Engaging with Folk

We compartmentalise: Classical Music. Pop. Rock etc. And within these genres we further subdivide – Classical, Romantic, Modern – bisecting and potentially diluting every time we do it. Dealing with some of the musical characters I do, Mahler for instance, constantly reminds me of the paucity, the porousness, of these categories and the inevitable conclusion that if a composer is nominally a modernist (or at least working within that period) but is continuing in a largely Romantic vein, then he or she should be deemed regressive.

For a number years now, popular music (in the broadest sense) has been re-engaging with the idea of folk music. Figure such as Seth Lakeman or bands like Noah and the Whale and Mumford and Sons have stoked interest in vernacular musical culture. The same has not happened, as yet, with Classical music. Yet, having begun to listen to Austrian folk music, I wonder whether even within the popular sphere we're limiting ourselves. Shouldn't we break for the border, as it were. If there are trends we admire within our native music, might we not find those trends alive with other national musics?

Fundamentally, for me, the engagement with groups such as ALMA and Franui, as well as writing for Wolfgang Holzmair's recent Wunderhornlieder recording for col legno, has shown just how thin the veil is between the Austro-German repertoire that still dominates our concert repertoire, according to Bachtrack's 2013 performance statistics, and the traditions on which it draws. What would Janáček, Bartók and Kodály, even Mahler, make of our lack of engagement with this material today? My New Year's Resolution is keep investigating the music of my roots, both here in Britain and in Austria, where I've staked a spurious if enlightening claim.

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