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National stereotypes and music
Author(s) -
Lajosi Krisztina
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
nations and nationalism
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.655
H-Index - 44
eISSN - 1469-8129
pISSN - 1354-5078
DOI - 10.1111/nana.12086
Subject(s) - musical , style (visual arts) , national identity , politics , musical form , phrase , aesthetics , space (punctuation) , ethnic group , violin musical styles , sociology , focus (optics) , literature , history , art , linguistics , anthropology , political science , law , philosophy , physics , optics
Music became a marker of national identity in nineteenth‐century E urope. Western art music consists of tonal systems that are universally intelligible, but certain rhythms and musical idioms have been associated with national styles. How, when, and why does a musical phrase or piece become national? What political and cultural circumstances contributed to the development of national styles and facilitated the emergence of resonant topographies? What was the relationship between music as cultural practice and nineteenth‐century national thought as discursive space? These questions are addressed with a particular focus on verbunkos , which came to be characteristic of H ungarian national style, and on the R ákóczy M arch which became famous thanks to B erlioz's F aust . This essay traces the complex process of cultural transfer through which these martial tunes of mixed ethnic origins have become emblematic of Hungarian music.