Crossing Boundaries between Nature and Artifact: Folk Music Reconsidere

van Deusen, Nancy (2000) Crossing Boundaries between Nature and Artifact: Folk Music Reconsidere. Studia Musicologica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae, 41 (1-3). pp. 285-301. ISSN 0039-3266

Preview

Text smus.41.2000.1-3.10.pdf Download (164kB) | Preview

Abstract

This paper will address methodological issues, with application, specifically, to the 20th century or so of research on Hungarian folk music. One is able to test the hypothesis that medieval explanations for the compositional process best describe what is taking place compositionally in folksong by comparing the large collection of Hungarian folksongs with the equally vast material of the medieval sequence which was sung in Europe from approximately 875 to 1600. Hungarian folksong and the medieval Latin sequence have features in common. Medieval explanations of spiritual-emotional material, the compositional process, the essence of material or nature, and the differences between nature and artificie, also describe what actually takes place in folksong composition. This contribution to the classifying of folksongs will present a medieval explanation for the compositional process within Hungarian folk music. The author has chosen a type from hundreds of types ordered by several generations of Hungarian ethnomusicologists. The transcriptions of this type are compared. The century of transcriptions of the same melodies, demonstrates that transcription exhibits yet another area of composition, in that each transcriber reformed and recombined that material.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item