Here is an excellent example of traditional folk music being used in modern symphonic music.
This is a 1969 archive recording of "Vélkomne med æra"("Welcome with Honour"), taken from "Hundrad Hardingtonar", a collection of Norwegian folk songs adapted and arranged by the Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt (1908-81).
The music starts at 1:14 after an introduction by Tveitt himself (translation below).
Tveitt introduces the piece as scenes are shown from his ancestral farm in the area of Hardanger in the Hordaland province:
From time immemorial, it has been customary that the people from two neighbour farms [came and] gathered at [the] Tveit [farm] in these living rooms you see here in my ancestors' home. They had then a special song that they used on those occasions.
It is a fact that only one generation ago there were small differences between the dialects from farm to farm, and many farms also had their own musical dialect. That is, they had tunes, songs and "stev" (short songs) that were their own, shall we say, "personal property" because they were not used or even known on the neighbour farm.
On these annual hamlet ("grend") meetings there on the farm, which I just mentioned, they used such a song as a welcome greeting to the annual gathering — in the autumn or at some other time, for instance, Christmas — and then they sang: "Be now welcome with honour, here shall we be sitting, sit in God's peace, our neighbours three" ("Ve no velkomne med æra, her skal me sitjande væra, sitja i Guds fred, våre grannar tre.")**
Tragically, the building in the video was destroyed in a fire one summer night.
The music is played by Kringkastingsorkesteret (KORK), the Norwegian National Broadcasting Orchestra. The program was rebroadcast in 2008 to mark the 100th birthday of Tveitt and another Norwegian composer, Olav H. Hauge.
There is a another nice video of this same piece being performed by Norwegian singer Solbjørg Tveiten and Japanese musicians also marking Tveitt's 100 year anniversary on November 23, 2008, in Persimmon Hall in Tokyo. Three pianists, one flutist and one Hardanger fiddle player performed a program of Tveitt's works together with the Norwegian Solbjørg Tveiten.
**Thanks to Kaare K. Johnsen who worked with me on the translation.
