthesized in a systematic plan. That diverse sources contributed to its making is obvious, but to identify each of them, to survey all the material accepted, and to be reasonably precise in the innumerable details that such a study involves, seems a stupendous and baffling task. It is possible, however, to point out certain instances in which the main tradition embraced smaller group-cultures and incorporated regional elements. As this culture became consolidated throughout India, it employed certain characteristic methods wherever it went, not only in India and the peripheral regions, but in all those trans-Indian territories to which it expanded. Sanskrit was the ultimate medium of transmission used by the main body of this culture and Sanskritization the chief technique of the take-over. Hence an examination of Sanskrit literature, in its different branches, will prove useful in investigating the incorporation of regional and folk elements. Without going into questions of pre-Vedic or Indus Valley cultures, or the problem of contributions by Munda, Austric, Dravidian, and Mongoloid, data can be found in Sanskrit literature which help to illuminate Hindu sociology, religion, and the arts during the historic period. Dharma is one of the vital concepts of this culture; in fact, it can broadly be used in the sense of culture itself. The Dharma Skstras are the practical codes which lay down religious and civil duties and regulate and systematize conduct in all departments of life. It is therefore proper to turn to them first and look for the ingredients of the dharma that they propound. The authors of the Smrtis and Dharma Sfitras and Grhya SfItras, such as Gautama, Apastamba, A.valayana, Manu, and others, approached this problem with a sense of realism and a spirit of accommodation. The sources of dharma are Veda, Smrti which derives its authority from Veda, the conduct of the good, and the conscience of right-minded persons. But there are practices and customs which differ in different parts of the country; where do these stand with reference to the principle of ultimate Vedic authority? That this question is discussed both in the Dharma

The folk elements in Vachel Lindsay's poetry

The folk elements in Vachel Lindsay's poetry

The Very Pompes of the Divell—Popular and Folk Elements in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama

Journal Article The Very Pompes of the Divell—Popular and Folk Elements in Elizabethan and Jacobean Drama Get access Douglas Hewitt Douglas Hewitt Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The Review of English Studies, Volume os-XXV, Issue 97, 1 January 1949, Pages 10–23, https://doi.org/10.1093/res/os-XXV.97.10 Published: 01 January 1949

The Folk Element in Judaism

The Folk Element in Judaism