MUSI 207EuropeChapter 8

European MusicMusic and History

Music in Peasant and Folk Societies

Music in Urban Societies

National Styles

Concerts and the Virtuoso

Individual and Society

Instruments

The Eurovision Song Contest as a Metaphor for Modern Europe.

Music and History

Folk music has been seen as a means of revealing and articulating history in both musical and cultural ways. But the construction of history out of folk song styles has clear ideological and nationalistic implications. The historicalization of national music, too, was a statement of identity serving political ends. Is the same strategy still used today? Folk music is periodically revitalized to highlight contemporary political issues.http://www.peoplesmusic.org/ People’s Music Network

Music in Peasant and Folk Societies

“Folk music” was an eighteenth-century concept, part of a larger intellectual movement that romanticized rural life.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxSIwr5faBA

Music in Urban Societies

Urbanization was on the increase during this period. “The folk” represented an earlier, more innocent era viewed through the fuzzy light of nostalgia by displaced city dwellers. In the city, there was an increasing tendency toward specialization of musicians: hereditary musical castes (Gypsies) and ascribed outsiders (Jewish musicians) were assigned the low status task of providing entertainment music to order.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSeQK5n3aAU

National Styles

More the result of politics than of a consistent and unified history, “national musics” may combine disparate styles and repertoires from different parts of a country, symbolizing a modern kind of unity.

Concerts and the Virtuoso

Another legacy of the 19th century was the rise of virtuosity. The virtuoso became a celebrity for whom normal social mores were suspended. In many ways, the “Great Artist” was as much of a marginal person as the professional specialist, for whom normal mores were also relaxed: they were troublemakers, attractive lovers, and had the freedom to move around.

Individual and Society

The idealized form of folk music is an aesthetic metaphor for community. In art music, the string quartet and chamber ensemble fill a similar role ––egalitarian–– in contrast to the symphony orchestra with its “urban” hierarchical structure and division of labor.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhfCr1cri20

Instruments

Compare the piano (the product of an industrial age which, during the colonial era in particular, became a symbol of the hegemony of European music), with the violin (now considered “indigenous” in many parts of the world, e.g., South India).http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DmDKUSXAjk&feature=plcp

The Eurovision Song Contest as a Metaphor for Modern Europe

The contest receives continent-wide coverage, although it includes some countries (such as Turkey, Egypt, Cyprus, and Israel) that are not European. Many different styles are offered, but the winner is always the blandest, most compromised sound, something felt to be generically “European.”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfo-8z86x80

For next class

Chapter Exam 8 is due Friday

Comment on the D2L PowerPoint presentations

Read Chapter 8 (pgs. 276-297) on Latin American music

References

European Union Chamber Orchestra 30th Anniversary Recording [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MhfCr1cri20

Gypsy folk music - Freylekh Trio - Aven Mande [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxSIwr5faBA

Loreen - Euphoria - Live - Grand Final - 2012 Eurovision Song Contest [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pfo-8z86x80

moishes bagel live [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DmDKUSXAjk&feature=plcp

People’s Music Network [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.peoplesmusic.org/

Romale Mix! Modern Gypsy folklore heeee! [Video file]. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XSeQK5n3aAU

“Nor do I hear in my imagination the parts successively, I hear them all at once. What a delight this is! All this inventing, this producing, takes place in a pleasing, lively dream.” -Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart