Az Eszterházy Károly Tanárképző Főiskola Tudományos Közleményei. 1998. Vol. 2. Eger Journal of English Studies.(Acta Academiae Paedagogicae Agriensis : Nova series ; Tom. 26)
Studies - Jan Smaczny: The stuff of life' - aspects of folksong in the fabric of art music in the British Isles
composers of today have derived, and will continue to derive, much that is charming and novel in their music. Nor is there anything objectionable in this, for if the poet and the painter base much of their best art on national legends, songs and traditions, why should not the musician? 1 1 Dvorák made similar observations regarding the potential for classical music in America: In the negro melodies of America I discover all that is needed for a great and noble school of music. They are pathetic, tender, passionate, melancholy, solemn, religious, bold, merry, gay or what you will. 1 2 The profound irony that Dvorák himself had a profound aversion for using 'borrowed' material was almost certainly lost on his British and American contemporaries. While Dvorák frequently affects the popular style, he almost never quoted actual folksong and only rarely reflected specific features of its outline in his music; his Czech word-setting, however, after an uneasy start was remarkably idiomatic. But the notion that he had used local material, i.e. plantation songs and spirituals, to add native colour to his 'New World' symphony was widely held. The misconception had considerable effect in Ireland. After the symphony's premiere in Dublin in 1901, the committee of the annual competitive music festival (Feis Ceoil) founded a competition for the composition of an Irish symphony based on traditional songs and folk melodies. The first winner, in 1902, was a Neapolitan composer and pianist who had come to Dublin in 1882, Michele Esposito; the following year (1903) the prize was won by a native of Ireland, Hamilton Harty, from County Down in Ulster. Faithfully building his work on melodies which were certainly recognisable to his audience, Harty's Irish Symphony is a vigorous and ingenious four-movement work. Although it has been 1 1 Antonín Dvorák (with Henry T. Finck), 'Franz Schubert', The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine, New York, 1894; reprinted in John Clapham, Antonín Dvorák: Musician and Craftsman , London 1966, p. 296-305. 1 2 Antonín Dvorák, 'The Real Value of Negro Melodies', The New York Herald , 21 May 1893; most of this article is reprinted in John Tibbetts, Dvorák in America ; 1892-1895, Portland, 1993, pp. 355-9. 38
