!!!Volksmusik

Folk Music (folk song, popular folk music), in the original sense 
meaning anonymous works or art music that have become popular tunes, 
in a wider sense meaning popular tunes with contents similar to those 
of folk songs.

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Folk music is closely inter-related with art music, whereby an 
important part in mediating between the two types was played by church 
music and schoolmasters, who carried art music to remote villages. 
Austrian folk music pertains to the Alpine type with the  Laendler,  
Yodelling Song and  Schnadahuepfl as main genres, which are 
supplemented by general genres of German folk music, such as ballads, 
soldier´s songs and religious folk songs, all of which were 
composed in major-minor tonality. Instruments are mainly the violin, 
double bass, harp (particularly in the Tyrol), zither, dulcimer, 
accordion (particularly the diatonic button-key accordion), wind 
instruments (clarinet, horn, trumpets, single-handed pipes, etc.), 
guitar and guimbard (Jew's harp); instrumentation varies according to 
the regions. Folk music is also closely related to customs (feast days 
and seasons, working world, etc.).

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The value attached to folk music changed in the late 18%%sup th/%  and 
early 19%%sup th/%  centuries, when research and collection activities 
commenced. Pioneering work was carried out by Archduke Johann and by 
J. von  Sonnleithner as well as by M. Ziska and J. M. 
Schottky, whose collections were compiled between 1811 and 1819. Other 
extensive collections were compiled by A. von Spaun, R. 
Sztachovics, V. M. Suess, W. Pailler, A. Schlossar, and J. 
Gabler. J.  Pommer, the father of a more recent trend in Austrian folk 
music, founded, in 1889, the "German Folk Song Choral 
Society" and, in 1899, the journal "The German Folk 
Song" ("Das Deutsche Volkslied"). Pommer marked the 
change from amateurism to scholarly research of folk music. He 
developed the "production theory" of folk songs (according 
to which folk songs originate anonymously and spontaneously within the 
people), which was opposed by J. Meier´s "reception 
theory" (suggesting that folk songs were mostly produced at a 
higher cultural level and "sank" down to the common folk). Pommer 
played a leading role in launching the initiative "The Folk Song 
in Austria", which was founded in 1904 by the Ministry of 
Education (under W. von Hartel) to research folk songs in the 
times of the monarchy, and which was the predecessor of the 
"Oesterreichisches Volksliedwerk" (founded in 1949). The 
society takes great interest in collecting and recording folk music 
and publishes the yearbook "Jahrbuch des Oesterreichischen 
Volksliedwerks" (since 1952) as well as "Corpus Musicae 
Popularis Austriacae" (COMPA, since 1993), which, following the 
spirit of 1904, aims to give a general survey of folk music in 
Austria.

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Well-known researchers and collectors of folk music include A. 
Anderluh, Walter  Deutsch, K. Horak, K. M. Klier, R.  Zoder, L.  
Schmidt, H.  Commenda, G.  Kotek, K. Liebleitner, G. Haid, W. Suppan, 
and R. Pietsch. The founding of the Institute of Music Folklore at the 
Musikhochschule in Graz by W. Wuensch in 1963 marked an important step 
in folk music research in Austria, and was followed by similar 
institutions in Vienna (1968) and in Innsbruck (1987).

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In everyday language, popular folk music is frequently called folk 
music, and used in this sense it includes the  Wiener Lied songs and 
certain trends in Kaerntner Lied songs. Pop folk groups with great 
popular appeal such as "Schuerzenjaeger", 
"Kasermandln", "Original-Oberkrainer", 
"Stoakogler" reach wide sections of the population owing to 
mass media coverage (e.g. broadcasting on television of popular music 
events such as "Musikantenstadl", "Grand Prix der 
Volksmusik"). The great national and international success of 
this genre, which is uniform in both form and content, tends to 
threaten regional characteristics and to stunt the dynamism of 
traditional folk music. Since the middle of the 1980s, folk music has 
repeatedly been a source of inspiration for "Austropop" and 
rock music ( Light Music).

!Literature
Jahrbuch des Oesterreichischen Volksliedwerks, 1952ff.; L. 
Schmidt, Volksgesang und Volkslied, 1970; R. Zoder, Volkslied, 
Volkstanz und Volksbrauch in Oesterreich, 1970; W. Deutsch 
et al., Volksmusik in Oesterreich, 1984 (incl. extensive 
bibliography); Corpus Musicae Popularis Austriacae, 1993ff.


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