Veronica Henderson - Cello
Elizabeth Mucha - Piano
Classical music is often seen as elitist, yet beneath the surface it is frequently shaped by dance rhythms and folk melodies. Our programme, “Rooted in Folk Style and Dance”, explores how composers across different countries and periods have woven these influences into their music.
Mátyás Seiber - Sarabande and Gigue
Erik Chisholm - Three Miniatures
Robert Schumann - Stücke im Volkston
John Blackwood McEwen - Hills o’Heather
Béla Bartók - Romanian Dances
Our programme opens with “Sarabande and Gigue in Old Style” by Hungarian composer, Mátyás Seiber. Inspired by various genres including jazz, serialism, Hungarian folk music, and even medieval plainchant, his musical output was equally varied, ranging from serious classical music to film music. He even taught jazz in Frankfurt for five years (1928 – 1933). In the “Sarabande and Gigue in Old Style” which he composed in 1922, whilst studying in Budapest, Seiber pays homage to dance forms associated most often with the Baroque.
Although the sarabande and the gigue are now mostly considered to be courtly dances, their roots are far more modest. The sarabande began as a fast Spanish dance in the 1500s, shaped by Arab influences, and it spread quickly through Spanish America. One Jesuit priest condemned it as “a dance and song so loose in its words and so ugly in its motions that it is enough to excite bad emotions in even very decent people.” The livelier gigue likewise evolved from the folk jig, long linked with dancing in Ireland and Scotland.
Like Seiber, Scottish composer Erik Chisholm found inspiration in various musical genres, even in Indian ragas, but ultimately it was the melodies of the Scottish Highlands, his original musical muse, which were the greatest influence on his compositions. In his ‘Three Miniatures’ the structure may be that of an elegant minuet, a lilting pastorale and a determined march, the musical language however clearly betrays his deep love of Celtic idioms.
Robert Schumann scarcely needs introduction as a composer who embodied the spirit of Romantic music. The “Fünf Stücke im Volkston” (Five pieces in folk style), however, are quite unique in his body of work. More inclined to explore emotion in his compositions or to draw inspiration from esoteric literature than to identify with the music of the people, these five pieces are unusual in that they emulate the style of folk music. Composed in 1849, against the backdrop of revolutionary unrest throughout Europe, perhaps this was Schumann attempting to align himself more closely with the voice of the people.
From an earlier generation of Scottish composers, John Blackwood McEwen lived and worked in London for much of his life and became the Principal of the Royal Academy of Music from 1924 to 1936. His works have been described as showing influences of the French Romantics such as Chausson as well as drawing on the rich harmonic language of composers such as Strauss and Scriabin. Nevertheless, many compositions in his extensive body of work hearken back to his Scottish roots both in title and atmosphere. “Hills o’ Heather” (A Retrospect) is a nostalgic rhapsody, owing more to French impressionism with its simpler harmonic language, evoking misty and heather clad hills in the Scottish Highlands.
We end our programme with the “Romanian Dances” by Hungarian composer and pioneer ethnomusicologist Béla Bartók. Beginning in 1906, he and fellow composer Zoltán Kodály travelled through rural Eastern Europe with an Edison phonograph, collecting, transcribing, and classifying thousands of folk songs. Bartók also documented the dances that accompanied them, recognising that movement was inseparable from the rituals and emotions the music expressed. Together, song and dance offered a vivid reflection of human experience.