Classical Music for Aficionados

@frogman 

It's Important to distinguish between folk music and the classical music inspired by folk music.

There may be examples where they are hard to distinguish, but Ashokan Farewell is not one of them.  It is so very clearly on the folk music side.  First, watch Jay Ungar play.  He never leaves first position on the fiddle.  That is typical of folk music. I've never seen that on any piece considered classical.  It's a very easy, simple tune and the reason that millions of amateur fiddlers play that it, most often by ear.   The tune's simplicity is marked by having only one accidental note, one time anywhere within its two parts.  It has a VERY easy harmony.  I'm not much of a musician but I have improvised harmony on that tune as I play it on a folk instrument.  All of these are indications of simple a folk tune.  Also that its composition was inspired by other, traditional, folk tunes.  

So for Ashokan Farewell it's  not a close call--for a tune we all love!  But, just a good tune.

Anyone interested in superb fiddling get on to Idagio and listen to Leonidas Kavakos 's album Virtuoso for a musical delight. The playing is so easy for him and he programs flashy showpieces by 19th century virtuosos and arrangements of other so well known pieces.

Best fiddle playing I have heard for a while.

Melm, I don’t disagree with you re Ashokan Farewell at all; that was not the thrust of my comments.  Where we may disagree, in part, is over the ultimate “importance of distinguishing” between genres, particularly when the distinction is based upon things such as technical ease of playing, simplicity of harmony, number of accidentals, etc; all characteristics which in fact can be found in some Classical works.  Those things are not what necessarily define a genre.  Btw, here are some violin works clearly in a Classical style played entirely in first position that may be of interest to you:

https://www.laurelthomsen.com/Violin_Geek_Blog/Entries/2020/9/6_First_Position_Beginning_Violin_Concerto_Repertoire.html

Is the "AUM" sound, folk sound or classical?

Sometimes something is deeply moving in a way impossible to understand...

Distinguishing is good but we must not separate and oppose what we distinguish in opposing directions, one presumed primitive the other presumed sophisticated...

At the end for the heart what is deep may be simple and sophisticated at the same time, because succeeding to move all heart together is not a simple feat at all...

Then the "ashokan farewell" is folk tune yes, but so powerfully beautiful that Bach could have used it also... Like all "perfect" work of art it is more at the end a mystery than a folk tune for me...

@frogman 

Some people just like to argue and like to fool themselves into believing they have made an irrefutable point.

Your post is ridiculous.  What you have referred me to is a series of didactic, pedagogic pieces written in a pseudo-classical style intended for young students learning the violin.  I have run across more than one of these in the Suzuki teaching series my son went through when he was about 9 years old.  In fact a recording of his playing a Seitz piece, one of those on this page, at that age is my ring-tone for him.  

If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, sounds like a duck, and waddles like a duck and has all the indicia of a duck, it's a duck.

Similarly, Ashokan Farewell has ALL the indicia of a folk tune.  It's a folk tune.

Please, let's all go on to something else.