Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 07.djvu/884

* FOLK-MUSIC. 780 FOLK-PSYCHOLOGY. the dim past every man was apparently expected to be able to sing and accompany himself on the harp. What is most surprising about English music, both popular and professional, is that there is so little about it that is characteristically national. This is particularly true regarding instrumental music (of which all Continental nations have such abundant variety) and folk- song. It is only in concerted vocal music, the madrigal, and the glee, that we find a national flavor. The ballad is, indeed, also very much favored in England; the Beggar's Opera, with its sixty-nine popular ballads and dance tunes, struck the keynote of English taste; yet, in most instances, the words of the English ballads have infinitely more merit and national character than the music In Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, on the other hand, the popular music not only has a strong national flavor, but it is almost as exotic as that of the border lands of the Euro- pean Continent. The charms of Irish folk- melodies have been made known to thousands by the association of a number of them with Moore's poems, and in more recent times through the collection made by Villiers Stanford, who also wrote an opera, Shamus O'Brien, full of quaint musical Hibernicism-. Of Scotland's folk-music there are almost as many collections as of Germany's, and they in- clude many gems of the first water. The bag- pipe is typical of Scotch folk-music; it is not, as many suppose, an instrument on a level with the barrel organ, but has a great fascination for .educated musicians, with its persistent drone and queer melodic intervals. Scotch music has a characteristic which it shares with the Chinese — the pentatonic (or five-tone i scale which omits the fourth and seventh tones of the ordinary diatonic scale; it can be amusingly imitated by playing only on the black keys of a piano. Scotch music also has a gn.nl ileal in common with the folk-music of Scandinavia, especially Norway. The Norwegian, Grieg, was partly of Scotch descent, and so is his music. Grieg did not. as so many writers have erroneously stated, habitu- ally incorporate Norwegian folk-melodies in his compositions. What he did was to write in the style and spirit of Norwegian folk-music. This music shares the rugged, gloomy characteristics of Norwegian scenerj and climate; it indulges in frequent capricious changes of rhythm and tempo, occasioned by the close alliance between the words and music; it evinces a preference for the minor mode; its tonality is often uncertain; and Ms melodic intervals are strange to our ears. Similar traits are noted in the national melo- dies of Russia, which, accbrding to Rubinstein, an- equaled in charm only by those of Sweden and Norway, while Cesar Cui claims for Russia supremacj over all countries. The typical Rus- sian folk -nil- i- of limited compass, and this is probablj attributable to the primitive instru- ments of the lute and violin families lung in use. 'I lie prevailing mood of these songs is melancholy, hut gome of them are characterized by a wanton s of animal spirits. Florid passages on one ■ Mr occur, and the harmonies are api lobe bold and harsh. Liszt's ultra-modern discords had no terrors for the Russian composers brought i ' I I Bohemia n music is remarkable for 'i rhythms and great diversity of dances. Polish folk-music is chiefly instru- mental; its genera] traits are well known, owing to the wide diffusion of the works of Chopin, in which (especially the mazurkas) they are ad- mirably reflected. The /. mpo rubato, or ca- pricious and frequent change of time, is also an essential trait of Hungarian music, although it- use in the mazurka differs widely from its application to the Gypsy cs&rd&s (q.v.). Hun- garian music has a scale of its own, with an augmented fourth that intensifies its melancholy. It is usually highly ornamented, and these orna- ments were supplied by the Gypsies, while the melodies themselves are of Magyar origin. All these things go back to a remote antiquity. Folk- music is never the growth of a few centuries; it requires ages and isolation, and this is why the New World, cosmopolitan America, has none. Bihliography. The best series of articles on folk-music are those by Krehbiel which appeared in the New York Sunday Tribune for July, August, September, and October, 1899. Con- sult also: Finek, Songs ami Song Writers (New York, 1900); Parry, The Evolution of the Art of Music (New York, 1896) ; Wallaschek. Primi- tive Music i Xew York, 1893) ; Engel, An Intro- duction In the Study of National Mtisic (London, 1880) ; and Leland and Prince. Popular Songs of the Aigonquins (New York, 1902). FOLK-PSYCHOLOGY. A branch of anthro- pology devoted to studying the psychology of races and peoples. It must not be confounded with folk-lore, which studies survivals; but it is akin to ethnology. It is the application of the processes and methods of the modern physio- logical psychologists to races, peoples, social classes, sexes, professions, sects, as such, aided by the most refined apparatus, with a view of tracing activities in common, ceremonies, and institutions to their origin. Besides the data acquired by these means, it avails itself also of facts gathered through somatic anthropology, ethnology in all its branches, archaeology, and folk-lore. Psychologists, among them Wundt and Bald- win, and moralists, as. for example, Felix Adler, hold that the mental development of the indi- vidual is best fostered by a knowledge of the mind of the race. Skull form, brain weight, and brain form are not alone sufficient to determine the action of the individual nor the attitude of society toward him. As a rule, the insane and the geniuses have large brains, while idiots have small brains. But men of ordinary intelligence have had as large brains as geniuses, while it ha- been discovered that the brain- of men of great ability have been in many cases but little larger than those of idiots. So while ii is approximately true that power is in proportion to muscular mass, it is not necessarily true that brain power is in proportion to nerve mass. A different principle of metabolism applies to the nerves from that which holds with respect to muscles. As to the significance of brain form. the results of T.ombroso's measurements of criminals are the best evidence. The cranial measurements of normal people taken by Baer reveal exactly the same characteristics as pre- vailed among the criminals measured by Lom- broso. The fact is that cosmic and terrestrial environment, as a whole and in minute details, has cooperated in the creation and development of civilization. Especiallj in the lower races,