# Classical works with a strong folk inspiration/feeling?



## Zauberberg (Feb 21, 2012)

As a spaniard, I am well aware of some works from spanish classical composers... But the whom I love most, is Joaquín Turina, the way he captures the andalusian folklore and feeling, I think he's a underrated genius even in my country. 

I would like to know of more classical works with that kind of strong folk personality inside, whichever country you wish...

Of course, one could argue that most of classical music are influenced by folklore, but I'm asking for something more apparent, that "something" that gives music a very distinct and unique feeling.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

Bartok! Take yer pick


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Some of my favourites from top of my head -

*Michael Tippett* - _Concerto for Double String Orchestra _(esp. final movement - the coda being a bagpipe tune from Northumbria in UK)

*Bela Bartok* and *Zoltan Kodaly *- a lot of their stuff, look for their compositions coming after about 1918 in particular.

*Percy Grainger *- Did a lot of arrangements of folk tunes, as well as original compositions based around them. A favourite is_ Irish Tune from the County Derry (Danny Boy)._

Spain also has *Manuel de Falla, Enrique Granados, Isaac Albeniz *& more modern guys like* Carlos Surinach*.

*Edvard Grieg *of Norway - try his _Peer Gynt_, either the two orchestral suites or the complete incidental music. Another favourite work of mine is his _Holberg Suite_.

Of the USA,* Aaron Copland *has lots - eg. _Appalachian Spring, El Salon Mexico, Danzon Cubano, Billy the Kid, Rodeo_.

*Karol Szymanowski *of Poland, try his_ Symphony #4 _for piano & orchestra, incorporating these earthy _Goral _tunes from the Tatra mountain region.

The Czechs, eg*. Antonin Dvorak *- eg. his _Czech Suite _also_ String Quartet #12 "American,_" & more modern "takes" on folklore is to be found in the musics of *Leos Janacek *and *Bohuslav Martinu*.

There are lots more. From the French, try *Joseph Canteloube's *delightful _Songs of the Auvergne_. Or of the Russians,* Rimsky-Korsakov's *_Russian Easter Festival Overture _or_ Capriccio Espagnole_.

Australian composer *Peter Sculthorpe *has incorporated the music of this country's first inhabitants, the Aboriginal peoples, into his music. Eg. he has used a song recorded in the Northern region of Kakadu in a number of compositions with that title - an orchestral work called _Kakadu_, as well as a guitar work _From Kakadu_.

Notice that some people who are not from a certain country still wrote music based on that foreign country's folk music (eg. Dvorak in America, Rimsky-Korsakov with Spanish music). After 1900, "real" folk music was recorded and transcribed and found it's way into classical music. Before then, much of the music was only loosely based on folklore, especially that which had found it's way into the cities and bigger towns. Eg. a kind of watered down folklore, or urbanised, far from the original source, that was "captured" after 1900 in both score form and on wax cylinders.

When Michael Tippett was a young boy growing up in Suffolk in the UK in the 1910's, "real" folk music was still sung and heard around him, by the time he was a young adult in the 1920's, it was dying out, and by the time he wrote the _Concerto for Double String Orchestra_ in the 1930's, folk music as a living art in the UK was basically dead, a museum piece, replaced by things like the songs popularised in music halls and on radio and the movies...


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Try your fellow contryman, Vicente Martín y Soler (1754-1806). He wrote zarzuelas and you couldn't get more Spanish than that!


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## Lukas (Feb 18, 2012)

Two examples very far apart in time:
* *Lutosławski's Concerto for Orchestra* one of my favorite pieces of 20th century orchestral music, using polish folk tunes
* the beautiful album "*Missa Mexicana*" recorded by Andrew Lawrence-King and The Harp Consort with music by *Juan Gutierrez de Padilla* and other mexican composers from 17th century, religious music with elements of mexican folklore


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