This is quite an interesting story, although in many ways not overly surprising. Scores of other “folk” songs could be mentioned, whose story is equally complex (“Ah vous dirais-je Maman”, “Happy Birthday”, “Schlaf Herzens Sönnchen, mein Liebling bist du”, "Waltzing Matilda", also arias from Italian opera that became "folk songs", etc.). It all goes to show how the term “folk song” (charged as it is with strong Romantic and Marxist overtones) obscures, rather than help make visible, the dynamics constantly taking place between oral and written traditions. It would be to everybody’s advantage to simply drop it altogether; and indeed in Anglo-American ethnomusicology it is now used almost solely to indicate a peculiar, and ideological way of looking at certain repertoires, adopted in Western culture during the 19th and 20th centuries. Interestingly, however, whenever a tune coming from the written tradition gained a second lease of life by circulating orally in certain areas, German folklorists of the early 20th century used to speak of “gesunkenes Kulturgut” (implying that everything orally circulated originates in the written tradition – which is, of course, a fallacy). I prefer to speak of “processo di oralizzazione” and, in the reverse case, of "letterarizzazione".
Another fascinating song history, I myself investigated in a very old article of mine: "Io te voglio bene assaje: a Famous Neapolitan Song Traditionally Attributed to Gaetano Donizetti", The Music Review , XLV (1984), no. 3- 4, 251- 264. Also appeared in translation in: La Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana , 1985, no. 4, 642- 653 and Studi Donizettiani , IV (1988), 163- 182.
"folk" songs
This is quite an interesting story, although in many ways not overly surprising. Scores of other “folk” songs could be mentioned, whose story is equally complex (“Ah vous dirais-je Maman”, “Happy Birthday”, “Schlaf Herzens Sönnchen, mein Liebling bist du”, "Waltzing Matilda", also arias from Italian opera that became "folk songs", etc.). It all goes to show how the term “folk song” (charged as it is with strong Romantic and Marxist overtones) obscures, rather than help make visible, the dynamics constantly taking place between oral and written traditions. It would be to everybody’s advantage to simply drop it altogether; and indeed in Anglo-American ethnomusicology it is now used almost solely to indicate a peculiar, and ideological way of looking at certain repertoires, adopted in Western culture during the 19th and 20th centuries. Interestingly, however, whenever a tune coming from the written tradition gained a second lease of life by circulating orally in certain areas, German folklorists of the early 20th century used to speak of “gesunkenes Kulturgut” (implying that everything orally circulated originates in the written tradition – which is, of course, a fallacy). I prefer to speak of “processo di oralizzazione” and, in the reverse case, of "letterarizzazione".
Another fascinating song history, I myself investigated in a very old article of mine: "Io te voglio bene assaje: a Famous Neapolitan Song Traditionally Attributed to Gaetano Donizetti", The Music Review , XLV (1984), no. 3- 4, 251- 264. Also appeared in translation in: La Nuova Rivista Musicale Italiana , 1985, no. 4, 642- 653 and Studi Donizettiani , IV (1988), 163- 182.
Marcello Sorce Keller