MUSIC CONTEXT IN THE CULTURE HISTORY OF RURAL POLAND

In most of rural Poland, music context is among the culture elements that have been nearly totally transformed in recent decades. The large degree of difference between past and present music context calls into question some of the claims of cultural continuity that are commonly made by national culture managers in that part of the world. One such claim is that under state patronage the national “folk music” that has been organized for wide appeal and consumption is a music that derives, or continues intact, from a distant past. Although the concept “folk music” can be tied to the ideals of Volksgeist of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and to the development of national cultural norms, since 1950 or so these national norms have been managed and centrally controlled far more directly and conclusively than before, and in some cases have been drastically altered. The extent to which cultural patterns that emerge from this control are continuations of practices of long standing is difficult to measure (what “cultural yardstick” exists to make such a measurement?) but is certainly open to question.

Much of the music in the modern industrialized world is largely interchangeable from one performance context to the next. A significant degree of specificity of context is not possible where a culture element is designed or marketed to appeal in a wide variety of situations to a large number of people that are geographically broadly dispersed and of different backgrounds and habits. By contrast, in the recent past, and to some extent still today, most music in rural Poland and East Central Europe (and generally in most areas of the world where peasantry makes up a majority or significant percentage of the population) has seldom been interchangeable from one performance context to the next. On the contrary, most of this music is, or was, specific in several ways. In addition to context specificity, music among peasant populations in Poland has been specific with regard to: region, social group, and time period.

Peasant Music Specificity

Rural music practices are (or in most locales in Poland, were) region-specific to the degree that certain dominant music forms, genres, styles, ornaments, instruments, ensembles, melodic types, etc., are peculiar and unique to a given region and are not common outside of that region. Villages only a few miles apart might have nearly completely different repertories and instrumental ensembles. Secondly, many peasant music practices are specific to a given social group. For example, most ensemble music among peasants is quite different from that of other rural dwellers such as rural nobility. Peasant musicians, in most Polish dialects known as muzykanty, are first of all agriculturalists. Their farm-derived income is primary. They usually practice music as a part-time craft to obtain a supplemental income. Next, most peasant music practices are specific to a certain time period in the sense that village fashions change through time, albeit often very slowly. Many village music practices today stem from one of various earlier periods, which through time became mixed with music practices of later periods.

Three basic kinds of music practice and performance context can be said to be most common in the Polish countryside today:

1. a longstanding region-specific peasant music, derived from periods preceding peasant enfranchisement in the mid-nineteenth century, which survives only in certain regions; the performance context is primarily the peasant wedding sequence, which demands the ritual execution of specific melodies, metro-rhythmic norms, and dances;
2. a largely non-regional village music that is an adaptation of the popular and widespread idioms of the last 100-150 years in the industrialized world (e.g. waltz, polka, schottisch), including radio-derived idioms of the last several decades (e.g. two-step, tango, foxtrot as well as rock and pop); the performance context is primarily social gatherings in which music of wide dissemination is realized in a non-ritual fashion;
3. state-sponsored music ensembles that are characterized by culture control mechanisms exercised by both music professionals and non-musician specialists, often bureaucrats, and featuring non-regional music idioms of national appeal; the performance context is primarily the stage, concert hall, recording studio, or radio and T.V. broadcast.

In Poland and most of East Central Europe, the music changes over the last century have included the breakdown of music context specificity, the mixing of regional music practices, and the creation of numerous hybrid genres of music; especially as urban fashions have entered village life, and the wide dissemination of national economic and political institutions have made the rural dweller more conclusively than before a participant in broadly distributed cultural norms.

Peasant Music Context

The main music context for the small peasant ensemble in Poland until recently has been the ritual wedding sequence. This is true not only for Polish lands, but over most of East Central Europe as well, and to a certain extent among peasants everywhere in the world. Until recently, of all music performance contexts in the small community, the wesele (“wedding sequence”) was the most important, frequent and profitable for the village musician. This is not simply an exchange of religious wedding vows, but a several days long sequence of events in which the peasant music ensemble plays a pivotal role in most regions in most time periods in Poland. Also, the wedding sequence is the longest and most complex of all peasant ritual practices.

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, other music performance contexts of lesser importance were common in villages. Today, most of these situations in most regions, where they still exist, no longer feature music. These largely past music performance contexts include: baptisms/ christenings; quasi-ritualized seasonal or social gatherings such as dożynki (“harvest festival”); religious events such as the evening before Advent or Three Kings Day; social parties (today often called zabawy, but before 1939 or so most often known as potańcówki in many regions); certain labor-related contexts such as feather plucking and potato digging; and evening dances at the village inn (karczma). The repertory and other music practices that were common to these performance contexts are not well documented for the period before the 1930’s. In all probability, the repertory at some of these occasions was not context-specific (e.g. social parties, labor-related contexts, and village inn dances), while at other occasions a repertory specific to that one context dominated. For example, at gatherings celebrating religious events, the religious melodies in some locales might or might not have been accompanied by the village instrumental ensemble as the village participants sang. For the muzykanty, this was strictly an accompanying role that earned them little if any extra income, rather usually food or goods in exchange for playing.

Formerly, peasant weddings virtually everywhere in East Central Europe lasted two to seven days and were replete with some of the oldest rituals, songs, dances, and instrumental music among rural populations. Today, peasant wedding rituals and music practices in most locales are rare or even defunct, while in several exceptional regions they continue to be practiced.

In Polish lands, the decline in some regions began as early as the first decade of the nineteenth cnetury, notably in locales in Wielkopolska, what is today western Poland. In other regions, the decline began in the second half of the nineteenth century as urban fashion was increasingly adopted by ever larger numbers of villagers, as in regions near the then industrializing and growing urban centers Łódź and Warsaw. Peasant wedding practices had declined considerably in most regions by the 1920’s-30’s. Today, for the most part, only fragments of the ancient peasant ritual wedding remain in certain regions, and then often only in a few villages. In most locales, little remains of older peasant wedding practices and urban-derived practices dominate. There are regional exceptions where older peasant wedding and music practices prevail, or at least are still important in village life, usually with additions to and deletions from the nineteenth century practices; e.g. the highland region Podhale and to a certain extent Spisz and Orawa; in scattered locales in the foothills regions of the Tatra and Bieszczady mountain ranges; in scattered locales in Rzeszowskie and greater Lubelskie (including Zamojskie); in a few locales in Mazowsze and the Góry Świętokrzyski; and in several locales in greater Wielkopolska, particularly in the region Ziemia Lubuska (see map).

In the past, when the peasant wedding sequence was a vital part of village life in virtually all regions, certain of the guests at a peasant wedding assumed specific roles. These roles demanded the ritual execution of specific texts, melodies, orations, incantations, monetary payments, dances, processions, food preparations, alcohol consumption, feasting, etc. As noted by the early twentieth century Polish ethnographer and historian Jan S. Bystron:

A [peasant] wedding is something on the order of grand opera, lasting several days; the actors of that great spectacle have a specifically assigned role and in the prescribed moments [utilize musical events] that carry out the action of the ritual.

The “actors” were ritualized characters. Each character was assumed and the role was acted out in ways prescribed, at least in part, by local custom. Within this series of ritual events, the characters performed a number of duties. For example, one character danced with another at a specific point in the sequence, or a certain character sang a specific melody at another point in the sequence, or the music ensemble rendered a specific genre at a certain point in the sequence.

Among the most important of the characters were: the bridge and groom; the go-between or matchmakers; older guides to rituals and order who served as master-of-ceremonies or sergeant-at-arms; bridesmaids and groomsmen and older figures of authority from their ranks. Other villagers who figured prominently in the wedding sequence but who did not assume a specific character role included: the priest, the innkeeper, the local nobleman, and the village musicians. The priest’s role was primarily at the exchange of religious wedding vows in church. The innkeeper was important because before the 1880’s or so, much of the peasant wedding sequence in many regions was realized in the local inn. The peasant huts were often too small and too full of smoke (homes without chimneys were common then) to accommodate crowds. Up to peasant enfranchisement in the mid-nineteeth century, the nobleman was consulted by the bride’s and groom’s families and at least one wedding event took place near the manor house. Village musicians played a pivotal role in a large number of the wedding events, some of which are discussed below. Although the sequence of events in a peasant wedding is too long, complex and regionally diverse to be discussed in detail here, a few general comments help to illustrate the importance of the village muzykant and his ensemble music in many of these wedding events.

Instrumental Music in the Wedding Sequence

In certain but not all regions, a fiddle player was present at the negotiations between families for future spouses of the young adults. After the wedding agreements were made, the family members and the go-between, matchmaker or other family representatives downed a toast to the accompaniment of the fiddle player’s music. Later, approximately two weeks before the exchange of wedding vows in church, the invitations to the wesele were extended by each family to those who were to be guests. In many locales, this was done by specific wedding characters who walked through the village and at each prospective guest’s home, orally issued a ritual invitation. In some regions, an ensemble or a single musician (usually a fiddler) accompanied these rounds and realized specific melodies at each hut in turn.

On the evening before the exchange of religious wedding vows in church, in most locales there were social gatherings (wieczorniki) of family and close friends either at the village inn, or at the groom’s and/or the bride’s homes. Village musicians were usually engaged and played until late into the night, providing both dance music and accompaniment to certain wedding songs.

Throughout the twenty-four hours of the day of the exchange of religious wedding vows in church, the peasant music ensemble was vital to several events, and in some regions played almost nonstop from early morning until late at night, even through the night and into the next day. In the early morning of that day, all the groom’s guests gathered at his home, and the bride’s guests at her home. Ritual melodies were realized by the peasant instrumental ensemble, including “greeting pieces” as each guest was met in turn at the door by the ensemble playing a locally specified greeting melody, in the second half of the nineteenth century in many regions, often a march. By mid-morning, the groom and his retinue of family and guests set off for the bride’s home to the accompaniment of the instrumental ensemble. The repertory for this event was the drogowe (“on-the-road”) tunes, often heard only in this or a similar processional context. Upon arrival, a series of musical and ritual events occurred, many involving ritual texts that were, in some regions, accompanied by the ensemble, including: the parents’ blessings (błogosławieństwo), ritual banter between the leaders of the families, the blessing of the ceremonial bread and other wedding objects; also occurring at this time were more ritual greeting tunes, rendered by the ensemble in honor of each guest, one at a time. Local and regional customs varied in all of these. After food, drink and other ritual events, the entire wedding procession set off for the church. The procession could move only in a prescribed order which varied from village to village. In one village (Albigowa) in the region Rzeszowskie, the order circa 1920 was: the bride in front and flanked by two elder bridesmaids; followed by the groom who was flanked by two elder groomsmen; followed by the peasant music ensemble; followed by the parents of both families; followed by other important wedding characters; followed by the wedding guests.

The trip back from the church after the religious wedding ceremony usually was in the same order. The destination of the procession at this point in the ritual sequence varied greatly by region and time period. In some cases the procession went back to the bride’s home, in other cases to the village inn, or in still others to the nobleman’s manor. In each scene, regional music and dance as well as feasting and drinking were featured. In the late nineteenth century in some locales, as part of the effort by members of the clergy to encourage sobriety among the local population, the procession went from the church to the priest’s residence, where no drinking was allowed, and where the celebrations took place in the priest’s yard, including music and dancing.

From this point in the sequence of wedding events, the specifics become even more regionally diverse and therefore difficult to discuss without detailed reference to the enormous body of ethnographic study in several Central and East European languages. In brief it can be said that the new couple was honored in various ways, including through ritual dance and music. Some of the dance and music genres were known only locally, others were regionally dispersed. Still others were known over a wide area, much of Central and Eastern Europe, or even continentally.

The wedding feast was an afternoon event that took place on the day of religious wedding vows. In some regions it included ritually prescribed melodies and/or dances that were realized by specified wedding characters only during this event and at no other time. Later that day, usually around midnight, the bride’s new status as a married woman was finalized by one of the oldest extant rituals in Europe, the “cap ceremony” (oczepiny). At this time, a series of ritual songs were sung while ritual skits were acted out by prescribed characters such as certain of the bridesmaids, elder figures of authority, the bride’s mother, or the matchmaker. The bride’s hair was cut or put up under a cap or scarf as songs were rendered. Before the 1930’s or so, this ceremony in most locales took three or more hours to realize. In some villages, the instrumental ensemble accompanied the songs and ritual dances, while in other villages the ensemble used this time to rest. Some of the music heard at this time was specific to this one event.

After the cap ceremony, social dancing continued throughout the night and into the day, and even into the next night, virtually nonstop, with the peasant music ensemble playing most of the time. Many of the social dance genres heard in this long event had names that were widely known (in the nineteenth century), but had specific music practices and dance steps and movements that were known only locally or regionally; for example the mazurek weselny in the region Rawskie Mazowsze carries a widely distributed name (“wedding mazur”), but consists of music practices such as melodies, ornaments and metro-rhythmic characteristics as well as dance movements that are common in only a few villages in this region. Much the same can be said for the genre chłop in the Góry Świętokrzyskie; prosty in the region Zamojskie; podrużniok in parts of Lubelskie; czardasz in the highland region Orawa (different than the czardas of Hungarian and international fame). Most of these local/regional music and dance genres were realized only during the peasant wedding sequence. Some social dances were preceded by locally or regionally known ritual dances that served as introductions to long periods of social dancing. These ritual dances included: the okółka in Jasielskie, and the krakowiak weselny (different than the krakowiak of wide dispersal), otherwise known as z góry z góry, in the foothills of Sądeckie and neighboring regions.

In the next days, other events occurred, such as the przenosiny, the moving of the bride and her belongings from her natal home to the groom’s and her future home, accompanied in many regions by the peasant music ensemble playing the drogowe (“on-the-road”) repertory discussed earlier. A week or so later, other events might or might not take place, depending on the locale and region. These included: the poprawiny and/or the dziękowiny, both usually involving only family and close friends, and in some locales featuring the young people of the wedding families serving the needs and waiting on the older people. Usually, the local instrumental ensemble played during these events. The repertory at this point varied widely by region, in some cases consisting largely of social dance genres that were not specific to the wedding context. 

Not only was the peasant instrumental ensemble’s participation in the wedding sequence a vital part of that series of rituals, much of the music repertory carried by the muzykanty was possible to hear only in the wedding context, and for many genres then only in the prescribed sequence. This repertory represented not only the bulk of the peasant musician’s total playing time, but also the bulk of his total repertory.

Summarizing the instrumental ensemble’s performance context, the ensemble served several roles in various points in the wedding sequence. The ensemble was an accompanying agent to the realization of ritual song texts. These were many in various points in the sequence, among others: the pre-nuptial agreements between families and betrothal celebrations, the parents’ blessings, the presentation of the ceremonial bread, the wedding feast, and the cap ceremony. The ensemble could serve as a ritual greeting agent in several events, including the times when guests arrived at the wedding home. The ensemble could assist in the extension of orally issued invitations to the wedding. It was often a necessary part of outdoor processions that moved between stationary scenes, such as accompanying guests of one or the other families to the wedding home or other scenes, the full wedding procession moving to and from the church as well as to and from other scenes such as the village inn, the nobleman’s residence (before enfranchisement), the priest’s home, przenosiny (moving the bride and her dowry), and others. The repertory in these processions included ritual melodies, marches and short melodies both played and sung.

Finally, the ensemble provided the instrumental music for the regional dances. These included the ritual dances that occurred at specific points in the sequence (e.g. the wedding feast, oczepiny, the introductions to the social dances), as well as the region-specific social dance music that was the mainstay of the peasant musician’s regional repertory.

Current Village Music Contexts

In Poland today, most of the events in the ritual peasant wedding sequence and most of the music that was once associated with it no longer exist in most but not all locales. As urban wedding practices were increasingly adopted by village populations from approximately 1870 to 1939, ever more aspects of the peasant wedding passed from practice. For the most part, the individual melodies and rituals proved not to be adaptable. They were too complex, too long, and required for successful realization a degree of knowledge that could only be acquired in situ, during the peasant wedding sequence itself. The less the sequence and the wedding music were realized, the more they declined.

The context-specific nature of music that was formerly common in the peasant society of Poland is not common in today’s post-peasant world (with notable regional exceptions). Few of the peasant-derived rituals are still commonly practiced and then usually only in a fragmentary fashion (again with regional exceptions). The demise of the wedding sequence has usually meant the demise of music contexts, which has meant the decline of many music genres that were irretrievably associated with specific wedding practices.

The matchmaker character virtually no longer exists in most locales. The prospective groom makes his own proposal; no music is heard at the time of the proposal, nor at the announcement of the betrothal. Guests are invited by sending invitations through the mail; again, no musicians are needed. On the eve of the exchange of religious vows in church, there is usually no celebration; no music. The morning of the vow taking ceremony, the guests still gather at the bride’s house, but there are usually no ritual greetings from a music ensemble nor are there ceremonial entrances of any kind; no instrumental ensemble is needed. The journey to and from the church is usually by taxi instead of on foot or by wagon in procession; there is no occasion for music. The social dancing that takes place on this day can still be part of an all-night celebration, and usually will include an instrumental ensemble. However, the music is usually radio-derived and mass/popular fare. Rarely are the older peasant muzykanty, where they still live, asked to play for any event in a wedding. There are no ritual dances in most locales, and the old region-specific social dance music of peasant society is all but defunct except in certain regions. The cap ceremony is no longer celebrated in detail. One of the few surviving practices from this ritual is the collection from guests and relatives of gifts and money. However, few or no ritual songs are rendered, and there is no reason for the presence of an instrumental ensemble.

Today, the peasant musician’s participation in wedding celebrations and his former role as an important village figure are nearly forgotten in most locales. Many villagers prefer the mass-consumed music from Western Europe and North America, the rock and popular music genres that are heard on radio and T.V., and that include ensembles of electric guitars, electric keyboards, drum sets, etc. Such ensembles, primarily consisting of younger generation musicians, are common in many locales. Where this kind of ensemble is not available for a wedding gathering, most typically the common ensemble from the 1930’s-40’s is hired, i.e. saxophones, accordion, a small drum set, a fiddle, and a wind instrument such as clarinet and/or trumpet. At most weddings, an instrumental ensemble is heard virtually only during the social dancing that follows the exchange of wedding vows, which is the same practice as in most of the industrialized world. Although the elderly peasant-born muzykant still lives in many locales, he is only rarely asked to play at a wedding. His repertory and music practices carry little meaning for most villagers today, except as reminders of what is considered to be old-fashioned. In the regional exceptions noted earlier where older peasant wedding and music practices continue unabated, the muzykanty remain active and vital participants in the realization of the wedding sequence. Yet another music context exists as well. It is found in all regions, and is funded or in some cases even supervised by agencies of the state.

National Music Practice

The majority of people in Poland today hear what is regarded as rural or “folk music” on radio or T.V. or on a stage, intended for a national audience. This national music vision is, for Poland, a new twist to music practices that were until recently rural, regional, and not national. It is a radically different performance context than any which has existed in the past. For example, although composers as early as the eighteenth century were drawing upon peasant music for their operas, ballets, and other music compositions, this was an urban music, intended for an urban elite population and to evoke a rural setting. It was certainly not intended for distribution among the rural population itself. The peasantry had its own regional music practices, in fact the very ones that the urban literate composers were trying to evoke. This urban notated music was therefore intended for only a selected, small percentage of the population. 

The program advanced by today’s cultural managers is quite different. They have organized numerous kinds of instrumental ensembles, most of which aim at an audience of both urban and rural dwellers. The performance contexts that are utilized in this effort call into question the extent to which this national vision of music is derived from longstanding practices.

A rural music that supposedly has existed in saecula saeculorum, derived from an assumed national origin, and consciously directed ad populum, literally to the entire citizenry of a nation through specific state or national institutions, represents a completely different music context from those of the past.

There are numerous differences between the peasant music contexts as described earlier and those of the large national state-sponsored ensembles. The main peasant music context is the ritual wedding sequence; the peasant ensembles are small, usually two or three or at most five or six musicians; the instrumentation as well as most aspects of repertory are specific to a given region or even to a single locale; the musicians are not professionals, but farmers who play music as a craft to supplement their agriculturally derived income; the music is learned from a relative or a neighbor. By contrast, the main state-sponsored ensemble music context is the stage or the electronic media; the ensemble is large, up to fifty musicians and dancers; the repertory is not regional, but consists of stylized, notated arrangements that are intended for a national audience; often this music is performed by folk music specialists, professionals who are trained in state institutions to proffer a national vision of a music product.

Participation in a peasant wedding sequence is limited to the regional exceptions noted earlier. For the mass-media events that take place in national music contexts, whatever formerly regional peasant music practices are heard, are regarded as vehicles for entertainment. In other words, the performance context of this music for most people today is divorced from its context of origin. The meaning of the music has changed in kind: from a local practice with intimate relationships between all participants who are realizing musical rituals, to a national practice with anonymous performers who entertain a mass audience that knows nothing or little about the contexts of which rural music was formerly a part.

Much of the regional peasant instrumental music practice is not suitable to the mass consumerism of the state folk music ensembles. As early as 1950, the noted Polish ethnomusicologist Adolf Chybiński noted that many of the melodies that had been heard in the peasant music context, i.e. in the wedding sequence, were not a part of the practices of the state-sponsored ensembles. This is because the peasant melodies sound flat, static and stale on stage when their context-specificity is removed or ignored.

They derive much of their aesthetic power from minute variations of short melodies, instantly recognizable to a local rural population, but only barely comprehensible (if at all) to a non-local group. Generally speaking, such regional music practices have not been incorporated into the repertories of most of the stylized state music ensembles (zespoły opracowane). Because they have thus been excluded, they have not been presented to many in the next generations. The repertory chosen for this has most often been all that is flashy, virtuosic, shallow, and technically impressive, with the greatest audience appeal; a whole cornucopia of “people’s kitsch”. A virtually identical phenomenon has occurred in all of the centralized socialist states of East Central and Southeastern Europe.

The concept and practice of culture control by a small number of urban-trained professionals is not, of course, a product only of the centralized socialist state. Urbanization and industrialization worldwide tend to concentrate culture controls of various kinds into the hands of urban specialists and professionals. Nevertheless, the specifics of that control are probably best understood when, among other things, they are compared to that which preceded them in a given part of the world. In this sense, music context in rural Poland is one element of culture history in that part of Europe and as such, highlights some of the basic differences in musical and cultural visions of the past and the present.

NOTES

1. In addition to the sources cited, this article is based on data collected in fieldwork that the author conducted in Poland from 1980 to 1983, including interviews with over 100 elderly village musicians in several regions. This research was funded in part by a grant from the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research.
2. The promotion of national folk music is a large industry in all European centralized socialist states, employing a wide variety of participants. Such promotion is highly organized, among others, into unions and various institutions that are controlled by state culture managers and bureaucrats. These participants include music arrangers and even composers, dancers and choreographers, instrumentalists and vocalists, and recording and broadcasting technicians. Institutionalized participation in national folk music is discussed from various perspectives in: Józef Burszta, “Kultura chłopska-ludowa a kultura narodowa” in Etnografia Polski. Premiany kultury ludowei, vol. 2 (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1981), pp. 391-415; Aleksander Jackowski, “Folk Art — Relic or Living Value?” in Polish Art Studies no. 1, ed. Stanisław Mossakowski (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolińskich, 1979), pp. 161-177; Bogusław Linette, “Sytuacja folkloru. Folklor muzyezny,” in Analiza sytuacji sztuki ludowej i folkloru (Warszawa: Ministerstwo Kultury, 1979), pp. 128-39; Felix Oinas, “The Political Uses and Themes of Folklore in the Soviet Union” Journal of the Folklore Institute, vol. XI (1975), pp. 157-175; Irena Ostrowska, “Od form regionalnych do tańców towarzyskich” in Różne formy tańców polskich, ed. Irena Ostrowska (Warszawa: Centralny Ośrodek Metodyki Upowszechniania Kultury, 1980), pp. 3-166.
3. A large ethnographic and ethnomusicological literature, written over the last 200 years, details the extreme regionalism of various music practices as well as of other culture elements among peasant populations in East Central Europe. Comparative regional studies that utilize the literature in its several languages and that encompass wide geographic areas having nothing in common with the political boundaries of the twentieth century are few in number. In the Polish language, the literature dealing with rural music regionalism includes, among many others, monographs and compilations by: Ludwik Bielawski, Aleksandra Bogucka, Jan Bystroń, Adolf Chybiński, Anna Czekanowska, Jan Dekowski, Adam Fischer, Zygmunt Gloger, Roman Harasymczuk, Włodzimierz Kamiński, Oskar Kolberg, Włodzimierz Kotoński, Franciszek Kotula, Bogusław Linette, Jarosław Lisakowski, Kazimierz Moszyński, Roman Reinfuss, Jadwiga Sobieska, Marian Sobieski, Jan Stęszewski.
4. Certainly, in the past, and even today most muzykanty are farmers or part-time farmers; see Franciszek Kotula, Muzykanty (Warszawa: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1979).
5. The introduction of a new style or genre of music in a village did not usually mean a wholesale overhaul of the repertory. On the contrary, when a new style was adopted into a given musician’s repertory, it was integrated into some, but not all, of the performance contexts. In this way, over time, the peasant musician’s total repertory became a conglomeration of styles and genres from different historical periods. In much of the ethnographic and ethnomusicological literature from Central and Eastern Europe, this period specificity is discussed as a series of “layers” or “strata” of historical music styles, genres, and various practices. For an early discussion of this concept in Hungary see Bela Bartok, Hungarian Folk Music (London: Oxford University Press, 1931). For accounts in Poland see Jan Stęszewski, “Muzyka ludowa,” in Etnografia Polski. Przemiany kultury ludowej, vol. 2 (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinskich, 1981), pp. 245-284; also Grażyna Dąbrowska, W kręgu polskich tańców ludowych (Toruń: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1979). For discussions of this concept in Ukraine and Slovakia see Filaret Kolessa, “Charakterystyka ukraińska muzyki ludowej” Lud Słowiański no. 3/B (1934), pp. 34-44; Oskar Elschek, “Stratigraphische Probleme der Volksmusik in den Karpaten und auf dem Balkan,” in ed. Alica Elscheková, Stratigraphische Probleme der Volkmusik in den Karpaten und auf dem Balkan (Bratislava: Veda, 1981), pp. 15-31.
6. Joseph Obrebski. The Changing Peasantry of Eastern Europe (Cambridge, MA.: Schenkman Publishing Company, Inc., 1976), p. 29.
7. Most accounts of weddings in Central and Eastern Europe from scholars in that part of the world are specific as to region and/or social group and/or time period and/or context. Most of the few published accounts in Western European languages are the opposite: general, abstract, theoretical and devoid of an effort to show the extreme regional variation in historical village wedding practices, e.g. Sula Benet, Song, Dance, and Customs of Peasant Poland (New York: Roy Publishers, 1951).
8. One other context-specific repertory which the peasant ensemble, or a single fiddle player, sometimes accompanied in some locales was the szopki, mannered dances and skits that were realized by characters (usually youth) dressed in costume: bear, soldier, judge, old man, old woman, husar, Gypsy, Jew, nobleman, burgher, beggar, witch, etc. This custom may have originated in the so-called Herody of the late Middle Ages. Although they formerly may have been realized during the Christmas season, by the nineteenth century in many locales, szopki were realized during a wedding, with a specific set of melodies that were not commonly heard outside of that performance context. In some regions the village instrumental ensemble accompanied these songs, while in other regions this time was used by the muzykanty to rest, and the songs were rendered a capella, that is, with vocal music only, and no instruments.
9. Stanisław Olędzki, Polskie instrumenty ludowe (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1978), p. 10.
10. Bogusław Linette, “Folklor muzyczny w tradycjach Grodziska Dolnego z rzeszowskiego,” in ed. Zbigniew Jasiewicz, Tradycja i przemiana (Poznań: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Uniwersytetu im. Adama Mickiewicza w Poznaniu, 1978), p. 180.
11. Jan S. Bystroń, Dzieje obyczajów w dawnej Polsce, wiek XVI-XVII, vol. 1 (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1960), p. 80.
12. These and other wedding characters are discussed in regional contexts in: Oskar Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne et al., from 1961) (volumes 1-56, see especially): vol. 16, Lubelskie, pp. 34-35, p. 184; vol. 22, Łęczyckie, p. 72; vol. 23, Kaliskie, p. 127; vol. 33, Chełmskie, p. 213; Aleksander Oleszczuk, Ludowe obrzędy weselne na Podlasiu (Archiwum Etnograficzne 1) (Lublin-Łódź: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze, 1951), p. 46; Ksiądz Władysław Sarna, “Obrzędy weselne w Jaszczwi,” Lud, no. 2/3 (1896), p. 237; Walenty Gawron, “Wesele Lachów limanowskich,” Materiały etnograficzne z powiatu limanowskiego, zeszyt 2 (Archiwum Etnograficzne 30) (Wrocław: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze, 1971), pp. 80-81; Jan Piotr Dekowski, “Zwyczaje weselne w powiecie opoczyńskiem,” Prace i Materiały Etnograficzne, no. 7 (1948/49), p. 259; Antoni Siewiński, “Opis wesela w Liskach,” Lud, no. 10 (1904), pp. 60-63.
13. Gawron, “Wesele Lachów limanowskich,” p. 83; Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 35, Przemyskie, p. 210.
14. Siewiński, “Opis wesela,” p. 73; Jan Slomka, From Serfdom to Self-Government. Memoirs of a Polish Village Mayor 1842-1927 (London: Minerva Publishing, 1941), p. 94.
15. Bohdan Baranowski, Życie codzienne wsi między Wartą a Pilicą w XIX wieku (Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1969), p. 133; Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 29 Pokucie, p. 245; vol. 39, Pomorze, p. 103; vol. 49, Sanockie-Krośnieńskie, p. 401 and pp. 484-485.
16. Muzykanty as a wedding figure are discussed in: Jan Piotr Dekowski and Zbigniew Hauke, Folklor ziemiłęczyckiej (Warszawa: Centralny Ośrodek Metodyki Upowszechniania Kultury, 1981), pp. 191-192; Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 54, Ruś Karpacka, p. 310; Kotula, Muzykanty, pp. 35-36, pp. 42-45, p. 55, p. 225, p. 282; Slomka, From Serfdom to Self-Government, pp. 180-183.
17. Gawron, “Wesele Lachów limanowskich,” p. 80; Edmund Kołodziejski, “Zwyczaje, obrządki, zagadki i pieśni ludu kaliskiego w okolicach Wielunia,” Lud, vol. 15 (1909), P. 93; Kazimierz Moszyński, Materiały etnograficzne ze wschodniej części b. powiatu mozyrskiego oraz a powiatu rzeczykiego (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Kasy im. Mianowskiego, 1928), p. 182.
18. Bohdan Baranowski, Kultura ludowa XVII i XVIII wieku na ziemiach Polski środkowej (Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódźkie, 1971), p. 329; Kotula, Muzykanty, p. 286; Józef Ryś, Wesele łąckie (Rzeszów: Muzeum Okręgowe w Rzeszowie, 1972), p. 13 and pp. 46-49.
19. Baranowski, Życie codzienne wsi między Wartą a Pilicą, p. 134; Linette, “Folklor muzyczny,” p. 180.
20. Linette, ibid., p. 180; Kotula, Muzykanty, p. 287; Dekowski, “Wesele Lachów limanowskich,” p. 226.
21. Sarna, “Obrzędy weselne w Jaszczwi,” p. 238.
22. Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 56, Ruś Czerwona I, pp. 281-282; Kotula, Muzykanty, p. 287; Grażyna Dąbrowska, Folklor Mazowsza. Mazowsze nad Świdrem, vol. 1 (Warszawa: Centralny Ośrodek Metodyki Upowszechniania Kultury, 1980), p. 47.
23. Based on information given to the author by muzykanty in the villages Albigowa and Handzlówka, region Rzeszowskie.
24. Stanisław Bąk, “Zmiany na wsi lasowskiej w ciągu ostatniego półwiecza,” Lud, vol. 57 (1973), pp. 192; Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 35, Przemyskie, p. 210; village musicians from the regions Radomskie, Jasielskie, and Rzeszowskie.
25. Music and dance genres of narrow, that is, regional distribution generally date from periods preceding peasant enfranchisement in the nineteenth century. Genres of wider distribution, i.e. those known in several or many regions, or those known even internationally, generally date from the nineteenth or twentieth centuries. One excep to this is the group of “narrow-range melodies” that likely date from about 1,200 or more years ago, and that are found in a few locales still today in several regions over a very wide area of Central and Eastern Europe, including: eastern and southeastern Poland (e.g. the regions Lubelskie and Rzeszowskie) as well as Podlasie; also Polesie and parts of Ukraine, parts of Byelorussia, Russia proper, Banat in Romania, and regions in Yugoslavia; see Anna Czekanowska, Ludowe melodie wąskiego zakresu w krajach słowiańskich (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1972), pp. 144-160.
26. Grażyna Dąbrowska, Taniec ludowy na Mazowszu (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1980), p. 54; Dekowski, “Zwyczaje weselne w powiecie opoczyńskiem,” p. 259; Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 22; Łęczyckie, p. 69; vol. 27, Mazowsze, pp. 159-161; Wiktor Schramm, Ludowe obrzędy weselne na wsiach Doliny Hoczewki i Tarnawki ziemi Sanockiej (Archiwum Etnograficzne 17) (Wrocław: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze, 1958), pp. 69-72.
27. Gawron, “Wesele Lachów limanowskich,” p. 88; Dekowski, “Zwyczaje weselne w powiecie opoczyńskiem,” pp. 259-285; Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 22, Łęczyckie, p. 72; Sarna, “Obrzędy weselne w Jaszczwi,” pp. 245-250.
28. Kolberg, Dzieła wszystkie, vol. 27, Mazowsze, pp. 158-165; vol. 52, Białoruś-Polesie, pp. 137-147; information from village musicians in the regions Jasielskie, Sądeckie, and Zagórze.
29. Dekowski, “Zwyczaje weselne w powiecie opoczyńskiem,” p. 285.
30. Sarna, “Obrzędy weselne w Jaszczwi,” p. 251; Siewiński, “Opis wesela w Liskach,” p. 73; information from musicians in the region Rzeszowskie.
31. Based on both the author’s fieldwork and an extensive study carried out in the 1960’s by Feliks Olesiejuk, Obrzędy weselne w lubelskiem (Archiwum Etnograficzne 31) (Wrocław: Polskie Towarzystwo Ludoznawcze, 1971).
32. Olesiejuk, ibid., pp. 142-143.
33. This attempt to evoke a rural scene by using stylized settings of music supposedly drawn from village practice was a common feature in most of urban and aristocratic Europe in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In Poland, among the best known of the practitioners of this cultural/musical stylization of the late 1700’s and early 1800’s can be included: Michał Kleofas Ogiński (especially his polonez, mazur, march, and dance compositions for keyboard); Józef Ksawery Elsner (especially his songs and operas); Karol Kazimierz Kurpiński (especially his operas, ballets, and various orchestral dance compositions); Fryderyk Franciszek Chopin (mazur, polonez, etc. compositions for keyboard); and Stanisław Moniuszko (especially his songs and operas).
34. Adolf Chybiński, Od Tatr do Bałtyku (Śpiewnik krajoznawczy) (Kraków: Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, 1950), p. 10.
35. Most of the zespoły opracowane are highly stylized, include a large number of participants (between twenty and fifty), and are expensive to maintain. Consequently, only fairly large organizations or institutions can afford to fund them. However, there are also smaller ensembles that are funded by local institutions, such as the provincial government, a local enterprise such as a shoe factory, or the local community center, the dom kultury (literally “house of culture”). Some of these smaller ensembles include participation by older muzykanty, many of whom have only these ensembles in which to play music, for no other exists in the village. These ensembles vary greatly as to degree of authenticity as well as their level and kind of funding. The best of them retain the older peasant practices at least in part, and have a regional or even local appeal and following. Invariably, however, these are not as well funded as ensembles with a wider appeal; i.e. those which utilize the national styles and genres as developed by the folk music professionals and specialists of the last few decades, and which are heard primarily in the national performance contexts of the concert stage and the electronic media; see William Noll, Peasant Music Ensembles in Poland: A Culture History (Ph.D. dissertation, University of Washington, 1986), pp. 663-682.