STUDY GUIDE: THE MUSICAL CULTURE OF EUROPE
Chapter 8, The Musical Culture of Europe, offers an ethnomusicological view of European music
from its folk sources to their incorporation into nationalist styles. The first section illustrates the
variety of music found in Vienna in any era, exhibited mainly by street musicians who were
always a part of Viennese culture. Classical music enthusiasts regard Vienna as the capital of
music, recognizing composers such as Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven, Brahms, and Mahler, who, to
the contrary, were not Viennese, but outsiders who came to Vienna for its musical diversity.
Vienna was always musically diverse, providing musical opportunities for German, Hungarian,
Slovak, Turkish, Italian, Spanish, and today, Andean folk musicians. Vienna’s diversity in
representing folk music is why composers flocked there, to learn how to incorporate its music
into compositions. Vienna’s folk music made it the music capital. It offered many kinds of folk
music.
Streets and Stages
Briefly explain the significance of the following terms:
Staatsoper
Gesellschaft für Musikfreunde
Work songs
Heuriger
Schrammelmusik
Volkstümlich
Klezmer music
Ländler
Multicultural Europe
 Who are the Roma and the Sinti? What are their relationships to the “Gypsies”?
 Who are the Saami? What is their musical contribution?
European Unity in Modern Europe
 Who is Bela Bartok? Why is he significant to folk music?
 What is parlando rubato?
 What is pentatonicism? How is it constructed? How does it sound?
 What are the speech islands?
Music in Peasant and Folk Societies
 What are Volkslied?
 Who is Johann Gottfried Herder? What is his contribution to folk music?
The Individual and Society, Creativity and Community
 In a folk society what is the relationship between an individual and the community?
 What is a Tamburitza?
 What is a string quartet? What does it idealize?
 How have choirs in Germany and Eastern Europe reflected ideas of identity?
Musical Instruments
 What symbolic role do instruments have in European musical life? How do they achieve
this?
 What is the Saz, the Hummel, the Gusle and the Guslar?
 Who is a Minnesinger?
Musical Professionalism and Social Structure
 Historically, what has been the attitude of conservative religious movements towards
musical instruments in Christianity? Why is this?
 What is the status of instrumentalists?
 What is a broadside ballad? Who composes it? What is its social context?
 What is the Eurovision Song Contest? Is it musically significant? Why or why not?
How is it a metaphor for modern Europe?
Deeper Questions
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How can we compare a multicultural urban musical environment such as New York,
London, or Chicago to Vienna? Can we compare Calgary to Vienna?
What can we classify as the folk music of our country, and how have nationalist
composers incorporated it into their compositions?
What types of music might we find in our society which are communal and egalitarian, as
are folk music types of Europe?