Folk music, depending on culture and global location, can broadly be described as traditional music. It’s often passed down through the generations orally as opposed to being notated but can cover a vast expanse of different kinds of music.
This is not to be confused with the 21st-century Folk Music revival, which, while it may draw on traditional material, also creates new music along similar lines.
The fact is that significant numbers of composers through the ages have taken great influence from folk music. For some, it is more overtly demonstrated; for others, it is more a symbiosis that results in an inseparable new kind of music.
For many composers throughout history, it would perhaps have been unthinkable not to have been influenced by what they heard around them, by choice or otherwise.
Folk Music Influence on Classical Composers
Béla Bartók
Hungarian composer Béla Bartók (1881-1945) is a fine illustration of how folk music has formed the basis of most of his compositions. Bartók’s interest in the traditional music of his homeland was profound.
He devoted many years to collecting it, cataloging it, and studying it. His work has become an incredibly valuable academic source.
It’s often felt that Bartók’s six string quartets chart his compositional development and that this, in turn, demonstrates his assimilation of folk music into his work.
It manifests itself through Bartók’s use of peasant dance rhythms, alternative tonalities, and unusual structures. Bartók’s Second Quartet (1915-17), for instance, resonates with the sounds of North Africa, where he went to sample the traditional musical culture. The opera from 1911 titled Bluebeard’s Castle is littered with elements of Hungarian folk song.
Zoltán Kodály
Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967) met Bartók in 1906, and together they took a deep dive into their cultural heritage. Kodály had begun his quest for Hungarian traditional music even before he graduated from Budapest University.
Such was his interest and passion for the music of Hungary that it embedded itself into his creative output. To my ears, we hear a closer link to the melodies of folk music in Kodály’s compositions.
There is far less rhythmic brutality, dissonance, and menace than we hear in later works by Bartók. Kodály’s music bathes in the warmth of the Romantic tradition without sacrificing originality.
Franz Liszt
Remaining in a similar region of Europe, Franz Liszt can also take some credit for the promotion of and inclusion of folk music in his work. Probably best known are Liszt’s 19 Hungarian Rhapsodies (S.244). These were composed mostly between 1846-1853, then 1882-1885, with the arrangements for orchestra and piano duet coming later.
There is a slight twist in this tale. Liszt based these pieces on what he thought were Hungarian folk tunes. Some probably were, but a great many, so it is believed, were composed by upper-middle-class Hungarian composers whose music was then adopted by Gypsy traveling bands.
Nevertheless, there are distinct traits of Hungarian music in these and other works, even if their origins are not as pure as those of Bartók and Kodály.
Leos Janáček
Leoš Janáček (1854-1928) had an interest and devotion to folk music that is on a par with Bartók’s. From early childhood, Janáček was surrounded by traditional music, and his love of it never abandoned him.
As its importance to him grew, Janáček avidly collected, arranged, and published many of these songs. He went further, organising modest concerts where the collections could be performed and was passionate about promoting and maintaining the folk traditions.
Janáček’s feelings about folk music are neatly stated in this quote: “If I grow, I grow only from folk songs, from human speech…” What clearer indication could a composer give?
From his earlier, more characteristically Romantic compositions, Janáček’s style quickly absorbs the textures, rhythms, and melodic patterns of Czech speech.
What you hear in works like the opera Jenufa (1904) are speech rhythms from the Moravian dialect woven into his music. The effect on his operatic works was intentionally dramatic and distinct.
Antonín Dvorák
Antonín Dvořák (1841-1904) is a further example of a Bohemian composer who mined the rich seam of folk music from his country. In one sense, Dvořák did the reverse of Janáček, turning folk material into his richly Romantic scores.
There are many examples of the Moravian and Bohemian influences in his work, such as his Moravian Duets or the Slavonic Dances. His symphonic works cast many of their origins into a new, often glorious light, as do his operatic ventures.
It is important to mention just how much of a support Johannes Brahms (1833-1887) was to Dvořák. Not only did he champion his music, but he also secured a publishing contract with his publisher, Simrock. It was this publisher that requested more Slavonic Dances from the composer due to the popularity of the first set. These became his Op.72.
Johannes Brahms
Brahms was not immune to the influence of folk music. Although some of the traits are submerged beneath his independent voice, others are less so.
Through Hungarian violinist Ede Reményi, who formed a close working relationship with the young Brahms, it is thought that the composer was first exposed to gypsy music.
When Brahms published the first set of his Hungarian Dances (1869-1880), the die was cast. These were immensely fashionable and desirable works that secured Brahms the first step on his career ladder.
Brahms, throughout his life, was devoted to the art of songwriting. It is here, I believe, that we encounter the heart of Brahms. I don’t think it is too pretentious to suggest that Brahms’s two hundred vocal works are a natural continuation of Schubert’s Lieder.
They are unmistakably Brahms and, at the same time, a kind of homage to the folk song of Austria. Brahms’s songs, with a deep draw on folk material, give us a crystal-clear window into the composer’s inner thoughts and feelings in a way other works do not.
Ralph Vaughn Williams and Many More
Many more composers deserve more than a mention here, but I’m in the envious position of being able to choose and feel it important to mention Ralph Vaughan Williams.
Often demoted to the benign ranks of just another English pastoralist, Vaughan Williams was significantly more. Not only did he seek to channel his horrific experiences in World War One into works of hope and passion, but he tirelessly collected English folk songs and hymns.
These he seamlessly interlaced with his beautiful fusion of Tudor music and fierce chromaticism. Each of his works has a shining splendor of its own, often magnificent, terrifying, and enlightening.