Re: "elevating" ("improving") folk music

[Robert Cohen <rlcm17...>]

That's exactly what the Society for Jewish Folk Music in turn-of-the-century 
Russia (I think I have name and time right--not near my books) sought to do: 
  "elevate" (by its lights) folk music into "art music."  FWIW, I share 
Joshua's distaste for that ethos and aesthetic--passionately.  But I think 
some such transformations or incorporations of folk music "work," probably 
because the composer respected and did not demean the original:  Vaughan 
Williams' ENGLISH FOLK SONG SUITE, for example, and some of Bartok.  Maybe 
APPALCHIAN SPRING, too, and I'm sure there are other successful examples. -- 
Robert Cohen


>From: Joshua Horowitz <horowitz (at) styria(dot)com>
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: Meaning of "Klezmer"
>Date: Tue, 04 Jan 2000 17:35:34 +0100
>
> > Josh,
> >
> > Which attempts to integrate klezmer music into modern compositions are
> > you thinking of? Bob
>
>I wasn't trying to be specific, but was more taking a definite, very
>opinionated standpoint about the effort as such for myself. I won't
>single out any compositions I've heard, in spite of having been asked
>ocassionally to write reviews. I feel too jaded to trust my own opinion
>on a public platform outside of the realm of a discussion like this. But
>I think my main qualm about using folk music for the basis of *serious
>music* is an implicit meaning that the serious music world is
>*improving* upon the music of the *natives*. I've never been able to
>hear a derivative composition without getting past that reaction. Maybe
>my ears are clogged though, I don't know. Josh
>
>

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