# Composers Whose Music Most Reflected Their Nationality



## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

This may mean different things to different people, and I’m not sure if there is already a thread with a similar subject, but the main question is who are the composers that most embodied/best represent the music of their nationality? Some ideas: Germany/Wagner, Finland/Sibelius, Czech/Janáček, France/Debussy, USA/ Copland etc.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Hungary/Liszt, Poland/Chopin, Norway/Grieg, Russia/Tchaikovsky


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## Olias (Nov 18, 2010)

My opinion:
Dvorak for Czech
Copland for United States
Debussy for France


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Germany: Wagner
UK: Vaughan Williams
France: Debussy
Spain: de Falla
Austria: Haydn
Italy: Verdi
Czech Republic: Dvorak
Hungary: Bartok
Russia: Tchaikovsky
Finland: Sibelius
Poland: Chopin
US: Copland


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## Schoenberg (Oct 15, 2018)

For Russia, any one of the mighty handful.

I would also like to add that Liszt, Chopin, Sibelius and others, though they have written great music, I doubt that the style of their music is particularly nationalistic. While they have written some nationalistic works (Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies, Chopin's Polish songs etc.) their style is predominantly Western.

To quote myself (Style and Idea: Folkloristic symphonies):

_On the other hand some smaller nations whose folk music is not as extraordinary have succeeded in placing in the history of music and intothe minds of music lovers representatives such as Smetana, Grieg, Chopin, Liszt, Dvorak and Sibelius. Characteristically enough, Sibelius contends that his music is not based on national folk music, and I guess that Grieg's also is not. Chopin's rhythms are often derived from Polish dances, but harmonically and in part melodically neither his music nor that of Liszt (or much of Smetana's) differ essentially from Western and Central European styles of their day._


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## R3PL4Y (Jan 21, 2016)

Quite a few 20th century composers composed in nationalistic styles.
Copland in America, Bartok in Hungary, Vaughan Williams in England, Debussy in France, Villa-Lobos in Brazil, etc.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Spain certainly: De Falla as noted; Albeniz; Granados; Rodrigo. Probably the least likely to write outside their culture. And so many outsiders wanted in: Glinka; Rimsky-Korsakov; Chabrier; Ravel; Debussy; Bizet......


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

I would scratch out Tchaikovsky for Russia and insert Shostakovich.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

Bulldog said:


> I would scratch out Tchaikovsky for Russia and insert Shostakovich.


How about Tchaikovsky for Russia and Shostakovich for the Soviet Union?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Bulldog said:


> I would scratch out Tchaikovsky for Russia and insert Shostakovich.


For most of his life, Shostakovich was a Soviet composer, not Russian. The distinction is meaningful.


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

South of the Border:

Mexico: Silvestre Revueltas
Brazil: Heitor Villa Lobos
Argentina: Astor Piazzolla
Uruguay: Carlos Pedrell
Panama: Roque Cordero


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

Why only one per country? Doesn't that lead to choosing composers who represent one facet of a country, perhaps resulting in a caricature?


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## flamencosketches (Jan 4, 2019)

Definitely Chopin... everything he wrote sounds like some Polish dance or another. JS Bach seems to be pretty much the pinnacle of German Protestantism :lol: I can't imagine someone sounding more French than Satie.


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

Enthusiast said:


> Why only one per country? Doesn't that lead to choosing composers who represent one facet of a country, perhaps resulting in a caricature?


What's stopping you from choosing more than one for each country?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Wagner was certainly influenced by German nationalism but it was of the mythical sort

We see Bach greatly influenced by German Lutheranism


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

flamencosketches said:


> I can't imagine someone sounding more French than Satie.


Good observation. It's easy to think of Debussy as the ultimate French composer because of his love of pleasure/sensualism, but Satie brings out the wit/satire/ascerbic part of the French.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

To clarify,

Shostakovich was a Soviet Russian composer, whose works reflect life and events of Soviet Russia (like Popov, Myaskovsky, Shebalin, Prokofiev, Shaporin). The distinction is meaningful, but composers within the USSR did not for the most part crossed to other nationalities of the former 15 satellite nations that made up the former USSR. Khachaturian (Armenia), Kancheli (Georgia), Amirov and Karayev (Azerbaijan), Ivanovs and Skulte (Latvia), for instances, composed music reflective of their respective nationalities. And while Khachaturian was celebrated in Russia (debates raged as to where to bury him after his passing), he remained essentially Armenian and still does.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

hammeredklavier said:


> Hungary/Liszt, Poland/Chopin, Norway/Grieg, Russia/Tchaikovsky


Congratulations on finding the three least representative and dull performances of these renown composers-obviously deliberately chosen as an editorial comment to indicate how little they are held in esteem. Horrible examples that don't make it past the radar, suggesting that one would deliberately have to look for hours to find such awful performances. Lol.


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## Tchaikov6 (Mar 30, 2016)

Larkenfield said:


> Congratulations on finding the three least representative and dull performances of these renown composers-obviously deliberately chosen to indicate how little they are held in esteem by some of their dismissive critics. Horrible examples that don't make it past the radar, suggesting that one would deliberately have to look for hours to find such awful performances. Lol.


Are you talking about the actual pieces or the recordings?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Larkenfield said:


> Congratulations on finding the three least representative and dull performances of these renown composers-obviously deliberately chosen as an editorial comment to indicate how little they are held in esteem. Horrible examples that don't make it past the radar, suggesting that one would deliberately have to look for hours to find such awful performances. Lol.


This video of Liszt second Hungarian Rhapsody has actually attained 14,215,342 views. It's one of the topmost videos that appear whenever I search liszt hungarian rhapsody on youtube. Since the Liszt and Grieg are orchestral pieces, I thought it'd be a good idea to cite an orchestral version for Chopin as well. I didn't listen to the recording before posting, but I saw that the number of dislikes on the video was so little, I assumed the recording and performance were good quality. If you know of any better recoding/performances of the works on youtube, feel free to cite the video links. And I don't know of any modern day "dismissive critic" holding Liszt in low esteem. Is there one? I'd be interested to know.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

hammeredklavier said:


> This video of Liszt second Hungarian Rhapsody has actually attained 14,215,342 views...


Ah. I see your problem. You put up something that's quite popular and you didn't use the word "pandering," not even once. That will never go around here!

And to make it worse, the notes to the Liszt clip say the conductor is von Karajan. :lol:


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## Artran (Sep 16, 2016)

Littlephrase1913 said:


> Czech/Janáček


From my Czech perspective:

Janáček feels more Moravian than Czech.
Dvořák sounds Slavic to may ear.
I would say Smetna and sometimes Martinů.
Not sure where to put Suk.


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## Orfeo (Nov 14, 2013)

Artran said:


> From my Czech perspective:
> 
> Janáček feels more Moravian than Czech.
> Dvořák sounds Slavic to may ear.
> ...


I would say Suk is Czech, although he absorbed almost as much Mahler as Fibich absorbed Wagner. He was also modern and used less folk music and its rhythms, very much like, say, Novak.


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## Littlephrase (Nov 28, 2018)

Artran said:


> From my Czech perspective:
> 
> Janáček feels more Moravian than Czech.


This is a distinction I thought of making, but judging how his late music was nationalistic for all of Czechoslovakia, I thought it rational to choose him for (at least) Czech music. The choices of Smetana and Martinu are also good, though.

I'm obviously not Czech myself, so you're the better judge.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

The more I have thought about this thread, the more difficult it gets (e.g. see the debate over Czech vs Moravian, Russian vs Soviet). 
Even picking Vaughan Williams for Britain begs a few questions. Is his music more 'British' than, say, Holst, Finzi or Malcolm Arnold? 
And for France, why not Poulenc? Can't get much more French than him, surely? 
Even Sibelius, the Finnish national icon from a Swedish-speaking family. More Finnish than Rautavaara? 

That's enough for now. I really dislike it when people leave unanswered questions hanging, rather than supplying answers.


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## larold (Jul 20, 2017)

Probably most obviously overlooked here is Aaron Copland and America unless you believe Ferde Grofe is the guy.

Soviet composer Aram Khachaturian, an Armenian, is often cited for popularizing Armenian music.

Arnold Bax was English but his music more appropriately reflected Ireland and Wales.

Some people think Ralph Vaughan Williams the epitome of English music. His music is largely built on folk songs and themes. Edward Elgar is credited with creating the 20th century school of English music, however.


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## Artran (Sep 16, 2016)

The obvious choise is Smetana, though. There's only one Má vlast, one Libuše and one Prodaná nevěsta. All these three works are tightly connected with our nationalism (in a good way).

Janáček much more accented his regionality (Její pastorkyňa is sung in a dialect). He was also fascinated with a russian culture.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Artran said:


> The obvious choise is Smetana, though. There's only one Má vlast, one Libuše and one Prodaná nevěsta. All these three works are tightly connected with our nationalism (in a good way).
> 
> Janáček much more accented his regionality (Její pastorkyňa is sung in a dialect). He was also fascinated with a russian culture.


Janáček wasn't nationalistic at all. At least I cannot think of any composition of his that would be nationalistic. Being inspired by Moravian folk music is not nationalism. His main themes were folk music, religiosity and love.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I am thinking about how to define nationalism in music. I think that in the context of the 19th century, it was mainly the preoccupation with national myths. Wagner and his German mythology. Smetana, Dvořák and Fibich and their Czech mythology (Libuše, Šárka, Má vlast etc - actually now remembering that Janáček composed Šárka too), Sibelius and Finnish mythology (Kullervo, Kalevala), the Russians and their mythology (Boris Godunov, Legend of Kitezh etc. ) so Tchaikovsky, Rimsky-Korsakov were all nationalist composers.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Jacck said:


> Janáček wasn't nationalistic at all. At least I cannot think of any composition of his that would be nationalistic. Being inspired by Moravian folk music is not nationalism. His main themes were folk music, religiosity and love.


I believe most people would consider nationalism as primarily the musical or folk idiom of their country, not that the composer has to label a work as something overtly nationalistic as a symbol. It's in the music of that country and it's implied. I believe it's clearly evident in Janacek's music. His 2nd String Quartet is hardly written in a generic idiom of sound. Among his many attributes he was considered a Czech folklorist inspired by Moravian and other Slavic folk music that he incorporated into his own original style. I believe he's highly underrated and is waiting to be appreciated on a larger scale.


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## Artran (Sep 16, 2016)

Jacck said:


> Janáček wasn't nationalistic at all. At least I cannot think of any composition of his that would be nationalistic. Being inspired by Moravian folk music is not nationalism. His main themes were folk music, religiosity and love.


Yes, I mostly agree. Although I think he was somewhat close to czech/moravian nationalism in his youth.


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