Folk & Traditional Music of the Western Continents

The folk & traditional music of Europe, Africa & the Americas explored.

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	THE GERMANIC PEOPLES 6j Kulturgut. Examples can be found in Sweden, where one of the im­portant folk dances is the "polska," which is a form of the polonaise. Anyone familiar with Chopin's polonaises will recognize the char­acteristic rhythm in Example 4-8, which is played by violins. Aside from rhythm, however, the melodic configurations are definitely also in a style reminiscent of baroque and pre-Classical music: the arpeggios and the triad-like figures in the second section, reminiscent of the Albert! bass. The form, in which each phrase is repeated with first and second endings, is common in Western European instru­mental music and similar also to the earliest known examples .of medieval instrumental music, the estampie or stantipes. Only the melodic line—not the accompaniment—is given in Example 4-8.
	example 4-8. Swedish "Polska" played by two violins; melody only, tran­scribed by Bruno Nettl from recording issued by Sveriges Radio (Radio Sweden), RAEP 8. Collected in Halsingsland.
	Tunes of various sorts, frequently more ornamented, are played in other Scandinavian countries on instruments such as the Norwe­gian "Harding fiddle." Typical of the multifarious forms of folk in­struments in Europe, this is a violin with four or five sympathetic strings under the finger board (which are not played but are caused to vibrate by the vibrations of those strings which are activated by the bow). The four main strings are tuned in various ways, for ex-