Which are some good Musical works that combine Clasical composition with Folklore?

I recently heard Devorak’s New World Symphony, and it was pretty awesome. Not sure if that is what you mean. Grieg did some good things with folk dance stories as well. Great Question, now I have more music to research. :-)

Mozart’s “The Magic Flute” is filled with German folk songs as well as high-falutin’ arias, such as the one sung by the Queen of the Night. There is also a sub-text of Masonic symbolism.

Braham’s “Academic Overture” has some other German drinking songs included.

Orff’s “Carmina Burano.

Leoš Janáček’s Pohádka (“Fairy tale”) is based on Slovak folklore. But he created his own masterworks, like the operas Jenůfa and Příhody Lišky Bystroušky (“The Cunning Little Vixen”) which were personal in nature, but also rooted in Czech/Monrovian/Slovak folkloric motifs.

Aaron Copeland Appalachian Spring

Scheherazade don’t know if the thousand and one nights counts as folklore as such

peter and the wolf

Peter and the Wolf

@Buttonstc snap

Hall of the mountain king

tristan und isolde

@mammal. Sometimes its amazing how the things we have tucked into the far recesses of our brains come bubbling up to the surface unexpectedly. The instant I read the question, immediately the clarinet solo for the cat came marching thru my brain and I’m sure it’s probably been 20+ years since I’ve listened to it

And now I won’t be able to get rid of it for days. :)

Geez, almost any opera.

@mammal – Hall of the mountain king was the first piece of classical music I ever learned and to this day remains my favorite. the low slow start, the build up the explosive ending! I LOVE IT!

Grieg’s Norwegian Dances, for one. Peer Gynt, for another.

Can I see a link that says Peter and the Wolf was based on folksongs? I think Prokofieff composed original melodies for it.

If the question is about the stories and not the music itself, first I think we’d have to know what you mean by folk tales. Scheherazade is based on the old tales of the Arabian Nights, for example. Is this what you mean? And Laureth is right about the operas.

“Carnival of the Animals,” by Camille Saint Saens does not use folk songs, but it is a sprightly piece for young people and considered clas*s*ical music.

And remind me of the jolly folk tunes that Wagner used in Tristan und Isolde.

Uncommon Ritual

Check out Vaughan Williams

There was an open air concert yesterday evening in Amsterdam and the orchestra was playing the music to Stravinsky’s “Petrouchka”. I’d forgotten how much folk song Stravinsky used.