Musical nationalism

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Musical nationalism refers to the use of musical ideas or motifs that are identified with a specific country, region, or ethnicity, such as folk tunes and melodies, rhythms, and harmonies inspired by them. Musical nationalism can also include the use of folklore as a basis for programmatic works including opera.^{[citation needed]}

History

As a musical movement, nationalism emerged early in the 19th century in connection with political independence movements, and was characterized by an emphasis on national musical elements such as the use of folk songs, folk dances or rhythms, or on the adoption of nationalist subjects for operas, symphonic poems, or other forms of music (Kennedy 2006). More precise considerations of the point of origin are a matter of some dispute. One view holds that it began with the war of liberation against Napoleon, leading to a receptive atmosphere in Germany for Weber's opera Der Freischütz (1821) and, later, Richard Wagner's epic dramas based on Teutonic legends. At around the same time, Poland’s struggle for freedom from Czarist Russia produced a nationalist spirit in the piano works of Frédéric Chopin, and slightly later Italy's aspiration to independence from Austria resonated in many of the operas of Giuseppe Verdi (Machlis 1979, 125–26). According to another view, however, nationalism initially began as a reaction against the dominance of the mainstream European classical tradition (that is "German", "Italian", and "French" music) and later developed alongside the growing movements for national liberation and self-determination that characterized much of the 19th century.^{[citation needed]} Countries or regions most commonly linked to musical nationalism include Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Scandinavia, Spain, UK, Latin America and the United States.

It should also be noted that musical nationalism is a term often used to describe non-European 20th century music as well, in particular that originating in Latin America.^{[citation needed]}

Poland

Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)

See also: Frédéric Chopin#Nationalism

Frédéric Chopin was one of the first composers to incorporate nationalistic elements into his compositions . Joseph Machlis states, "Poland's struggle for freedom from tsarist rule aroused the national poet in Poland. … Examples of musical nationalism abound in the output of the romantic era. The folk idiom is prominent in the Mazurkas of Chopin." (Machlis 1963, 149–50). His mazurkas and polonaises are particularly notable for their use of nationalistic rhythms. Moreover, "During World War II the Nazis forbade the playing of … Chopin's Polonaises in Warsaw because of the powerful symbolism residing in these works" (Machlis 1963, 150).

Russia

Until the 19th century, Russian art music had been dominated by foreign musicians. Peter the Great (1689–1725) had begun this trend by importing foreign musicians to modernize his kingdom. As a result, very few Russian compositions in the western European art music tradition exist before Glinka.

Mikhail Glinka (1804-1857)

Mikhail Glinka was the first Russian composer to give a native voice to common musical styles of the day. After studying music and visiting Italy and Berlin, Glinka composed an opera about the Russian peasant and hero Ivan Susanin. The work was titled A Life for the Tsar, and used several aspects new to Russian music. It used recitative instead of spoken dialogue, and had recurring themes. There were two Russian folk tunes in the opera, and several more tunes that had the characteristics of folk music.

The Five

Moguchaya kuchka (The Mighty Handful) is a phrase coined by Russian music critic Vladimir Stasov to describe a group of five Russian composers whose purpose was to compose music in a Russian style. Members of the five were Mily Balakirev (1836–1910), the leader of the group, César Cui (1835–1918), Modest Mussorgsky (1839–1881), Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844–1908), and Alexander Borodin (1833–1887).

The Five felt that the folk and religious music of the Russian people should be used a basis for composition. They tried to avoid strict counterpoint in the Germanic style, as well as certain other techniques employed in western Europe. They preferred Romanticism and realism over Classical form. Some of the distinguishing stylistic characteristics of this group included use of non-functional tonal progressions, asymmetrical meters, and a coloristic approach to orchestration.

Czechoslovakia

Czechoslovakia was a country formed in 1918 by the combination of the Bohemian, Moravian, and Slovakian territories. These territories had been under the control of the Habsburg Empire. As a result, the imperial language, German, and the imperial religion, Catholicism, had become a way of life for the Czech people.

To preserve the native language, the Provisional Theater was organized in Prague. This theater promoted the Czech language, composers, folk music, and programs using national themes.

Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884)

Smetana, a Bohemian, was the first great Czech nationalist composer. He wrote his first nationalist work in 1863, in Czech, as a contest entry to the Provisional Theater. He learned to read and write Czech to enter the competition. This opera, Braniboři v Čechách (The Brandenburgers in Bohemia) has a historic plot, but the music does not represent folk song.

His second opera, Prodaná nevěsta (The Bartered Bride, 1863–1866), incorporates folk melodies, and was a success beyond Czechoslovakia. Also included in his nationalistic works are the six tone poems Má vlast (My Fatherland, 1872–1880).

Antonín Dvořák (1841–1904)

Dvořák was the most successful of the Czech nationalist composers. He performed viola in the Provisional Theater under Smetana, and was mentored by Brahms.

Dvořák included Bohemian themes and elements into much of his music. In 1871, he left the Provisional Theater and began to set a libretto by a Czech writer, Lobesky, titled Král a uhlíř (The King and the Charcoal Burner). Unfortunately, this opera was not successful. More notable for their national content are his sixteen Slavonic Dances, eight in Op. 46 (1878) and eight in Op. 72 (1886), plus the three Slavonic Rhapsodies, Op. 45 (1880).

Dvořák was invited to New York to direct the first national conservatory in America. While abroad, he studied African-American and Native American music. These styles are incorporated into his American works: Symphony No. 9, Op. 95 (From the New World), the String Quartet No. 12, Op. 96 ("American"), and the "American" String Quintet, Op. 97.

Leoš Janáček (1854–1928)

Janáček did a lot of work researching and cataloging Moravian folk music. His work inspired further research. Because of his interest in folk music, he was predisposed to modality and pentatonic scales which appear frequently in Moravian folk music. He generally wrote without key signatures to freely move between modes.

His most famous opera, Jenůfa (1904), was originally written in Czech and translated into German. Janáček supervised the translation carefully to preserve the integrity of the libretto.

Norway

Edvard Grieg (1843–1907)

See also: Grieg's music in popular culture

Grieg composed many piano works in a national style.^{[citation needed]}

Finland

Jean Sibelius (1865–1957)

Jean Sibelius had strong patriotic feelings for Finland. Composed Finlandia.

Sweden

Hugo Alfvén (1872-1960)

Studied at the music conservatory in his hometown, Stockholm. In addition to being a Violinist, Conductor, and Composer; he was also a painter. He is perhaps best known for his 5 symphonies and 3 Swedish Rhapsodies.

Spain

Felip Pedrell (1841-1922)

Spanish Catalan Composer. Basically the father of Spanish national music. He strongly encouraged both Albéniz and Granados to compose music in the Spanish style.^{[citation needed]}

Isaac Albéniz (1860–1909)

Albéniz was born in Camprodon, Catalonia and studied at many of Europes premiere conservatories, including the Escuela Nacional de Música y Declamación in Spain. Many of his piano works reflect his Spanish heritage,^{[citation needed]} including the suites Iberia (1906–1909). In these pieces the piano imitates the guitar and castanets, traditional Spanish instruments.^{[citation needed]}

Enrique Granados (1867–1916)

Granados composed his work Goyescas (1911) based on the etchings of the Spanish painter, Goya. Also of a national style are his Danzas españolas and his first opera María del Carmen.

Mexico

Manuel M. Ponce (1882–1948)

Manuel M. Ponce was a composer, educator and scholar of Mexican music. Among his works are the lullaby La Rancherita (1907), Scherzerino Mexicana (1909) composed in the style of sones and huapangos, Rapsodía Mexicana, No 1 (1911) based on the jarabe tapatío, and the romantic ballad Estrellita (1912).

Carlos Chávez (1899–1978)

Carlos Chávez was a Mexican composer, conductor, educator, journalist, and founder and director of the Mexican Symphonic Orchestra and the National Institute of Fine Arts INBA. Some of his music was influenced by indigenous Mexican cultures. A period of nationalistic leanings initiated in 1921 with the Aztec-themed ballet El fuego nuevo (The New Fire), followed by a second ballet, Los cuatro soles (The Four Suns), in 1925.

Silvestre Revueltas (1899–1940)

Silvestre Revueltas was a composer of both nationalistic and avant-garde music.^{[citation needed]}

Italy

Ottorino Respighi (1879-1936)

He is best known for his orchestral Roman trilogy: Fontane di Roma - "Fountains of Rome"; Pini di Roma - "Pines of Rome"; and Feste Romane - "Roman Festivals".

United Kingdom

Joseph Parry (1841–1903)

Parry was born in Wales, but moved to the United States as a child. In his adulthood, he traveled between Wales and America, and performed Welsh songs and glees with Welsh texts in recitals. He composed the first Welsh opera, Blodwen (1878).

Edward Elgar (1857-1934)

Best known for the Pomp and Circumstance Marches.

Charles Stanford (1852–1924)

Stanford wrote five Irish Rhapsodies (1901–1914). He published volumes of Irish folk song arrangements, and his third symphony is titled the Irish symphony.

Alexander Mackenzie (1847–1935)

Mackenzie wrote a Highland Ballad for violin and orchestra (1893), and the Scottish Concerto for piano and orchestra (1897). He also composed the Canadian Rhapsody.

Ralph Vaughan Williams (1872–1958)

Vaughan Williams collected, published, and arranged many folksongs from across the country, and wrote many pieces, large and small scale, based on folk melodies, such as the Fantasia on Greensleeves and the Five Variants on "Dives and Lazarus".

United States

Charles Wakefield Cadman (1881–1946)

Cadman spent time on the Omaha and Winnebago Indian reservations and recorded their songs. He arranged and published some of them. Cadman presented a series of recitals with the Omaha princess Tsianina Redfeather, a mezzo-soprano, and composed an opera, Shanewis or The Robin Woman (1918), based on her life.^{[citation needed]}

Arthur Farwell (1872–1952)

Farwell also worked with Native American music, but also studied Anglo American and African American folk songs, as well as Mexican and Cowboy music. He founded Wa-Wan Press to publish his American Indian Melodies (1900) and works by contemporary composers.^{[citation needed]}

Charles Ives (1874–1954)

Ives combined the American popular and church-music traditions of his youth with European art music. Sources of Charles Ives’s tonal imagery are hymn tunes and traditional songs, the town band at holiday parade, the fiddlers at Saturday night dances, patriotic songs, sentimental parlor ballads, and the melodies of Stephen Foster.^{[citation needed]}

Aaron Copland (1900–1990)

Copland wrote in a classic "Americana" style writing several patriotic songs such as Lincoln Portrait.^{[citation needed]} Ironically, he also composed "Mexican" music such as El Salón México (Piston 1961, 25).

Edward MacDowell (1860–1908)

MacDowell's Woodland Sketches, op. 51 (1896) consists of ten short piano pieces bearing titles referring to the American landscape. In this way, they make a claim to MacDowell's identity as an American composer (Crawford 1996, 542). He was best known for his Second Piano Concerto and his piano suites Woodland Sketches, Sea Pieces, and New England Idylls, heavily inspired by scenes of nature in the New England States.^{[citation needed]}

African-American music

Music Nationalism was started off with the Czech composer Antonín Dvořák. After he traveled to America, it became very apparent that he was extremely interested in American folk music, Native American tribes, and the black community that was around New York City. Dvořák showed particular interest in his student Harry Burleigh. Burleigh is recognized as the first African American to achieve national status as a composer and arranger. Burleigh became famous for his arrangements in art form music of African American Spirituals.^{[citation needed]}

Burleigh was the exception to most African-American composers who mainly studied compositions in theater music. Will Marion Cook was a violinist and graduated from The Oberlin Conservatory when he was only 15 years old. He composed many unsuccessful musicals but was best known for his songs that represented black folk elements. John Rosamond Johnson, James Weldon Johnson, and Robert Cole produced two successful operettas with all-black casts on Broadway, The Shoo-Fly Regiment and The Red Moon.^{[citation needed]}

Ukraine

In Ukraine the term "Music nationalism" (Ukrainian: музичний націоналізм) was coined by Stanyslav Lyudkevych in 1905 (Hrabovsky 2009,). The article under this title is devoted to Mykola Lysenko who is considered to be the father of Ukrainian classical music. Ludkevych concludes that Lysenko's nationalism was inspired by those of Glinka in Russian music, though western tradition, particularly German, is still significant in his music, especially instrumental.

V. Hrabovsky assumes that Stanyslav Lyudkevych himself could be considered as significant nationalistic composer and musicologist thanks to his numerous composition under Ukraine-devoted titles as well as numerous paper devoted to use of Ukrainian folk songs and poetry in Ukrainian classical music (Lyudkevych 1905).

Inspiration by Ukrainian folklore could be observed even earlier, particularly in compositions by Maksym Berezovsky (1745–1777) (Kornii 1998, 188), Dmytro Bortnyansky (1751–1825) (Kornii 1998, 296), and Artem Vedel (1767–1808) (Kornii 1998, 311). Semen Hulak-Artemovsky (1813–1873) is considered to be the author of the first Ukrainian opera (Zaporozhets za Dunayem, premièred in 1863). Lysenko's traditions were continued by, among others, Kyrylo Stetsenko (1882–1922), Mykola Leontovych (1877–1921), Yakiv Stepovy (1883–1921), Alexander Koshetz (1877–1944), and later, Levko Revutsky (1889–1977).

At the same time the term "nationalism" is not used in Ukrainian musicology (see for example Yutsevych 2009, where such term is missing). Moreover, the article "Music Nationalism" by Ludkevych was prohibited in the USSR (Hrabovsky 2009,) and was not widely known until its publication in 1999 (Lyudkevych 1999).

References

• Crawford, Richard A. 1996. "Edward MacDowell: Musical Nationalism and an American Tone Poet". Journal of the American Musicological Society 49, no. 3 (Fall): 528–60.
• Kornii, L. 1998. Історія української музики. Т.2 . — К. ; Харків; Нью-Йорк : М. П. Коць.
• Hrabovsky, Volodymyr. 2009. Станіслав Людкевич і націоналізм у музиці" [Stanislav Ljudkevych and Nationalism in Music]. Музикознавчі студії [Musicological Studies]: 37–45.
• Kennedy, Michael. 2006. "Nationalism in Music". The Oxford Dictionary of Music, second edition, revised, Joyce Bourne Kennedy, associate editor. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198614593.
• Lyudkevych, Stanyslav. 1999. Націоналізм у музиці / / С. Людкевич. Дослідження, статті, рецензії, виступи [Nationalism in Music: S. Ljudkevych. Research, Articles, Reviews, Performances] 2 vols. Vol 1: C. Людкевич [S. Lyudkevych] / Упоряд., ред., вступ. ст., пер. і прим. З. Шту-ндер. — Л. : Дивосвіт. — pp. 35–52.
• Machlis, Joseph. 1963. The Enjoyment of Music. New York: W. W. Norton.
• Piston, Walter. 1961. "Can Music Be Nationalistic?" Music Journal 19, no. 7 (October): 25, 86.
• Stokes, Martin. 2001. "Ethnomusicology, §IV: Contemporary Theoretical Issues". The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
• Yutsevych, Yevgenii. 2009. Словник-довідник музичних термінів [Dictionary-Directory of Musical Terms]. (Accessed 16 June 2012).

Further reading

• Apel, Willi. 1968. Harvard Dictionary of Music. Boston: Harvard University Press.
• Applegate, Celia. 1998. 'How German Is It? Nationalism and the Idea of Serious Music in the Early Nineteenth Century', 19th-Century Music, 21, no. 3 (Spring): 274–96.
• Castellanos, Pablo. 1969. El nacionalismo musical en México. México, D. F.: Seminario de Cultura Mexicana.
• Dibble, Jeremy. 1997. "Musical Nationalism in Ireland in the Twentieth Century: Complexities and Contradictions". In Music and Nationalism in 20th-century Great Britain and Finland, edited by Tomi Mäkelä, 133-144. Hamburg: Bockel. ISBN 3-928770-99-3.
• Garmendia Paesky, Emma. 2007. "El nacionalismo musical de Alberto Williams en sus obras para piano: Milonga, vidalita y huella". Inter-American Music Review 17, nos. 1–2 (Summer): 293–306.
• Grout, Donald J. 1960. A History of Western Music. New York: W. W. Norton.
• Hebert, D. G. & Kertz-Welzel, A. (Eds.). 2012. Patriotism and Nationalism in Music Education. Aldershot: Ashgate Press.
• Kolt, Robert Paul. 2009. Robert Ward's The Crucible: Creating an American Musical Nationalism. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-6350-2.
• Labonville, Marie Elizabeth. 2007. Juan Bautista Plaza and Musical Nationalism in Venezuela. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. ISBN 0-253-34876-5.
• Limón, José Eduardo. 2011. "'This Is Our Música, Guy!': Tejanos and Ethno/Regional Musical Nationalism". In Transnational Encounters: Music and Performance at the U.S.-Mexico Border, edited by Alejandro L. Madrid, 111–28. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-973592-1 (cloth); ISBN 0-19-973593-X (pbk).
• Milin, Melita. 2004. "Socialist Realism as an Enforced Renewal of Musical Nationalism". In Socialist Realism and Music, edited by Mikuláš Bek, Geoffrey Chew, and Petr Macek, 39–43. Proceedings of the 36th Brněnské Hudebněvědné Kolokvium (2001), Brno. Prague: kpk: Koniasch Latin Press. ISBN 80-86791-18-1. Poland".
• Murphy, Michael. 2001. "Moniuszko and Musical Nationalism in In Musical Constructions of Nationalism: Essays on the History and Ideology of European Musical Culture, 1800–1945, edited by Harry M. White and Michael Murphy, 163–80. Cork: Cork University Press. ISBN 1-85918-153-8 (cloth); ISBN 1-85918-322-0 (pbk).
• Otaola González, Paloma. 2008. "Oscar Esplá y el nacionalismo musical". Revista de Musicología 31, no. 2 (December): 453–97.
• Porter, Cecelia Hopkins. 1977. "The Rheinlieder Critics: A Case of Musical Nationalism". The Musical Quarterly 63, no. 1 (January): 74–98. ISSN 0027-4631
• Southern, Eileen. 1997. The Music of Black Americans, third Edition. New York: Norton and Company.
• Stolba, K. Marie. 1990. The Development of Western Music: A History. Dubuque, Iowa: Wm. C. Brown, Inc.
• Taruskin, Richard. n.d. "Nationalism". Grove Music Online ed. L. Macy (Accessed 8 December 2005). [<http://www.grovemusic.com>].
• Turino, Thomas R. 2000. "Race, Class, and Musical Nationalism in Zimbabwe". In Music and the Racial Imagination, edited by Ronald Michael Radano, Houston A. Baker, Jr., and Philip V. Bohlman, 554–84. Chicago Studies in Ethnomusicology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-70199-9 (cloth); ISBN 0-226-70200-6 (pbk).
• Villanueva, Carlos. 2008. "El nacionalismo musical en la obra de Alejo Carpentier: Variaciones sobre la lira y el bongó". Cuadernos de Música Iberoamericana, no. 15:119–31.