example of a tune without a known composer, and it has been quoted with effect in Dvořák's symphony, From the New World. Finiculi' Funicula' is not a folksong.[1] It is a popular Neapolitan song, composed by Denza to celebrate the funicular railway at Naples. Nevertheless, Richard Strauss himself quoted it bodily in his symphonic fantasia, Aus italien, although, to be sure, he laboured under the impression at the time that it was a folksong. In a similar fashion an American tune, It looks to me like a big night tonight, found its way into Elektra. This may have been unconscious assimilation on the part of Strauss; at any rate it is interesting to note how a vulgar air has been transformed into the beautiful theme—one of the most expressive in this music drama—of the Children of
- ↑ Most popular Neapolitan songs, such as O Sole Mio, Santa Lucia, and Maria, Marì, are not folksongs in the academic sense of the word.
curved tonal lines, of haunting rhythms and cadences that carry forward the interest, are the work of men and women, who, whether they knew the fact or not, were artists. These tunes were composed for the people, not by the people. The idea that from an amorphous condition these melodies were gradually moulded into shape by being handed from one untutored singer to another is to me unthinkable. Popular use deteriorates melodies; it does not shape them." For an extended discussion of the whole matter from this point of view, see Francis Clarke's paper: Beastly Tunes; The London Mercury; III, 510. My own definition of a folksong would be that it is a popular song, of which the name of the composer has been forgotten.
