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Posted by Martin Walker on November 3, 2005, 8:33 pm, in reply to "Reviving "
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It really is difficult to know where to start here, since such vague generalizations always seem to rest on very vague evidence. I can only say that if you think that a Britney Spears "tune" is "folk", you've got another think coming, quite apart from the prohibitive fee involved in quoting it in musical variations (of course it is precisely a "dead artifact" & bound for the junkyard of history). Even Stravinsky found to his horror that the theme of "Happy birthday" used in his Greetings Prelude was copyrighted.And staying with Stravinsky, a prime example of a "modernist", one would think - did he not use folk melodies in Petrouchka & other works? There are variations on a Bänkellied in Berg's Lulu-Suite and a Carinthian folksong is quoted in the violin concerto. John Cage's 16 Dances for orchestra are imbued with popular elements (one of his best works in my opinion), Frederick Rzewski has written one of the 20th century's greatest variation sets on the Chilean popular song Un pueblo unido --- and so it goes. Britten's work is full of popular elements, I hardly need to mention Milhaud, Villa Lobos, Revueltas, Copland, e tutti quanti. On the other hand, "Beethoven etc etc" (sic): - Beethoven's richest work is not particularly notable for "folk sources", a lot being decried as completely mad even by his colleagues (e.g Weber) - it was not really generally recognized for its profoundest qualities until the 20th century, his most popular work during his lifetime being his Septet op.20, followed by Wellington's Victory. Need I say more? Sometimes one gets rather tired of uninformed people slagging off the art music of the last 100 years - if you don't like it, OK, but if you want to criticise then a little more understanding & reflection might be in order.
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