Polish Dance Research Articles

Early Modern Polonaises and the Myth of Polish Rhythms

Scholars have long viewed the history of Polish dances through the lens of “Polish rhythms.” These rhythms are thought to characterize dances known as Polish from the sixteenth-century lute pieces of Hans Neusidler to the piano music of Frédéric Chopin. The notion of Polish rhythms continues to shape our modern reception of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century music: certain patterns are often used as a litmus test for whether a piece is evoking a Polish dance, even in the absence of an identifying label. I demonstrate, however, that there is little historical evidence that specific rhythms rendered dances Polish in the eyes and ears of composers, performers, or listeners from the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. Instead, the Polish rhythms narrative appears to have stemmed from a misreading of early modern music-theoretical sources on the part of late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century writers, whose arguments were influenced by—and fed into—contemporary ideas of musical nationalism and essentialism. Focusing on eighteenth-century German sources, I also challenge any monolithic notions of Polishness in dance music by revealing how terms such as polonaise could denote multiple distinct dances (or could even refer to non-dance pieces). More broadly, these findings complicate the present-day practice of using abstract notational elements to identify unmarked dance topics, and I show how a greater attentiveness to factors beyond the score is vital for understanding how historical subjects experienced the popular dances of their time.

‘Besolte Instrumentisten der Königlichen Stadt Breslaw’: The Hess Brothers’ Anthology (1555) and Its European Context*

Abstract The paper focuses on a comprehensive dance collection compiled by two Wrocław/Breslau town musicians (Stadtpfeifer), the brothers Bartholomäus and Paul Hess. The anthology, partly preserved at Wrocław University Library, was published in 1555 at the Wrocław printing house of Crispin Scharffenberg and documents the transition of dance repertoire from the courtly realm to the private and public spheres, which was typical of the mid-sixteenth century. The Wrocław collection, scored for wind ensemble, contains 477 four- and five-part dances of German, Polish, French, and Italian provenance. The paper offers some new views on the repertoire from the collection. Particular attention has been given to the so-called Polish dances.

“Kuyavian fantasy” by V. Malyszewski in Review of Spiritual and Ethical Instructions of Polish National Revival of the First Half of the XX Century

The purpose of the research is to reveal the poetic and intonation uniqueness of V. Malyszewski's “Kuyavian Fantasy” in the stream of ideas of Polish national revival, actualised in the 20s and 30s of the 20th century. The methodology of the work is based on the intonation concept of music from the perspective of intonation-stylistic, etymological analysis. Analytical-musicological, genre-stylistic, and interdisciplinary approaches were essential for the work, which made it possible to reveal and investigate the genre-intonational nature of V. Malyszewski's “Kuyavian Fantasy” and its correlation with the ideas of Polish national revival at the beginning of the 20th century. The scientific novelty of the work is determined by its analytical perspective, which takes into account both the genre-stylistic specificity of V. Malyszewski's work and its correlation with the historical realities of Polish national state-building and the representation of his ideas in the culture and music of the first half of the 20th century. Conclusions. V. Malyshweski is an outstanding composer, teacher, whose multifaceted activity became a brilliant embodiment of personal Renaissance encyclopedism and creative universalism against the background of an organic synthesis of Slavic cultures, the genesis of which went back to the spiritual-national and religious-ethical guidelines of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The latter became relevant during the period of restoration of Polish statehood (1918) against the background of the ideas of Prometheus. “Kuyavian fantasy” by V. Malyshewsky, which combined genre features of fantasy, suite and concert, became an artistic embodiment of the leading ideas of its time, symbolically directed to the ancient instructions of the Slavic world and Polish statehood, which is also evident in the programmatic appeal to the image of Kuyavia as an ancient Polish region; and to the etymological affinity of the name of these lands with ancient Kuyavia, related to ancient Ukrainian territories and Kyiv. “Kuyavian fantasy”, on the one hand, carefully reproduces the genre palette of Kuyaviak both as a regional dance-suite and as an example of Polish dance culture in general. On the other hand, the composer's overcoming of the purely applied role of this dance, which demonstrates the code section of the work, which acquires the characteristics of a majestic hymn to the revived Motherland, is indicative.
 Keywords: the work of V. Malyshewski, “Kuyavian fantasy” by V. Malyshewski, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, prometheism, polonaise, kuyaviak, mazurka, Polish dance music.

Upowszechnianie się polskiej etnicznej kultury muzycznej na Litwie w XVI–XX wieku

Influence of Polish ethnic musical culture in Lithuania is evident mainly in usage of European musical instruments and of folk dances repertoire as well in the religious ethnic music.European musical instruments were spread in Lithuania at the beginning of 16th – 17th cc. These instruments were adopted by Lithuanians from Poland or from Western Byelorussia, where the Catholic Church and strong traditions of Polish culture were prevailing. European folk dances were performed by the Lithuanians at the beginning of 18th – 19th cc., and the main part of these dances was spread to Lithuania from Poland. Noticeable part of folk dances repertoire consists of Polish dances. These new dances were lead by the music of the European instruments; it was the noticeable innovation, because until this period, Lithuanian games and round games, as well as in all the other nations of Europe, were performed by singing.We can notice less Polish influence in Lithuanian ethnic songs, while researching monody of Lithuanians and Poles is evident, that songs of this style of ethnic music of both nations were spread from Great Poland to Southern and Middle Lithuania, most probably, marking the common area of former culture of ethnic music. The roots of this former culture could reach the pre – historical times.Polish influence is evident in the traditions of co – called “literary” songs, which were popular in 19th – beginning of 20th cc., and in the repertoire of latest centuries of ethnic musical instruments.The ethnic music from Poland of the Additional service in Lithuania: devotions and songs of Advent Little hours of St. Mary the Virgin, devotions and songs of Mournful Whining and devotion and songs of the Žemaičių Kalvarija (Samogitia in Latin) – are the reflection of the Polish origin.In Poland and Lithuania from time immemorial on Advent Sundays, as early as before the sunrise, early Mass (Matins) has been held which begins with the words Rorate coeli and therefore it is called Rarotos (in Lithuania). Its origin in Lithuania is linked to Poland. Their basis was The Little hours of St. Mary the Virgin or Godzinki (in Poland). This cult has come to Lithuania from Cracow in the 17th century.The customs of Mournful Whining or Gorzkie Żale (in Poland) prayers and songs is known only in Lithuania and Poland. The liturgy of Rome does not have this customs. The earliest manuscript text of Gorzkie Żale was founded in Poland (Calvaria Zebrzydowska, War- saw) in 17th century. Having this religious practice originated in Poland, finally is spread in Lithuania as late as mid-19th century.The devotions and songs of the Žemaičių Kalvarija (Samogitia) are established by the model of Polish Calvaria Zebrzydowska. The cult of Žemaičių Kalvarija was born in 1637. Its religious ethnic music – the analogue Polish religious culture.Roots of the Polish influence arose not only because of the neighbourhood of the both nations, but also because of living in the common state and the same Catholic faith, which was one of the strongest common feature of the ethnic and musical culture of Lithuanians and Poles.

Emanuel Wurstisen, his Tablature and Links to Poland. Lute Music with Medicine in the Background

The lute tablature CH-Bu F IX 70 was compiled by Emanuel Wurstisen (1572–1616), a Basel University student, who became a physician in Biel toward the end of his life. His biography has been supplemented here so as to include new information concerning, among other things, his collaboration with German surgeon Wilhelm Fabricius Hildanus during the first decade of the seventeenth century. When commencing his tablature, in 1591, Wurstisen planned to divide it into eight books, each devoted to works of a similar genre. The manuscript comprises nearly five hundred works, mostly anonymous, while among those of known attribution, compositions by Orlando di Lasso take pride of place. Composers mentioned by name include Amandus Polanus a Polansdorf, a professor of theology at Basel University, who wrote his Was Gott will most likely after the death of his wife, in 1605, which thus becomes the hypothetical terminus post quem for the completion of the tablature. There are many Polish elements in the manuscript. Piotr Poźniak long since identified the works signed with the initials C.S. as written by Kasper Sielicki, and noted that the two works by Wojciech Długoraj, as well as the Fantasia by Diomedes Cato, differ from the versions published by J. B. Besard (1603). Hence they may have reached Wurstisen not through printed editions, but in some other way. The author studies how these and other pieces from the Polish repertoire (including Polish dances) could have found their way to Basel. Among those who could have played some part in this ‘import’ of music, she points, first and foremost, to students and residents who came to Basel from Poland, such as Marcin Chmielewski, a professor of Basel University, the medical student Orestes Cato, brother of Diomedes, and the poet Daniel Naborowski, who frequently returned to Switzerland. The attributions of works from CH-Bu F IX 70 are complemented by the identification of the composer of works signed in the tablature with the initials F.D.D (F.D.D.D.) as Fridericus de Drusina Dantiscanus, a lutenist from Royal Prussia, son of Benedict de Drusina. The pieces by this composer found in Wurstisen’s manuscript (Exercitium and a pair of dances, Passomezo and Saltarello) are his only known works.

The Myth of Polishness in Polish Dances. How Ideologies Interpret Phenomena Related to Music and Movement

Abstract The article discusses the myth of Polishness in the context of dances which gained the social status of ‘national’ ones, i.e. those incorporated into the canon of national culture. I shall start by establishing the terminology and chronology related to the phenomenon of ‘national dance’, and sum up Mieczysław Tomaszewski’s comments on the ways of expressing nationality in music, including dance, and the various aspects of this phenomenon. Methodologically speaking, the present paper is based on the concept of myth as presented by Joseph Campbell, Leszek Kołakowski and Maria Janion, as well as on the findings of Jan Berting, Christiane Villain-Gandossi, Maria Janion and Jan Stęszewski concerning the phenomenon of stereotypes, which are crucial to defining a myth. The main body of my text has been dedicated to the conditions in which the myth of Polish dance was born, its form and relation to the ideology of Sarmatism then current among the Polish nobility, and to its subsequent transformations. Further transformations took place mainly under the influence of a specifically conceived Romanticism, in which the nation’s struggle for liberation took pride of place, accompanied by the cult of the family as a bastion of national culture, in which women played a prominent role as model wives and mothers, as well as by an interest in folk culture, which attracted the upper social strata to folk dances and led to the emergence of the claim (unsupported by existing sources) that the nobility’s dances had folk origins (this myth was particularly popular among the adherents of chłopomania, i.e. the intelligentsia’s fascination with, and interest in, the peasantry). In the final section I point to the durability of the myths concerning Polish national dances, which – thanks to educational efforts and to broadly conceived artistic work – are universally present in the social consciousness also today.

Beyond the Dogma of a ‘National Style’: Dance-Type Narration in Stanislaw Moniuszko’s Operas

Abstract A privileged position in discourse on 19th-century opera is occupied by narration concerning the emancipation of national styles. In order to work out a fresh approach in scientific study of this subject, it seems crucial that we should abandon the ethnocentric perspective. This was one of the main postulates of Jean-Marie Pradier’s utopian project of ethnoscenology. Importantly, Pradier also stressed the physical aspect of all stage practice. In the times of Rossini, Verdi, Gounod and Moniuszko, the physicality of the spectacle was associated not only with singing, but also with choreography. The links between 19th-century opera and its broadly conceived dance component are the subject of a highly inspiring essay by Maribeth Clark, whose arguments, theses and conclusions we also present here in detail. Stanisław Moniuszko’s operatic style is commonly associated with Polish dance rhythms. Still, salon dance should also be considered, apart from national dances, as one of the keys to the composer’s entire oeuvre. In a study of his stage works from both the Vilnius and the Warsaw periods, the dance idiom will not be limited to the presence of dance rhythms in the protagonists’ arias or to the ballet sections. Dance qualities can be discerned in Moniuszko’s music on a much deeper, fundamental level of the construction of operatic narration. Dance is frequently a hidden mechanism that serves as an axis of development for the presented events or as an element that organises the dramaturgy of entire scenes and instrumental passages. This paper is an attempt to take a fresh look at the role of the dance idiom in Moniuszko’s operatic narrations, an initial reconnaissance, in which I point to the sources of the composer’s inspirations and illustrate my theses with specific examples.

THE POLONAISE AND MAZURKA IN MID-EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY DRESDEN: STYLE AND STRUCTURE IN THE MUSIC OF JOHANN CHRISTIAN ROELLIG

ABSTRACTWhile recent studies have explored the significance of the Polish style in the music of Georg Philipp Telemann and Johann Sebastian Bach, and the importance of Polish dances in Dresden has long been recognized, the eighteenth-century German polonaise remains a largely neglected area of inquiry. The restoration of the library of the Singakademie zu Berlin in 2000 has made it possible to explore an important collection of mostly unica sources of music by Saxon composers from c1740 to 1763 amassed by the Meissen porcelain mosaic artist Carl Jacob Christian Klipfel (1727–1802). Klipfel's collection includes music by Johann Christian Roellig (born 1716), possibly the most prolific composer of polonaises in Dresden during this period and one of the earliest German composers to write mazurs (mazurkas) in instrumental works. The first-hand knowledge of the Polish style that musicians employed by the Saxon electoral court and Count von Brühl gained as a result of frequent journeys to Warsaw resulted in Dresden polonaises that are relatively un-‘Germanized’. This article examines the social and musical contexts of the polonaise in mid-eighteenth-century Dresden, including the repertoire of the annual Redouten (masked balls), then examines the polonaises and mazurkas of Roellig and his contemporaries, including Johann Georg Knechtel, Georg Gebel and Gottlob Harrer. A survey of the use of the polonaise in Redoutentänze, symphonies and partitas reveals significant differences in style and structure between these genres.

The Importance of the Collection of Oskar Kolberg for Contemporary Choreological Studies

Abstract The mainstream fields of Polish dance research were defined in 1818–1847 by Józef Elsner, Kazimierz Brodziński, Łukasz Gołębiowski and Karol Czerniawski, who broadly characterized some elements of the dances considered as national (the polonaise, mazur, krakowiak and kozak). Oskar Kolberg knew very well the works of all these authors and referred to them many times. However, he was unique in his extensive documentation of dance melodies, information about their geographic origin, and local terminology. He also characterized the dances with regard to their sequence in the traditional context and described the dance technique in an instructive manner. Oskar Kolberg’s documentation for quite a long time remained outside the scope of mainstream research and publications about dance in Poland. In the 1930s Polish representatives of the newly defined field of ethnochoreology were the first to include examples from Kolberg in their works on the ritual dances, regional dances and characteristic dance behaviour types and forms. Kolberg’s works increased in popularity after the World War II. Today the materials left by Oskar Kolberg allow us to establish to a large extent the geographic range and perspective on the changes of dance repertoire, both with regard to choreographic technique and dance types, or a more detailed and critical perspective on the problems of folk terminology in dance phenomena. It may also serve as the point of departure for wider retrospective or comparative studies – which may not be very fashionable today, but which have never been adequately conducted in Poland.

Between Body and Spirit: An Interview with Leszek Bzdyl

Barbara Świąder interviews Leszek Bzdyl, the artistic director of Dada von Bzdülöw Theatre, a dance theatre company that operates on the borderline of artforms. Bzdyl describes his evolution as a dancer, how he started the company with Katarzyna Chmielewska, how Dada’s plays are developed, and his artistic influences, including Jerzy Grotowski. He also assesses the contemporary Polish dance and alternative theatre scenes.

The Polish Dance in Scandinavia and PolandSpiritual Folk Singing: Nordic and Baltic Protestant Traditions

The Polish Dance in Scandinavia and PolandSpiritual Folk Singing: Nordic and Baltic Protestant Traditions

Subversion and the Dancing Body: Autonomy on Display

Pe rf o rman c e Re s e a r c h 8 ( 2 ) , p p . 6 1 – 6 8 © Tay l o r & F ra n c i s L td 2 0 03 61 The ideas behind this essay sparked my mind some time ago, after seeing a performance by Conrad Drzewiecki, the doyen of Polish dance, at the International Contemporary Dance Conference and Performance Festival in Bytom in 1998. It was his work Waiting for that struck me. Despite not being featured in the official programme and somewhat bashfully presented by the organizers themselves, Waiting for turned out to be one of the highlights of the festival – not due to the relief of chancing upon something ‘contemporary’. It had nothing to do with the laborious search by ‘western’ producers for ‘different’ performances which could be successfully presented in the stage market, fitting the ‘acquired taste’ of dance audiences. Nor was it a result of paternalistic approval, in the sense of ‘well done, but we have seen this already’, which whilst of course is no guarantee to sell, is at least a polite and respectful way of admitting someone’s quality. Drzewiecki’s performance – a short solo by a dancer wearing a rich gold costume, whose movement and gestures were bent on decorating his body – clearly evoked the Central European dance of the 1930s. Nonetheless, Drzewiecki’s ‘past’ was not that of historical tradition, now only vaguely present as a recognition of the former dance articulation that remains in western scholarly knowledge and its categorizing of dance history; nor was it a past reflecting the impossibility of development – the still innocent state of the dancing body, which, because of its specific historical situation, could not become aware of all the contradictions and aesthetic deconstructions of its ‘bodiescapes’. It was somewhere in-between: a utilization of the past to stay in the present. It revealed our eternal confrontation with different ways of being present, a basic need for dystopian time. For me, the manner in which the performance disclosed our disillusioned idea of the exclusiveness of the present – of the exclusive and hegemonic ways of forming our present presence, which are often inscribed in the articulated modes of the dancing body – was most surprising. All in all, what was this ‘waiting for’? It was a display of pure autonomy: of a deep belief in the autonomy of the body, of an autonomy which was not out of time, an articulation of the past, but about time. Its content had been discreetly embroidered already in its title: fixation and openness, distance and closeness, decoration and subversion, all at the same time. It opened the possibility of disclosing a variety of simultaneous histories.

Reconstructing la cracovienne

Tlhe great popularity in the nineteenth century of short dances on national themes was spurred by the phenomenal success of Fanny Elssler's La Cachucha, first performed in Coralli's Le Diable bofteux in 1836, but frequently danced alone by Elssler and her many imitators. To capitalize on this great success, a similar character pas was introduced for Elssler in Mazilier's La Gipsy, produced at the Paris Opera on January 28, 1839.* This was La Cracovienne. Although the ballet is set in Scotland, this traditional Polish dance was performed in full Polish costume. Its fame soon grew to rival the Cachucha, and it, too, was imitated by dancers throughout Europe and the United States. By the end of the nineteenth century, however, these short dances had gone out of fashion and their choreography was forgotten. Fortunately, the Cachucha was preserved by Albert Zorn in his own notation and has recently been re-created by Ann Hutchinson Guest' and by Pierre Lacotte. Recently, while making a catalogue of the Bournonville papers in the Royal Library in Copenhagen, I found a hitherto unknown score containing La Cracovienne with a number of

GOUNOD AND ALFRED WILLIAM PHILLIPS

A LFRED WILLIAM PHILLIPS (1844-1936), a self-taught, selfmade musician, established the music-publishing firm of Phillips & Page in London in 1883.1 The following year he decided to see whether he could get Charles Gounod to write sacred songs for his firm. When he sailed for France he traveled as a plain staid citizen named Alfred William Phillips but he was, no doubt, well fortified by a consciousness of persuasive powers accruing to him by reason of the multiple noms de plume which he applied in the publication of his own musical compositions: lyrics under the name of Rosa Carlyle, pianoforte solos as Sarakowski and Czynski (Alexandra, queen-to-be, was especially fond of Czynski's Polish Dances), dance music as Juan Gomez, scholastic music and arrangements of the Great Masters as Andr6 Baptiste, and songs as Leigh Kingsmill, Allen Dene, and Jules Taubert. Unconsciously, he did Her Majesty's Government a great service-that of restoring Charles Gounod's shattered confidence in an England to which he had retreated with his family in 1871 for intermittent refuge from the Franco-Prussian threat, and from which he had conclusively fled in 1874 with stinging resentment against pirating publishers supplemented by painful embarrassment resulting from the widely publicized machinations of a certain Mrs. Georgina Weldon whose promotional ardor had taken