[Listening extract, audio available. See printed QP for questions.] You hear an orchestral work featuring folk dance rhythms from the composer's homeland. (...
Question 1 Report
[Listening extract, audio available. See printed QP for questions.]
You hear an orchestral work featuring folk dance rhythms from the composer's homeland.
(a) What term describes the Romantic movement drawing on folk traditions? [1]
(b) Give one other way a composer could express national identity in an orchestral work. [1]
[Total: 2 marks]
Answer Details
(a) Term for the Romantic movement drawing on folk traditions [1]
The answer is nationalism. Musical nationalism was a 19th-century movement in which composers deliberately drew on the folk music, dances, legends and landscapes of their homeland to express national identity through their compositions. It was particularly strong in countries that were asserting cultural independence, such as Bohemia (Smetana, Dvorak), Russia (the 'Mighty Handful' including Mussorgsky and Rimsky-Korsakov), Norway (Grieg) and Finland (Sibelius).
(b) One other way a composer could express national identity in an orchestral work [1]
Any one of the following:
- Using folk dance rhythms such as the polka, mazurka, furiant (Bohemian) or hopak (Ukrainian), embedding recognisable national dance patterns into the orchestral texture
- Basing the programme on national legends, history or landscapes - for example, Smetana's Ma Vlast depicts Czech rivers, castles and legends
- Using the rhythms and inflections of the national language in the melodic writing, so the instrumental melodies echo the patterns of speech
- Imitating traditional folk instruments through orchestration - for example, using pizzicato strings to evoke a balalaika or writing bagpipe-like drone effects
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