ABSTRACT
Denmark, a constitutional monarchy of some five million people, occupies 43,069 square kilometers on the Jutland Peninsula and six islands in the strait between the peninsula and Sweden. Until 1958, genre analysis of Danish folk song was based on the form and content of texts. Scholars considered the main genre to be ballads—narrative, strophic songs with end rhymes, with or without a chorus and a middle refrain. During the 1700s and 1800s, numerous tunes marked by major-minor tonality appeared, often with an extended range. The influence of triadic harmony is evident in them, and their forms are more symmetrical than earlier tunes. Presumably there was a close connection between instrumental dance tunes and the ballad tunes of the rime. Danish musical dialects differ somewhat by region, but balladic and instrumental repertoires can be distinguished, by social groups, marked by occupation, religion, political affiliation, age, and sex, and three main groups of professional, traditional musicians—instrumentalists, street singers, and tavern musicians.
