National Style in 19th and 20th Century Music

What are national Styles in music? Most of us have a fairly clear idea of what, say, Hungarian music is supposed to sound like and what makes it special — just think of Liszt's Hungarian Rhapsodies or Brahms' Hungarian Dances. But this distinctiveness of national style in music is by and large a phenomenon of the 19th century (most people would be hard pressed to describe what is special about 18th century Hungarian music). From the 19th century onwards, many composers in Europe and America looked for material in the folk music of their own nation (sometimes the music of other nations), and many countries were anxious to foster a national style in music. In examining a selection of musical works — from the Russian composer Michail Glinka (1804-1857) to recent Latin-American music on the charts — and relevant critical texts, this course addresses a number of questions that are still of relevance in our own age: What kind of relationship is imagined between a nation and its music? How were national styles forged? How can music represent the nation? And why is it considered natural, advantageous, or indeed necessary, to have a distinct national identity in music?