In Search of Music’s Volkston

Investigates the concept of folklike tone within German and Austrian classical music, using innovative computational methods to analyse its origins, tracing from British and French folk music. Investigates the concept of folklike tone within German and Austrian classical music, using innovative computational methods to analyse its origins, tracing from British and French folk music. German and Austrian classical music is said to have a 'folklike tone' (in German: Volkston), often given as one reason for its popularity among the wider public and its ability to bridge social differences. For many years scholars have sought to identify the folklike tone in the music of Haydn, Mozart and Beethoven, but have not been entirely satisfied with the barely more than vague allusions they have found. This book deconstructs the long-standing concept of the Volkston and argues that, if Viennese classical music has a folklike tone, it is in fact not Austro-German, but rather English/(pseudo)Scottish and French. Using innovative computational methods relevant for the digital humanities, this work demonstrates how popular musical forms travelled with genres such as 'Scottish songs' and 'country dances' from London in the decades around 1700 to German lands and Vienna in the late eighteenth century, where they contributed to and shaped the evolving Volkston. Companion Repository: