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The Value of Folk Song
Toncrová, Marta
The author examines the value of folk song in the context of the development of views of folk songs in the history of the Czech lands. Because the oldest evidence of Czech secular folk song has been documented in the form of various Church prohibitions, it is obvious that the Church perceived the value of folk songs differently from that of common people. The opinions of the members of the educated social strata gradually became visible in the period of the Enlightenment and in the 19th century, nevertheless, because of their highly estheticized and moralizing approach, they judged numerous folk songs very negatively. With the development of the Czech national movement, which started in the 1820s, we can observe a close attitude towards folk songs from professional musicians, collectors, and composers, which was reflected not only in music creation, but in literature and fine arts as well. At the turn of the 20th century, because of the gradual establishment of folkloristics (ethnography) as a science, there appeared a distinctive change of view on the whole sphere of musical folklore. Systematic field research allows us to understand the attitude of folk singers to their songs, as well as the rather strict differentiation of songs according to their functions and “values”: distinguishing old and new songs, valuable and less valuable, female and male, ceremonial or work-related, as well as dance songs, songs worth recording by a collector, and songs that were performed on special occasions only.
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