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Neopagan music

March 10, 2023

Neopagan music is music created for or influenced by modern Paganism. Music produced in the interwar period include efforts from the Latvian Dievturība movement and the Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt. The counterculture of the 1960s established British folk revival and world music as influences for American neopagan music. Second-wave feminism created women's music which includes influences from feminist versions of neopaganism. The United States also produced Moondog, a Norse neopagan street musician and composer. The postwar neopagan organisations Ásatrúarfélagið in Iceland and Romuva in Lithuania have been led by musicians.

The folk music group Kūlgrinda is the musical expression of Romuva in Lithuania.

Several subgenres of rock music have been combined with neopaganism. Neofolk bands have featured pagan revivalists since the genre's inception, pagan rock emerged in the 1980s as a distinct genre or subgenre of gothic rock, and several heavy metal bands have associated themselves with paganism since the early 1990s. Festivals like Wave-Gotik-Treffen and Castlefest have become venues for eclectic neopagan popular music, which may contain elements of gothic rock, neo-Medieval music, folk music, electronic music, ambient music and underground music.

Interwar period

The Latvian neopagan movement Dievturība developed a musical life in the 1930s, focused on the instruments kokles and trīdeksnis, choir music and Latvian folk music. In a 1937 article, the movement's chief ideologue Ernests Brastiņš wrote about the religion's sermons, which included music that "should create solemn and harmonious feelings".[1] This was initially handled by the organist, composer and conductor Valdemārs Ozoliņš (1896–1973). The other main contributors were Jānis Norvilis (1906–1994) and Artūrs Salaks (1891–1984). Norvilis created choral arrangements of folk songs for calendar celebrations. Salaks, a composer and folklorist, became the movement's musical leader in 1936. His own music was characterized by diatonic scale and drones, and combined archaic and new elements in what he dubbed "the Latvian style".[1] In 1938, Salaks released a collection of choral songs titled Latviešu dievestīgās dziesmas ("Latvian songs of adoration").[2]

Also in the 1930s, the Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt (1908–1981) became affiliated with the Germanic neopaganism of the National Socialist journal Ragnarok and its publisher Hans S. Jacobsen. Jacobsen drew heavily from Jakob Wilhelm Hauer's theories and promoted the adoration of the Norse gods. This influenced Tveitt's musical compositions, notably the ballet Baldurs draumar (1938).[3] Tveitt maintains a high status as a composer in Norway, but his affiliation with this milieu is controversial.[4]

Counterculture and second-wave feminism

A self-identified pagan scene for popular music emerged in the United States in the 1970s. A pioneer was Gwydion Pendderwen (1946–1982), who established an emphasis on folk music and singer-songwriter material.[5] Another early contributor was Charlie Murphy (1953–2016), whose song "Burning Times" became popular in the early 1980s.[6] Their style owed much to the British folk revival of the 1960s, in particular British folk rock acts like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span. Another important element was the chant, exemplified with Zsuzsanna Budapest's "We all come from the Goddess / And to Her we shall return / Like a drop of rain / Flowing to the ocean".[6] Chants and songs were made integral to the religious rituals of the milieu. World music gradually became a central component, partially due to concerns of inclusion. This expressed itself through drumming circles where Middle Eastern malfuf rhythms became the standard, sometimes alternated with African-based clave rhythms. Pagan recordings and performances began to feature doumbeks, tars and djembes.[6] The mythological material has predominantly been drawn from Celtic mythology.[6] Records from this pagan scene were sold in New Age stores and information about new music was spread through magazines like Circle Network News and Green Egg.[7]

 
Sculpture of Moondog at his grave in Münster

As a legacy from the counterculture of the 1960s, neopaganism in the United States developed a close relationship with the New Age movement. A prominent example of this is the Starwood Festival, held every summer since 1981. Starwood was formerly held in southwestern New York but has since moved to a site near Athens OH. The festival hosts musical performances, rituals and an eclectic program of workshops. [8][9]

Kay Gardner (1940–2002) was an adherent of Dianic Wicca and one of the founders of women's music, which emerged as the musical expression of second-wave feminism. Her works include the oratorio Ouroboros: Seasons of Life—Women's Passages. It portrays a woman's life cycle from birth to death using the symbols of the Triple Goddess and neopagan holidays.[10] According to the musicologist Ruth A. Solie, feminist music overall had its origin in the Goddess movement, which inspired women to express their inner lives through music.[11]

Louis Thomas Hardin (1916–1999), known as Moondog, was a blind street musician, composer and poet. He remained outside of organized pagan structures, but included pagan and mythological themes in his music, dressed in a horned helmet, said he believed in the Norse gods and built an altar to Thor at his country retreat in Candor, New York.[12]

Neopagan movements in post-war Europe

 
Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson in 1991

In Iceland, Ásatrúarfélagið's first allsherjargoði Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson (1924–1993) was known as both a writer and singer of rímur, a traditional form of alliterative poetry or songs. He can be seen performing in this style in the documentary film Rokk í Reykjavík.[13] In 1982 he released an album, Eddukvæði, where he sings from the Poetic Edda.[14] Another work with ties to Ásatrúarfélagið is Odin's Raven Magic, a 2002 choral and orchestral setting of the Icelandic poem Hrafnagaldr Óðins. It was made by the allsherjargoði Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson (born 1958) in collaboration with Sigur Rós and Steindór Andersen.[15]

The folk music group Kūlgrinda was founded in 1989 by Inija (born 1951) and Jonas Trinkūnas (1939–2014), the leaders of the Lithuanian neopagan movement Romuva. The group functions as the movement's musical expression and is an integral part of its rituals. It is specialised on sutartinės, traditional polyphonic song-chants.[16] Romuva's website describes Kūlgrinda as a "ritual folklore group".[17]

Rock music

Neofolk and the "Euro-pagan scene"

Main article: Neofolk

The genre of neofolk emerged from industrial music in the 1980s and is musically related to the post-war folk revival and gothic rock. It parallels and partial overlaps folk metal, neoclassical music, neo-Medieval music, folk-pop and pagan metal.[18] The historian of ideas Stéphane François has written that neofolk, also known as apocalyptic folk and dark folk, largely overlaps with what he calls the "Euro-pagan scene",[19] which is "characterized more by a mindset, an overall message, than by a musical genre".[19]

 
Fire + Ice at Mėnuo Juodaragis in 2013

Pagan revivalism has been a part of the scene from its inception through people such as Robert N. Taylor of the band Changes. Other examples include the band Sol Invictus, Fire + Ice and its frontman Ian Read, the Dutch neopagan Freya Aswynn who has collaborated with groups such as Current 93 and Sixth Comm, and Blood Axis, whose frontman Michael Jenkins Moynihan edits the journal Tyr.[20] Several prominent members have gone from embracing Satanism and witchcraft to embracing paganism, which has led to internal controversies; some participants have combined pagan and Satanic motifs, which others condemn.[21] Since the early 2000s, some people within the scene, such as Barberousse of His Divine Grace and Moynihan, have been influenced by the paganism of the Nouvelle Droite and Alain de Benoist.[22]

Beyond musical commonalities, neofolk is distinguished by an elitist view of culture, opposition to rationalism and modern homogenisation, an interest in Europe, identity and ethnicity, and dark visions.[23] The bands sometimes reference right-wing, occult, neopagan or völkisch subjects with deliberate ambiguity; the scholar Stefanie von Schnurbein calls this an "elitist Nietzschean masquerade" which expresses a "(neo-)romantic art-religious attitude".[24] François associates the themes of the "Euro-pagan scene" with the political right, especially the conservative revolutionary movement, but also sets it apart from right-wing culture through its willingness to engage in avant-garde artistic expressions.[19] François writes that the early and more influential bands are well-informed about their themes, but also describes a strong presence of "diluted esotericism":[19] the conventions and cultural references established by the early groups do not necessarily correspond to a particular worldview among the bands that copy them.[19]

Pagan rock

Main article: Pagan rock
 
Candia and Tony McKormack of Inkubus Sukkubus at the Wave-Gotik-Treffen in 2014

Pagan rock music as a particular genre emerged from British post-punk, especially gothic rock. According to the writer, journalist and DJ Jason Pitzl-Waters, many younger pagans in the 1980s and 1990s adopted gothic rock as their preferred alternative to the tastes of the baby boom generation, which at the time dominated the neopagan institutions. By the mid 2000s, the genre had fully integrated into the mainstream of those institutions.[25]

Some mythic themes occurred in goth lyrics from the early 1980s, as part of the genre's propensity for the romantic, medieval and primordial.[25] This became more prominent in the "second wave" of the genre, spanning from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s. One of the most successful bands of this wave, Fields of the Nephilim, make ample references to the occult and paganism in their lyrics. Another band from this wave is Inkubus Sukkubus, formed in 1989 and explicitly referring to itself as a pagan band above everything else.[26] Inkubus Sukkubus had a mainstream breakthrough in the United Kingdom with the release of its debut album in 1993, and would go on to perform at both mainstream venues and neopagan events. The success of Inkubus Sukkubus inspired a number of other British bands to adopt a "Pagan-Goth identity", something that quickly spread to other countries.[27] The Australian-British band Dead Can Dance, formed in 1981, has had a significant impact on neopagan popular music, although neither of its own members has expressed any allegiance to paganism. Dead Can Dance began as a goth band but gradually moved away from the genre and has added elements such as world music and references to mythology.[28] The annual music festival Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Leipzig, which focuses on genres such as gothic rock and dark wave, has a "Pagan Village" for pagan festival goers.[29]

Heavy metal

See also: Pagan metal
 
Masha Scream with Arkona at Party.San Metal Open Air in 2019

Heavy metal music inherited an interest in Satanism and the occult from its progenitors in 1960s rock music. Beginning in Scandinavia around 1990, many metal bands came to replace the Satanic theme with an interest in paganism.[30] Few of these musicians regarded themselves as religious, but the black metal scene in particular developed an affinity for paganism and folk customs. An example is a 1995 essay by the Austrian musician Gerhard "Kadmon" Petak, which quotes from Otto Höfler to draw parallels between black metal and traditions surrounding the Wild Hunt motif. The essay first became influential in the Alpine black metal scene, and received wider distribution when an English translation was included in the 1998 book Lords of Chaos.[31]

Among metal bands that explicitly profess to paganism are Arkona from Russia,[32] Falkenbach from Germany[33] and Skálmöld from Iceland.[34] Individual musicians include Gaahl, involved in metal bands like Gorgoroth, Trelldom and God Seed,[35] Ossian D'Ambrosio, founder and guitar player of Opera IX,[36] and Pierre Wilhelmsson, former bass guitar player and lyrics writer for Månegarm.[37]

Eclecticism: ethno-gothic, pagan folk and ambient

A wider popular music scene has formed in Europe around festivals like the Wave-Gotik-Treffen in Germany and Castlefest in the Netherlands. The formula of bands like Dead Can Dance has spawned what Pitz-Waters has labeled "ethno-Gothic", represented by bands like Ataraxia from Italy, Rhea's Obsession from Canada and the Australian musician Louisa John-Krol.[38] Other openly pagan or occult-oriented bands with a clear debt to Dead Can Dance include Seventh Harmonic, Atrium Animae, Daemonia Nymphe, Trobar de Morte[39] and Íon.[28]

 
Faun at the Feuertal Festival in Wuppertal in 2016

The German band Faun formed in 1999 and had their first mainstream success in Germany in 2013. They emerged from the neo-Medieval music scene but developed an eclectic style, which involves folk music and electronic music.[40] They dubbed this pagan folk, a term that has been picked up by other bands such as Omnia from the Netherlands. [41] Typical for the pagan folk genre are premodern instruments, medievalist costumes and imagery, as well as modern elements in order to create an idealised vision of an archaic past that is present in the contemporary world.[42]

The German Andrea Haugen's projects Aghast, Hagalaz' Runedance and Nebelhexë express a Germanic paganism focused on the cycles of nature and feminine mysteries. Haugen's musical influences include the English neofolk of Sol Invictus and Fire + Ice, the dark wave of Dead Can Dance, and Scandinavian folk music acts like Hedningarna and Mari Boine.[43] The musicians of the Norwegian group Wardruna have a background in the metal genre, and have subsequently influenced some metal bands. Wardruna have created ambient music based on the runes and their meaning. They aim to use "the oldest of Nordic instruments"; this has included harp, frame drum, mouth harp and goat horn, and the natural sounds of trees, rocks and water.[44]

Art music

Some composers of art music draw on Pagan themes. Die erste Walpurgisnacht, set to music by Felix Mendelssohn, tells of Druid rituals in the Harz mountains. Merry Mount by Howard Hanson celebrates early colonial American Neo-Paganism. Iannis Xenakis composed Persephassa in honor of the goddess Persephone. Most of the works of Bronius Kutavičius are inspired by ancient Lithuanian polytheistic belief and music.

See also

References

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Muktupāvels 2000, pp. 393–394.
  2. ^ "Artūrs Salaks". Latvian Music Information Centre (in Latvian). Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  3. ^ Emberland 2003, pp. 311–353.
  4. ^ Bleken, Halfdat (2 June 2003). "Den irrelevante fortiden, og den guddommelige musikken" (in Norwegian). NRK. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  5. ^ Pitzl-Waters 2014, p. 85.
  6. ^ a b c d Hill 2005, p. 1238.
  7. ^ Lewis 1999, p. 194.
  8. ^ "The Starwood Festival". The Starwood Festival. Retrieved 5 March 2023.
  9. ^ Pike 2004, pp. 35–36.
  10. ^ Marini 2003, pp. 171–182.
  11. ^ Solie 1993, pp. 8–31.
  12. ^ Scotto 2013.
  13. ^ "Merkir Íslendingar: Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson". Morgunblaðið (in Icelandic). 4 July 2012. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  14. ^ "Andlát: Sveinbjörn Beinteinsson". Dagblaðið Vísir (in Icelandic). 7 January 1994. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  15. ^ Lassen 2011, p. 9.
  16. ^ Strmiska 2012, pp. 361–364.
  17. ^ "Apeigų folkloro grupė" (in Lithuanian). Romuva. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  18. ^ Saunders 2020, p. 39.
  19. ^ a b c d e François 2007, pp. 35–54.
  20. ^ François 2005, paragraph 23; François 2007, pp. 35–54.
  21. ^ François 2005, paragraph 24.
  22. ^ François 2005, paragraph 18; François 2007, pp. 35–54.
  23. ^ Saunders 2020, p. 38.
  24. ^ Schnurbein 2014, pp. 254–255.
  25. ^ a b Pitzl-Waters 2014, p. 76.
  26. ^ Pitzl-Waters 2014, pp. 79–80.
  27. ^ Pitzl-Waters 2014, p. 81.
  28. ^ a b Pitzl-Waters 2014, p. 82.
  29. ^ Pitzl-Waters 2014, p. 89.
  30. ^ Schnurbein 2016, pp. 336–337.
  31. ^ Schnurbein 2016, pp. 339–340.
  32. ^ Eck, Markus (2 March 2008). "Heroic summonings to the ancient gods". Metalmessage. Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  33. ^ Petrella, Fabio (4 May 2011). "Interviste – Falkenbach (Vratyas Vakyas". SpazioRock (in Italian). Retrieved 22 July 2020.
  34. ^ Angela (25 November 2017). "Skálmöld: Klischee-Alarm! Landeskunde mit den Isländern". Metal.de (in German). Retrieved 22 October 2019.
  35. ^ Patterson 2013, p. 263.
  36. ^ Palmisano, Stefania; Vanzo, Martina (12 November 2019). "Cerchio Druidico Italiano". World Religions and Spirituality Project. Virginia Commonwealth University. Retrieved 2 August 2022.
  37. ^ Miasnikov, Aron (27 October 2005). "Interview with: Erik Grawsiö of Månegarm". Alternative-Zine.com. Retrieved 23 October 2019.
  38. ^ Pitzl-Waters 2014, p. 83.
  39. ^ Celtcast
  40. ^ Zirnstein 2013.
  41. ^ Zirnstein 2013; Troyer 2020, pp. 591–601.
  42. ^ Troyer 2020, pp. 586, 591.
  43. ^ Diesel & Gerten 2007, p. 334.
  44. ^ Helden 2017, p. 58.

Sources

  • Diesel, Andreas; Gerten, Dieter (2007). Looking for Europe: Neofolk und Hintergründe [Looking for Europe: Neofolk and Backgrounds] (in German). Zeltingen-Rachtig: Index Verlag. ISBN 978-393687802-8.
  • Emberland, Terje (2003). Religion og rase: nyhedenskap og nazisme i Norge 1933–1945 [Religion and race: neopaganism and Nazism in Norway 1933–1945] (in Norwegian). Oslo: Humanist forlag. ISBN 9788290425536.
  • François, Stéphane (2005). "The gods looked down : la musique " industrielle " et le paganisme" [The Gods Looked Down: "Industrial" Music and Paganism]. Sociétés [fr] (in French). 88 (2): 109–124. doi:10.3917/soc.088.0109.
  • François, Stéphane (2007). Translated by Godwin, Ariel. "The Euro-Pagan Scene: Between Paganism and Radical Right". Journal for the Studies of Radicalism. 1 (2): 35–54. doi:10.1353/jsr.2008.0006. ISSN 1930-1189. JSTOR 41887576. S2CID 144508250.
  • Helden, Imke von (2017). Norwegian Native Art: Cultural Identity in Norwegian Metal Music. Vienna: LIT Verlag. ISBN 978-3-643-90880-3.
  • Hill, Ann (2005). "Pagan Music". In Taylor, Bron R. (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature. London: Continuum. ISBN 1-84371-138-9.
  • Lassen, Annette (2011). Hrafnagaldur Óðinns (PDF). London: Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London. ISBN 978-0903521819.
  • Lewis, James R. (1999). "Music, Pagan". Witchcraft Today: An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions. Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO. pp. 191–194. ISBN 1-57607-134-0.
  • Marini, Stephen A. (2003). Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press. ISBN 9780252028007.
  • Muktupāvels, Valdis (Winter 2000). "On Some Relations Between Kokles Styles and Contexts in the Twentieth Century". Journal of Baltic Studies. London: Routledge. 31 (4): 388–405. doi:10.1080/01629770000000161. ISSN 1751-7877. S2CID 145425132.
  • Patterson, Dayal (2013). Black Metal: Evolution of the Cult. Port Townsend, Washington: Feral House. ISBN 978-1-9362-3975-7.
  • Pike, Sarah M. (2004). New Age and Neopagan Religions in America. New York: Columbia University Press. ISBN 0-231-12402-3.
  • Pitzl-Waters, Jason (2014). "The Darker Shade of Pagan: The Emergence of Goth". In Weston, Donna; Bennett, Andy (eds.). Pop Pagans: Paganism and Popular Music. London and New York: Routledge. ISBN 978-1-84465-646-2.
  • Saunders, Robert A. (2020). "Völkisch vibes: Neofolk, place, politics, and pan-European nationalism". In Nieguth, Tim (ed.). Nationalism and Popular Culture. London: Routledge. pp. 36–58. doi:10.4324/9780429321764-4. ISBN 9780429321764.
  • Schnurbein, Stefanie von (2014). "Germanic Neo-Paganism – A Nordic Art-Religion?". In Schlehe, Judith; Sandkühler, Evamaria (eds.). Religion, Tradition and the Popular: Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. ISBN 978-3-8376-2613-1.
  • Schnurbein, Stefanie von (2016). Norse Revival: Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-1-60846-737-2.
  • Scotto, Robert (2013) [2007]. Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue, Revised Edition. Port Townsend, Washington: Process Media. ISBN 978-1-934170-41-0.
  • Solie, Ruth A. (1993). "Women's History and Music History: The Feminist Historiography of Sophie Drinker". Journal of Women's History. Bloomington, Indiana: Indiana University Press. 5 (2): 8–31. doi:10.1353/jowh.2010.0261. ISSN 1527-2036. S2CID 144206559.
  • Strmiska, Michael F. (2012). "Paganism-Inspired Folk Music, Folk Music-Inspired Paganism and New Cultural Fusions in Lithuania and Latvia". In Cusack, Carole M; Norman, Alex (eds.). Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production. Leiden: Brill Publishers. ISBN 978-90-04-22187-1.
  • Troyer, Scott R. (2020). "Medievalism and Identity Construction in Pagan Folk Music". In Meyer, Stephen C.; Yri, Kirsten (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism. New York: Oxford University Press. pp. 586–608. doi:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780190658441.013.47. ISBN 978-0-19-0658-44-1.
  • Zirnstein, Michael (14 March 2013). "Folkband Faun – Mit Minnesang in die Charts" [Folk band Faun: with Minnesang in the charts]. Süddeutsche Zeitung (in German). Retrieved 22 July 2020.

Further reading

  • Chase, Christopher (2009). Approaching the Sacred Grove : The Orphic Impulse in Pagan Religious Music (PhD). Michigan State University. Retrieved 18 December 2021.
  • François, Stéphane (2006). La Musique europaïenne. Ethnographie politique d'une subculture de droite (in French). Paris: Harmattan. ISBN 2-296-01591-3.
  • Granholm, Kennet (2011). "'Sons of Northern Darkness': Heathen Influences in Black Metal and Neofolk Music". Numen. 58 (4): 514–544. doi:10.1163/156852711x577069.
  • Letcher, Andrew James (2001). The role of the bard in contemporary Pagan movements (PhD). University of Southampton. Retrieved 25 July 2020.
  • Magliocco, Sabina; Tannen, Holly (1998). "The Real Old-Time Religion: Towards an Aesthetics of Neo-Pagan Song". Ethnologies. 20 (1): 175–201.
  • Seidl, Roman (2008). Ideologie im Black Metal. Eine psychologische Analyse zu Neuheidentum und rechtsextremer Gesinnung (in German). Saarbrücken: AV Akademikerverlag. ISBN 978-3836456494.
  • Weston, Donna; Bennett, Andy (2014). Pop Pagans : Paganism and Popular Music. New York: Routledge. ISBN 9781844656479.

March 10, 2023
neopagan, music, music, created, influenced, modern, paganism, music, produced, interwar, period, include, efforts, from, latvian, dievturība, movement, norwegian, composer, geirr, tveitt, counterculture, 1960s, established, british, folk, revival, world, musi. Neopagan music is music created for or influenced by modern Paganism Music produced in the interwar period include efforts from the Latvian Dievturiba movement and the Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt The counterculture of the 1960s established British folk revival and world music as influences for American neopagan music Second wave feminism created women s music which includes influences from feminist versions of neopaganism The United States also produced Moondog a Norse neopagan street musician and composer The postwar neopagan organisations Asatruarfelagid in Iceland and Romuva in Lithuania have been led by musicians The folk music group Kulgrinda is the musical expression of Romuva in Lithuania Several subgenres of rock music have been combined with neopaganism Neofolk bands have featured pagan revivalists since the genre s inception pagan rock emerged in the 1980s as a distinct genre or subgenre of gothic rock and several heavy metal bands have associated themselves with paganism since the early 1990s Festivals like Wave Gotik Treffen and Castlefest have become venues for eclectic neopagan popular music which may contain elements of gothic rock neo Medieval music folk music electronic music ambient music and underground music Contents 1 Interwar period 2 Counterculture and second wave feminism 3 Neopagan movements in post war Europe 4 Rock music 4 1 Neofolk and the Euro pagan scene 4 2 Pagan rock 4 3 Heavy metal 5 Eclecticism ethno gothic pagan folk and ambient 6 Art music 7 See also 8 References 8 1 Footnotes 8 2 Sources 9 Further readingInterwar period EditThe Latvian neopagan movement Dievturiba developed a musical life in the 1930s focused on the instruments kokles and trideksnis choir music and Latvian folk music In a 1937 article the movement s chief ideologue Ernests Brastins wrote about the religion s sermons which included music that should create solemn and harmonious feelings 1 This was initially handled by the organist composer and conductor Valdemars Ozolins 1896 1973 The other main contributors were Janis Norvilis 1906 1994 and Arturs Salaks 1891 1984 Norvilis created choral arrangements of folk songs for calendar celebrations Salaks a composer and folklorist became the movement s musical leader in 1936 His own music was characterized by diatonic scale and drones and combined archaic and new elements in what he dubbed the Latvian style 1 In 1938 Salaks released a collection of choral songs titled Latviesu dievestigas dziesmas Latvian songs of adoration 2 Also in the 1930s the Norwegian composer Geirr Tveitt 1908 1981 became affiliated with the Germanic neopaganism of the National Socialist journal Ragnarok and its publisher Hans S Jacobsen Jacobsen drew heavily from Jakob Wilhelm Hauer s theories and promoted the adoration of the Norse gods This influenced Tveitt s musical compositions notably the ballet Baldurs draumar 1938 3 Tveitt maintains a high status as a composer in Norway but his affiliation with this milieu is controversial 4 Counterculture and second wave feminism EditA self identified pagan scene for popular music emerged in the United States in the 1970s A pioneer was Gwydion Pendderwen 1946 1982 who established an emphasis on folk music and singer songwriter material 5 Another early contributor was Charlie Murphy 1953 2016 whose song Burning Times became popular in the early 1980s 6 Their style owed much to the British folk revival of the 1960s in particular British folk rock acts like Fairport Convention and Steeleye Span Another important element was the chant exemplified with Zsuzsanna Budapest s We all come from the Goddess And to Her we shall return Like a drop of rain Flowing to the ocean 6 Chants and songs were made integral to the religious rituals of the milieu World music gradually became a central component partially due to concerns of inclusion This expressed itself through drumming circles where Middle Eastern malfuf rhythms became the standard sometimes alternated with African based clave rhythms Pagan recordings and performances began to feature doumbeks tars and djembes 6 The mythological material has predominantly been drawn from Celtic mythology 6 Records from this pagan scene were sold in New Age stores and information about new music was spread through magazines like Circle Network News and Green Egg 7 Sculpture of Moondog at his grave in Munster As a legacy from the counterculture of the 1960s neopaganism in the United States developed a close relationship with the New Age movement A prominent example of this is the Starwood Festival held every summer since 1981 Starwood was formerly held in southwestern New York but has since moved to a site near Athens OH The festival hosts musical performances rituals and an eclectic program of workshops 8 9 Kay Gardner 1940 2002 was an adherent of Dianic Wicca and one of the founders of women s music which emerged as the musical expression of second wave feminism Her works include the oratorio Ouroboros Seasons of Life Women s Passages It portrays a woman s life cycle from birth to death using the symbols of the Triple Goddess and neopagan holidays 10 According to the musicologist Ruth A Solie feminist music overall had its origin in the Goddess movement which inspired women to express their inner lives through music 11 Louis Thomas Hardin 1916 1999 known as Moondog was a blind street musician composer and poet He remained outside of organized pagan structures but included pagan and mythological themes in his music dressed in a horned helmet said he believed in the Norse gods and built an altar to Thor at his country retreat in Candor New York 12 Neopagan movements in post war Europe Edit Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson in 1991 In Iceland Asatruarfelagid s first allsherjargodi Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson 1924 1993 was known as both a writer and singer of rimur a traditional form of alliterative poetry or songs He can be seen performing in this style in the documentary film Rokk i Reykjavik 13 In 1982 he released an album Eddukvaedi where he sings from the Poetic Edda 14 Another work with ties to Asatruarfelagid is Odin s Raven Magic a 2002 choral and orchestral setting of the Icelandic poem Hrafnagaldr odins It was made by the allsherjargodi Hilmar Orn Hilmarsson born 1958 in collaboration with Sigur Ros and Steindor Andersen 15 The folk music group Kulgrinda was founded in 1989 by Inija born 1951 and Jonas Trinkunas 1939 2014 the leaders of the Lithuanian neopagan movement Romuva The group functions as the movement s musical expression and is an integral part of its rituals It is specialised on sutartines traditional polyphonic song chants 16 Romuva s website describes Kulgrinda as a ritual folklore group 17 Rock music EditNeofolk and the Euro pagan scene Edit Main article Neofolk The genre of neofolk emerged from industrial music in the 1980s and is musically related to the post war folk revival and gothic rock It parallels and partial overlaps folk metal neoclassical music neo Medieval music folk pop and pagan metal 18 The historian of ideas Stephane Francois has written that neofolk also known as apocalyptic folk and dark folk largely overlaps with what he calls the Euro pagan scene 19 which is characterized more by a mindset an overall message than by a musical genre 19 Fire Ice at Menuo Juodaragis in 2013 Pagan revivalism has been a part of the scene from its inception through people such as Robert N Taylor of the band Changes Other examples include the band Sol Invictus Fire Ice and its frontman Ian Read the Dutch neopagan Freya Aswynn who has collaborated with groups such as Current 93 and Sixth Comm and Blood Axis whose frontman Michael Jenkins Moynihan edits the journal Tyr 20 Several prominent members have gone from embracing Satanism and witchcraft to embracing paganism which has led to internal controversies some participants have combined pagan and Satanic motifs which others condemn 21 Since the early 2000s some people within the scene such as Barberousse of His Divine Grace and Moynihan have been influenced by the paganism of the Nouvelle Droite and Alain de Benoist 22 Beyond musical commonalities neofolk is distinguished by an elitist view of culture opposition to rationalism and modern homogenisation an interest in Europe identity and ethnicity and dark visions 23 The bands sometimes reference right wing occult neopagan or volkisch subjects with deliberate ambiguity the scholar Stefanie von Schnurbein calls this an elitist Nietzschean masquerade which expresses a neo romantic art religious attitude 24 Francois associates the themes of the Euro pagan scene with the political right especially the conservative revolutionary movement but also sets it apart from right wing culture through its willingness to engage in avant garde artistic expressions 19 Francois writes that the early and more influential bands are well informed about their themes but also describes a strong presence of diluted esotericism 19 the conventions and cultural references established by the early groups do not necessarily correspond to a particular worldview among the bands that copy them 19 Pagan rock Edit Main article Pagan rock Candia and Tony McKormack of Inkubus Sukkubus at the Wave Gotik Treffen in 2014 Pagan rock music as a particular genre emerged from British post punk especially gothic rock According to the writer journalist and DJ Jason Pitzl Waters many younger pagans in the 1980s and 1990s adopted gothic rock as their preferred alternative to the tastes of the baby boom generation which at the time dominated the neopagan institutions By the mid 2000s the genre had fully integrated into the mainstream of those institutions 25 Some mythic themes occurred in goth lyrics from the early 1980s as part of the genre s propensity for the romantic medieval and primordial 25 This became more prominent in the second wave of the genre spanning from the mid 1980s to the mid 1990s One of the most successful bands of this wave Fields of the Nephilim make ample references to the occult and paganism in their lyrics Another band from this wave is Inkubus Sukkubus formed in 1989 and explicitly referring to itself as a pagan band above everything else 26 Inkubus Sukkubus had a mainstream breakthrough in the United Kingdom with the release of its debut album in 1993 and would go on to perform at both mainstream venues and neopagan events The success of Inkubus Sukkubus inspired a number of other British bands to adopt a Pagan Goth identity something that quickly spread to other countries 27 The Australian British band Dead Can Dance formed in 1981 has had a significant impact on neopagan popular music although neither of its own members has expressed any allegiance to paganism Dead Can Dance began as a goth band but gradually moved away from the genre and has added elements such as world music and references to mythology 28 The annual music festival Wave Gotik Treffen in Leipzig which focuses on genres such as gothic rock and dark wave has a Pagan Village for pagan festival goers 29 Heavy metal Edit See also Pagan metal Masha Scream with Arkona at Party San Metal Open Air in 2019 Heavy metal music inherited an interest in Satanism and the occult from its progenitors in 1960s rock music Beginning in Scandinavia around 1990 many metal bands came to replace the Satanic theme with an interest in paganism 30 Few of these musicians regarded themselves as religious but the black metal scene in particular developed an affinity for paganism and folk customs An example is a 1995 essay by the Austrian musician Gerhard Kadmon Petak which quotes from Otto Hofler to draw parallels between black metal and traditions surrounding the Wild Hunt motif The essay first became influential in the Alpine black metal scene and received wider distribution when an English translation was included in the 1998 book Lords of Chaos 31 Among metal bands that explicitly profess to paganism are Arkona from Russia 32 Falkenbach from Germany 33 and Skalmold from Iceland 34 Individual musicians include Gaahl involved in metal bands like Gorgoroth Trelldom and God Seed 35 Ossian D Ambrosio founder and guitar player of Opera IX 36 and Pierre Wilhelmsson former bass guitar player and lyrics writer for Manegarm 37 Eclecticism ethno gothic pagan folk and ambient EditA wider popular music scene has formed in Europe around festivals like the Wave Gotik Treffen in Germany and Castlefest in the Netherlands The formula of bands like Dead Can Dance has spawned what Pitz Waters has labeled ethno Gothic represented by bands like Ataraxia from Italy Rhea s Obsession from Canada and the Australian musician Louisa John Krol 38 Other openly pagan or occult oriented bands with a clear debt to Dead Can Dance include Seventh Harmonic Atrium Animae Daemonia Nymphe Trobar de Morte 39 and Ion 28 Faun at the Feuertal Festival in Wuppertal in 2016 The German band Faun formed in 1999 and had their first mainstream success in Germany in 2013 They emerged from the neo Medieval music scene but developed an eclectic style which involves folk music and electronic music 40 They dubbed this pagan folk a term that has been picked up by other bands such as Omnia from the Netherlands 41 Typical for the pagan folk genre are premodern instruments medievalist costumes and imagery as well as modern elements in order to create an idealised vision of an archaic past that is present in the contemporary world 42 The German Andrea Haugen s projects Aghast Hagalaz Runedance and Nebelhexe express a Germanic paganism focused on the cycles of nature and feminine mysteries Haugen s musical influences include the English neofolk of Sol Invictus and Fire Ice the dark wave of Dead Can Dance and Scandinavian folk music acts like Hedningarna and Mari Boine 43 The musicians of the Norwegian group Wardruna have a background in the metal genre and have subsequently influenced some metal bands Wardruna have created ambient music based on the runes and their meaning They aim to use the oldest of Nordic instruments this has included harp frame drum mouth harp and goat horn and the natural sounds of trees rocks and water 44 Art music EditSome composers of art music draw on Pagan themes Die erste Walpurgisnacht set to music by Felix Mendelssohn tells of Druid rituals in the Harz mountains Merry Mount by Howard Hanson celebrates early colonial American Neo Paganism Iannis Xenakis composed Persephassa in honor of the goddess Persephone Most of the works of Bronius Kutavicius are inspired by ancient Lithuanian polytheistic belief and music See also EditAncient music Beltania Kilkim Zaibu New age music OccultureReferences EditFootnotes Edit a b Muktupavels 2000 pp 393 394 Arturs Salaks Latvian Music Information Centre in Latvian Retrieved 22 July 2020 Emberland 2003 pp 311 353 Bleken Halfdat 2 June 2003 Den irrelevante fortiden og den guddommelige musikken in Norwegian NRK Retrieved 22 July 2020 Pitzl Waters 2014 p 85 a b c d Hill 2005 p 1238 Lewis 1999 p 194 The Starwood Festival The Starwood Festival Retrieved 5 March 2023 Pike 2004 pp 35 36 Marini 2003 pp 171 182 Solie 1993 pp 8 31 Scotto 2013 Merkir Islendingar Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson Morgunbladid in Icelandic 4 July 2012 Retrieved 22 July 2020 Andlat Sveinbjorn Beinteinsson Dagbladid Visir in Icelandic 7 January 1994 Retrieved 22 July 2020 Lassen 2011 p 9 Strmiska 2012 pp 361 364 Apeigu folkloro grupe in Lithuanian Romuva Retrieved 22 July 2020 Saunders 2020 p 39 a b c d e Francois 2007 pp 35 54 Francois 2005 paragraph 23 Francois 2007 pp 35 54 Francois 2005 paragraph 24 Francois 2005 paragraph 18 Francois 2007 pp 35 54 Saunders 2020 p 38 Schnurbein 2014 pp 254 255 a b Pitzl Waters 2014 p 76 Pitzl Waters 2014 pp 79 80 Pitzl Waters 2014 p 81 a b Pitzl Waters 2014 p 82 Pitzl Waters 2014 p 89 Schnurbein 2016 pp 336 337 Schnurbein 2016 pp 339 340 Eck Markus 2 March 2008 Heroic summonings to the ancient gods Metalmessage Retrieved 22 July 2020 Petrella Fabio 4 May 2011 Interviste Falkenbach Vratyas Vakyas SpazioRock in Italian Retrieved 22 July 2020 Angela 25 November 2017 Skalmold Klischee Alarm Landeskunde mit den Islandern Metal de in German Retrieved 22 October 2019 Patterson 2013 p 263 Palmisano Stefania Vanzo Martina 12 November 2019 Cerchio Druidico Italiano World Religions and Spirituality Project Virginia Commonwealth University Retrieved 2 August 2022 Miasnikov Aron 27 October 2005 Interview with Erik Grawsio of Manegarm Alternative Zine com Retrieved 23 October 2019 Pitzl Waters 2014 p 83 Celtcast Zirnstein 2013 Zirnstein 2013 Troyer 2020 pp 591 601 Troyer 2020 pp 586 591 Diesel amp Gerten 2007 p 334 Helden 2017 p 58 Sources Edit Diesel Andreas Gerten Dieter 2007 Looking for Europe Neofolk und Hintergrunde Looking for Europe Neofolk and Backgrounds in German Zeltingen Rachtig Index Verlag ISBN 978 393687802 8 Emberland Terje 2003 Religion og rase nyhedenskap og nazisme i Norge 1933 1945 Religion and race neopaganism and Nazism in Norway 1933 1945 in Norwegian Oslo Humanist forlag ISBN 9788290425536 Francois Stephane 2005 The gods looked down la musique industrielle et le paganisme The Gods Looked Down Industrial Music and Paganism Societes fr in French 88 2 109 124 doi 10 3917 soc 088 0109 Francois Stephane 2007 Translated by Godwin Ariel The Euro Pagan Scene Between Paganism and Radical Right Journal for the Studies of Radicalism 1 2 35 54 doi 10 1353 jsr 2008 0006 ISSN 1930 1189 JSTOR 41887576 S2CID 144508250 Helden Imke von 2017 Norwegian Native Art Cultural Identity in Norwegian Metal Music Vienna LIT Verlag ISBN 978 3 643 90880 3 Hill Ann 2005 Pagan Music In Taylor Bron R ed Encyclopedia of Religion and Nature London Continuum ISBN 1 84371 138 9 Lassen Annette 2011 Hrafnagaldur odinns PDF London Viking Society for Northern Research University College London ISBN 978 0903521819 Lewis James R 1999 Music Pagan Witchcraft Today An Encyclopedia of Wiccan and Neopagan Traditions Santa Barbara California ABC CLIO pp 191 194 ISBN 1 57607 134 0 Marini Stephen A 2003 Sacred Song in America Religion Music and Public Culture Urbana Illinois University of Illinois Press ISBN 9780252028007 Muktupavels Valdis Winter 2000 On Some Relations Between Kokles Styles and Contexts in the Twentieth Century Journal of Baltic Studies London Routledge 31 4 388 405 doi 10 1080 01629770000000161 ISSN 1751 7877 S2CID 145425132 Patterson Dayal 2013 Black Metal Evolution of the Cult Port Townsend Washington Feral House ISBN 978 1 9362 3975 7 Pike Sarah M 2004 New Age and Neopagan Religions in America New York Columbia University Press ISBN 0 231 12402 3 Pitzl Waters Jason 2014 The Darker Shade of Pagan The Emergence of Goth In Weston Donna Bennett Andy eds Pop Pagans Paganism and Popular Music London and New York Routledge ISBN 978 1 84465 646 2 Saunders Robert A 2020 Volkisch vibes Neofolk place politics and pan European nationalism In Nieguth Tim ed Nationalism and Popular Culture London Routledge pp 36 58 doi 10 4324 9780429321764 4 ISBN 9780429321764 Schnurbein Stefanie von 2014 Germanic Neo Paganism A Nordic Art Religion In Schlehe Judith Sandkuhler Evamaria eds Religion Tradition and the Popular Transcultural Views from Asia and Europe Bielefeld Transcript Verlag ISBN 978 3 8376 2613 1 Schnurbein Stefanie von 2016 Norse Revival Transformations of Germanic Neopaganism Leiden Brill Publishers ISBN 978 1 60846 737 2 Scotto Robert 2013 2007 Moondog The Viking of 6th Avenue Revised Edition Port Townsend Washington Process Media ISBN 978 1 934170 41 0 Solie Ruth A 1993 Women s History and Music History The Feminist Historiography of Sophie Drinker Journal of Women s History Bloomington Indiana Indiana University Press 5 2 8 31 doi 10 1353 jowh 2010 0261 ISSN 1527 2036 S2CID 144206559 Strmiska Michael F 2012 Paganism Inspired Folk Music Folk Music Inspired Paganism and New Cultural Fusions in Lithuania and Latvia In Cusack Carole M Norman Alex eds Handbook of New Religions and Cultural Production Leiden Brill Publishers ISBN 978 90 04 22187 1 Troyer Scott R 2020 Medievalism and Identity Construction in Pagan Folk Music In Meyer Stephen C Yri Kirsten eds The Oxford Handbook of Music and Medievalism New York Oxford University Press pp 586 608 doi 10 1093 oxfordhb 9780190658441 013 47 ISBN 978 0 19 0658 44 1 Zirnstein Michael 14 March 2013 Folkband Faun Mit Minnesang in die Charts Folk band Faun with Minnesang in the charts Suddeutsche Zeitung in German Retrieved 22 July 2020 Further reading EditChase Christopher 2009 Approaching the Sacred Grove The Orphic Impulse in Pagan Religious Music PhD Michigan State University Retrieved 18 December 2021 Francois Stephane 2006 La Musique europaienne Ethnographie politique d une subculture de droite in French Paris Harmattan ISBN 2 296 01591 3 Granholm Kennet 2011 Sons of Northern Darkness Heathen Influences in Black Metal and Neofolk Music Numen 58 4 514 544 doi 10 1163 156852711x577069 Letcher Andrew James 2001 The role of the bard in contemporary Pagan movements PhD University of Southampton Retrieved 25 July 2020 Magliocco Sabina Tannen Holly 1998 The Real Old Time Religion Towards an Aesthetics of Neo Pagan Song Ethnologies 20 1 175 201 Seidl Roman 2008 Ideologie im Black Metal Eine psychologische Analyse zu Neuheidentum und rechtsextremer Gesinnung in German Saarbrucken AV Akademikerverlag ISBN 978 3836456494 Weston Donna Bennett Andy 2014 Pop Pagans Paganism and Popular Music New York Routledge ISBN 9781844656479 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Neopagan music amp oldid 1143081215, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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