The Role of Music in Folk Drama: An Investigation Based on Tyrolean Sources

Abstract

A brief overview of the secondary literature dealing with folk drama reveals a significant lack of interest in musical aspects. On the part of theater and literary scholars, it is primarily the functional aspects of music, if any, that are taken into consideration. On the part of musicologists, music in folk drama has played a marginal role in research, something that can be said about theater music in general. In the article “Schauspielmusik” (stage music) in the most important German music encyclopedia, Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, Detlef Altenburg states: “Demgegenüber gilt in der deutschen Musikwissenschaft Schauspielmusik weithin als unergiebiges Randphänomen der Musikgeschichte.”1 There are some exceptions: Medieval folk drama, especially liturgical and mystery plays, have attracted music scholars from the nineteenth century to the present. Another example of a quite well-investigated tradition is Viennese folk plays of the nineteenth century. The article “Volkstheater” in the Österreichisches Musiklexikon,2 for example, is almost completely focused on Vienna. As a special field that cannot be appropriately described as “folk play,” but which was a major source of influence, Jesuit drama also attracted interest quite early.3