Folklore in Musical Art: From Sacred Genres to Popular Music

Abstract

The purpose of the research is to identify the features of the interaction of folklore with professional musical creativity of oral and written traditions of academic and non-academic directions, taking into account the specifics of secular and religious folklore. The research methodology consists in the application of historical-cultural, typological, analytical methods, which made it possible to reveal the features of the interaction of folk and professional musical creativity in its thematic diversity. The scientific novelty of the research lies in the fact that when addressing the issues of the interaction of folklore tradition with professional musical creativity of academic and non-academic directions, the genres of religious folklore in their functional diversity were included in the consideration for the first time, which allowed the author to reveal the issue of the folklore component in music, taking into account the specifics of the sacred sphere. Conclusions. Folklore stood at the origins of professional musical creativity and throughout the history of music enriched its genre and style system. Today, the interaction of folklore and academic music is the most studied, among its main forms, researchers distinguish the creation of arrangements of folk songs, the inclusion of folk melodies in their own musical works, and the writing of compositions that are stylisations in the folk spirit. Representatives of non-academic musical trends use similar approaches in working with the folklore primary source, while taking into account the specifics of jazz, rock, or pop music. Special attention is required to study folklore in its interaction with the musical sacred sphere. The folklorisation of religious songs of the Christian tradition followed two paths. The first, which was characteristic of the Orthodox church environment with underdeveloped paraliturgical practices, was marked by the gradual displacement of spiritual songs from the sacred sphere to the everyday sphere. Paraliturgical Catholic and Protestant song practices formed a second type of folk religious singing, which resembled secular folklore in its forms of performance, but remained within the framework of church tradition. Artists representing academic and non-academic musical trends turned to religious folklore, but to a lesser extent than to secular ones, which is associated with the secularisation processes in the culture of the Modern and Contemporary Period.