Deconstructing the Myth of Polishness in Music

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The article discusses the notion of Polish music, the possibilities of defining that notion, establishing its scope and listing specific problems related to it. For about 150 years, writers on Polish music have expressed the conviction that it has its own distinctive stylistic and expressive character. Studies concerning the specific qualities of Polish national style after WWII have naturally linked up to Polish music history, mainly that of the 19th century. The new political and cultural situation in Poland after 1989 calls, however, for a change of perspective. We must take into account the present-day cultural situation, in which boundaries are blurred, while supra-national structures and global thinking are beginning to dominate.The paper attempts to define Polish music as a notion in contemporary discourse on history, to examine the resonance of that category, and to point to artistic phenomena which this notion may be said to describe. I will list and analyse the criteria that have been used to define that notion. Though the problem concerns the history of Polish music at large, the cognitive situation is particularly complex and ambivalent with reference to the 19th century. I will discuss the most common ways of defining the criterion of Polishness in music, namely: the origins and nationality of the composers; their place of activity; references to Polish music traditions, and the expressive qualities of the music itself. In the conclusion, I will present my thesis concerning the possibility of defining Polish music.</abstract>

The Concept of Polish Music: In Search of Adequate Criteria

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">Folklorism is presented as a component of culture change. The aim of the article is to show how ethno- and musicologists, folklorists, music teachers, broadcasters, and others, have influenced traditional peasant culture in times of fundamental transformation during the 20th century, and how they have contributed to its documentation, understanding and invention of new meanings, including the Polishness of folklore in Poland. This review aims to exemplify this process. Each European country has its own history in this respect. The text consists of three parts. In the first one, folklore is confronted with social history; the second one is dedicated to generations of ethnomusicologists; the third one is dedicated to contemporary functions of music traditions and the role of ethnomusicologists, with emphasis on applied ethnomusicology. The comments on applied ethnomusicology summarise the author’s experiences acquired during field research in Poland since 1975 and attempt to demonstrate how the past (of traditional culture and music, including re/invented national values) is being transformed in the present or, rather, how history fuses with the present time.</abstract>

Folklorism as an Invention of the State. Contributions of Polish Ethnomusicologists in Historical Perspective

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">The present paper concerns the concept of ‘the Polish School of Composition’, well established in writings on music composed in the 2nd half of the 20th century, but still resisting attempts to define it clearly. I sum up the ways authors have talked about the Polish School of Composition to date, both from the internal (Polish) and external (foreign) points of view. I also examine the musical <italic>differentia specifica</italic> (such as aspects of style, composition technique and expression in works associated with this phenomenon) and the extramusical (mostly social and political) contexts which have determined the evolving approaches to the phenomenon in question. I begin with the origin of the term itself and discuss its subsequent interpretations until the present. From this perspective, the Polish School of Composition appears to be a kind of mythic narrative, a proposed way of ordering and understanding the past realities, transcending the categories of truth and falsehood, and working primarily in the sphere of emotions.</abstract>

The Polish School of Composition in 20th-Century Music – A Recapitulation

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">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.</abstract>

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

<abstract xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">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 <italic>chłopomania</italic>, 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.</abstract>

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

Edvard Grieg’s “Lost” Concert

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Volume 19 (2022): Issue 1 (December 2022)

Volume 18 (2021): Issue 1 (December 2021) Pasticcio. Ways of arranging attractive operas

Volume 17 (2020): Issue 1 (December 2020)

Volume 16 (2019): Issue 1 (December 2019) Women-Composers in Poland

Volume 15 (2018): Issue 1 (December 2018) Deconstructing the Myth of Polishness in Music

Volume 14 (2017): Issue 1 (December 2017) ‘Warsaw Autumn’ International Festival of Contemporary Music

Volume 13 (2016): Issue 1 (December 2016) [Polish] Musicology Today

Volume 12 (2015): Issue 1 (December 2015) The Musical Languages of Contemporary Polish Composers: Self-Reflections

Volume 11 (2014): Issue 1 (December 2014) Oskar Kolberg

Volume 10 (2013): Issue 1 (December 2013) Musical Historiography in Poland. New Sources – New Methodologies

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Volume 15 (2018): Issue 1 (December 2018) - Deconstructing the Myth of Polishness in Music

Musicology Today

Volume 15 (2018): Issue 1 (December 2018)

Deconstructing the Myth of Polishness in Music

Deconstructing the Myth of Polishness in Music

The Concept of Polish Music: In Search of Adequate Criteria

Folklorism as an Invention of the State. Contributions of Polish Ethnomusicologists in Historical Perspective

The Polish School of Composition in 20th-Century Music – A Recapitulation

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

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

Edvard Grieg’s “Lost” Concert

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