 Harvard referencing style.

 Specific reference to musical examples33

 Include well-presented and annotated extracts.
 Full reference list at the end of your essay and additional bibliography
where appropriate.
 Cite other musicologists’ views – make sure your sources are valid.

Bartok- Evidence
“Now I have a new plan: to collect the finest Hungarian folksongs and to raise
them, adding the best possible piano accompaniments, to the level of art-
song.” (Bartok cited in Szollosy, 1967: 99)

Fischer, V. (2001). ‘Piano Music: teaching pieces and folksong arrangements’.

In Amanda Bayley (ed). The Cambridge Companion to Bartok. Cambridge: CUP

Aspects derived from folk styles

Melodic
Pentatonic melodies
Modal scales (Hungarian minor mode) Asymmetrical scales

Rhythmic
“Aksak" rhythms – additive vs divisive – 3+2 quavers Alternating time signatures

“The study of this peasant music was for me of decisive importance, for the reason
that it revealed to me the possibility of a total emancipation from the hegemony of
the major-minor system. For the largest and, indeed, the most valuable part of this
treasure-house of melodies lies in the old church modes, in ancient Greek and still
more primitive scales (notably the pentatonic), and also shows the most varied and
free rhythms and time-changes.” (Bartok cited in Griffiths, 1994:57)

Griffiths, P. (1994) Modern Music: A Concise History. 2nd edition. New York:
Thames & Hudson Ltd.

 The rise of awareness of national identities is a key theme of the latter part of
the 19th century
 In the arts in general, this is seen through an increasing interest in folk
heritage and conscious separation from perceived German hegemony
 Bartok’s influence was initially as much as a collector and recorder of folk
music, but it became central to his entire musical language
 Similar trends can be found in the work of composers across Europe
(examples include: Smetana, Dvorak, Janacek, Grieg, Sibelius etc.)

English Folk revival

Nationalism: “A mus. movement which began during the 19th cent. and was marked
by emphasis on nat. elements in mus. such as folksongs, folk dances, folk rhythms
or on subjects for operas and symphonic poems which reflected nat. life or history.”
Kennedy, M. (ed.). (n.d.). Nationalism in Music. The Oxford Dictionary of Music.
Available Online:
http://www.oxfordmusiconline.com/subscriber/article/opr/t237/e7158 [Accessed
18/2/17]

English folk song collectors • Sabine Baring-Gould

Songs and Ballads of the West

• Lucy Broadwood Traditional English Songs

• Cecil Sharp
English Folk Song: some conclusions

Vaughan Williams Evidence

Editing the English Hymnal

Relationship between Church, folk music and national identity

Rediscovery of Elizabethan English music (Tallis etc.)

Influence of folk/Church music in ‘free’ compositions

 RVW was tasked with selecting the tunes for The English Hymnal, which

was published by the Church of England in 1906.

• “Recognizing that for most people, church attendance represented their only
regular opportunity for music-making, he set aside any theological scruples in
order to focus on this crucial venue for amateur singing.” (Onderdonk, 2013,
pg. 146)

 In 1934, in “The influence of Folk-song on the Music of the Church”, RVW argues
that the long-held separation of church music and popular music was a
false:

• the influence of folk and popular traditional songs on church musicians

should be acknowledged;

• by implication he criticised the Romantic ‘cult of personality’ (e.g.

Beethoven);

• his belief was that composers should draw on the local popular music that
surrounded them.

EVIDENCE
“The work is wonderful because it seems to lift one into some unknown region of
musical thought and feeling. Throughout its course one is never quite sure whether
one is listening to something very old or very new ... It cannot be assigned to a time
or a school but it is full of the visions which have haunted the seers of all times.”
(Maitland in Thomson, 2013, p. 65)

Thomson, A (2013). ‘Becoming a national composer: critical reception to c. 1925’ in

The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

 As with Bartok, RVW not only made direct folk song arrangements (e.g.
English Folk Song Suite, 1923), but also incorporated the melodic and
harmonic language of them into his ’freely composed’ music
 Primarily, in the shaping of melodic material and use of diatonic Church
modes or pentatonic scales

• e.g. Symphony No. 3 (‘Pastoral’)

Modal melodic lines in RVW’s Symphony No. 3

Holst
“Vaughan Williams had begun collecting folksongs in Essex
during 1904 and as soon as Holst heard the tunes he
recognized that this was what he had been longing for.”
“Here, for the first time he found simplicity and economy that he
needed in his own music” page 16 the music of Gustav
Holst- Imogen Holst London Oxford University Press 1968
 Edward Elgar
(1857–1934)

“Of course, the two cases are different in many respects, perhaps most notably the
fact that, by 1920, Vaughan Williams was widely known and respected for his work in
other areas (as an editor and folksong collector), something that was not the case
with Elgar. But the suddenness of their rise in esteem is indicative of the fluidity of
British musical life in this period: that a composer whose work reflected the national
zeitgeist in some way could achieve instant and lasting recognition.” (Thomson,
2013, p. 75)

Thomson, A (2013). ‘Becoming a national composer: critical reception to c. 1925’ in

The Cambridge Companion to Vaughan Williams. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.

Summary

• As with many other parts of Europe, England saw a resurgence of

interest in folk culture, including music. 
 However, unlike in continental
Europe, this was less a response to the 1848 revolutions than to the
Industrial Revolution and Empire 
 Like Bartok and many others, the
melodic/harmonic material not only resulted in direct arrangements but
also the creation of a distinct national sound – e.g. RVW, Butterworth 
 •
(NB. Another very obvious example is Sibelius in Finland) 
 On the
other hand, despite his clear ‘nationalist’ position now, Elgar is more of
an enigma...