Transcript MUSI 207 Europe Chapter 8 European Music Music and History Music in Peasant and Folk Societies Music in Urban Societies National Styles Concerts and the Virtuoso Individual and.

MUSI 207
Europe
Chapter 8
European Music
Music 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. 276297) 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