It’s not unreasonable to imagine that classical and folk music are completely separate genres. Never the twain shall meet, however, folk music has played a central role in Western Classical Music for many centuries.
You need only take a brief snapshot of music during the Medieval Period to hear how folk dance forms, rhythms and melodies filtered into classical compositions.
In many ways, the distinction between genres was not as clear cut at this historical point and so composers borrowing folk music would have been perfectly acceptable. These melodies, rhythms and forms were cleverly worked into compositions often both secular and sacred.
Multifaceted Nature and Global Influence of Folk Music
Before diving into this topic further it is worth just taking a moment to consider what we understand by the term folk music. Today, people may think of folk music as being the province of a few dedicated souls who play odd, slightly out-of-tune instruments at open-air festivals just for the love of it. But, there’s much more to folk music than that curious image.
Perhaps we can agree that folk comes in many forms. It can often be music that dates back centuries with its origins in a particular country. Folk music can be both instrumental and vocal, sometimes a solo voice.
The music may tell a story and is sometimes modal. Certain instruments can characterize the sound of Irish or Scottish folk music like the Uilleann Pipes, the fiddle or the Bodhran.
There are many more facets of folk music than those above and this is why it has been an enduring influence on composers for as long as it has.
I should also mention that as the possibility of global travel became accessible to the average person the influence of folk or indigenous music from across the world became strongly evident. This is particularly true as we enter the 20th century but not exclusively so.
Folk Music: Influence on Classical Compositions
Beethoven’s Hidden Folk Music Legacy
Beethoven may not spring to mind when thinking of folk music yet it is evident from many pieces he composed that folk music played an integral part in his compositions. Beethoven composed many folk songs during his lifetime. These draw significantly on traditional music from Germany, Austria and further afield and represent some of Beethoven’s most delightfully spirited pieces.
In addition, Beethoven arranged a huge number of existing folk songs. A six-CD collection of Beethoven’s Scottish, Irish and Welsh folk songs is available (Brilliant Classics Complete Beethoven Edition. (BC94630). These are not mere transcriptions but exquisite masterpieces, each one meticulously crafted.
Bartok and Kodaly
Hungarian composer Bela Bartok was one of the most influential composers of his age. He devoted a major amount of his life to collecting folk tunes and transcribing them. Bartok was in some ways quite ahead of his time using early phonographic equipment to record the songs.
The impressive collection of Hungarian Folk Music he and Kodaly curated over decades formed the basis of many pieces by both composers. Bartok’s Romanian Folk Dances originally for piano, (1915) is a first-rate example of genuine folk music used directly in classical composition.
Equally, Kodaly’s Dances of Marosszek (1929), are what the composer felt were based purely on original Hungarian folk melodies.
In a similar way to Beethoven’s approach to using traditional folk music, both Kodaly and Bartok accomplished far more than simple transcription. These melodies became the hallmark of their style; especially for Bartok.
You hear layers of rhythms drawn from folk music coupled with melodies that become the material for entire works. Such was the integration of folk music into Bartok’s work that I find it hard to imagine any of his compositions without the influence of Hungarian traditional music.
Folk Music in Grieg, Dvorak, Janáček, and Vaughan Williams’s Compositions
The music of Edvard Grieg is riven through with Norwegian folk music. Many of Grieg’s compositions use rhythms, modal harmonies and of course melodies from Norway. In his piece titled Norwegian Peasant Dances (Op.72), we hear Grieg exploring the diatonic and modal harmonies inherent in folk music.
We hear drones and the most popular of Norwegian instruments, the Hardinger Fiddle. Grieg’s music captures the essence of Norwegian folk music with deep understanding and empathy for his country. Grieg’s Violin Sonatas is another fine set of works that fuse Norwegian folk with Grieg’s unique voice.
Anton Dvorak is one of the most famous composers to be born in the Czech Republic. His output shows an immense range of compositions from the symphony to the song.
Like many of the other composers mentioned above, Dvorak took the music of his homeland and crafted it into some of the most Romantic music ever written. Some of the most notable folk-influenced compositions include his Slavonic Dances, Gypsy Songs and his opera Rusalka (1900).
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928), was a very important composer deeply devoted to the music of his country of Czechoslovakia. His work is unashamedly nationalistic and draws heavily on the folk music traditions of Czechoslovakia. Like Bela Bartok, Janáček collected folk songs and published a great deal of his findings in reputable journals.
What we hear in the music of Janáček are the inflections of speech derived from his native language alongside Moravian folk melodies. These are intricately woven into his compositions giving them a distinctive and attractive sound that is always obviously Janáček. Much of Janáček’s vocal music illustrates these unique qualities and is a fine place to start exploring his music.
Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872-1958), was one of the most important British composers of his generation. His music ranges from works for the stage, and film through to SATB choral pieces and nine brilliant symphonies.
Vaughan Williams devoted his creative powers to writing music that was unmistakably nationalistic bucking the trends that were spreading across Europe and the United States of America.
Vaughan Williams’s Folk Music Odyssey
Like many of the composers mentioned here, Vaughan Williams spent a considerable amount of time, around thirty days per year for ten years, collecting English folk songs. It is estimated that Vaughan Williams collected an impressive eight hundred songs.
Many of Vaughan Williams’s compositions are strongly influenced by the folk music he collected (https://www.vwml.org/archives-catalogue/RVW2#).
You can hear the modality and shape of folk melodies curving their way through his scores. Orchestrated by Gordon Jacob Vaughan Williams English Folk Song Suite (1923), is a very fine example of the composer’s understanding and passion for folk music.
The work is in three movements. Amongst so many compositions that exploit folk songs Vaughan William’s numerous folk song arrangements for voice and piano are wonderful illustrations of his affinity with the genre. Folk music formed the heart of many large-scale works too from the symphonies to Fantasia on Greensleeves and On Wenlock Edge.
The result, similarly to Janáček, is a new music that is completely original and organically emerges from older musical material.