Nationalizing the Kujawiak and Constructions of Nostalgia in Chopin's Mazurkas (original) (raw)
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Analysis of Chopin's mazurkas and its influence on Polish cultural nationalism
2014
professor of music theory and composition, who mentored me as my knowledge of music history and piano performance increased over the years. Dr. Carter was the first teacher that recognized my desire to pursue an academic career in ethnomusicology. I greatly appreciate the confidence Dr. Carter extended to me and hope that our friendship will continue to be an important part of my future academic career. I wish to thank the following individuals for their help and friendship: Leon Fleisher, Nikolaus Schimmel, Leon Neto, and Orlando Irizarry. I also wish to sincerely thank my uncle, Wilfredo Cintron, who gave me my first piano lesson at the age of six and mentored me when my knowledge of music was still at an infancy stage. His passing in 2012 was hard, and I will forever miss him. My deepest gratitude goes to my family: To my father, for his strong belief in musical education, and most important of all, for the unconditional love and support of my wife, Marilyn. Her patience and determination became an unwavering anchor for this research to come forth. Finally, I wish to express my appreciation to all of those who showed respect and admiration for this research and dedicate the fruits of my labor to my two children, Jesse, and Nichole. I thank them for allowing me to learn from their intriguing questions and curiosity.
The Mazurka Phenomenon in Chopin's Music: Categorisation, Innovation, and Folkloric Origins
Journal of Music and Folklore Studies, 2024
Chopin's mazurkas represent a remarkable fusion of folkloric tradition and innovative compositional technique, establishing their enduring significance within the Western art music canon. Far from being superficial adornments, the folkloric elements in these works are intricately woven into their structure, rhythm, harmony, and texture, demonstrating Chopin's deep engagement with Polish folk traditions. The structural framework of the mazurka, characterized by the repetitive ‘ostinateness’ of dance figures, reflects Chopin's reverence for the dance form, while his sophisticated rhythmic patterns capture the physical energy of the traditional mazurka. Harmonically, Chopin employs modal scales and ambiguous tonalities derived from Polish folk music, enriching the emotional depth of the compositions. Texturally, the mazurkas evoke the rustic sounds of folk instruments, reinforcing their connection to the rural Polish landscape. Beyond their musical dimensions, Chopin's mazurkas transcend their origins, existing as timeless works of art that embody both national identity and universal beauty. The philosophical implications of these compositions suggest that they represent a synthesis of folk tradition and eternal artistic principles, resonating with the mathematical precision and beauty that underpins all great art. Through his mazurkas, Chopin immortalized the spirit of Polish folk music within the broader context of classical composition, creating works that are both deeply personal and universally resonant.
Chopin's Mazurkas and the Myth of the Folk
Nineteenth Century Music, 1999
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2013
Supervisory Committee Susan Lewis-Hammond, (School of Music) Co-Supervisor Bruce Vogt, (School of Music) Co-Supervisor Michelle Fillion, (School of Music) Departmental Member One of the major problems faced by performers of Chopin’s mazurkas is recapturing the elements that Chopin drew from Polish folk music. Although scholars from around 1900 exaggerated Chopin’s quotation of Polish folk tunes in their mixed agendas that related ‘Polishness’ to Chopin, many of the rudimentary and more complex elements of Polish folk music are present in his compositions. These elements affect such issues as rhythm and meter, tempo and tempo fluctuation, repetitive motives, undulating melodies, function of I and V harmonies. During his vacations in Szafarnia in the Kujawy region of Central Poland in his late teens, Chopin absorbed aspects of Kujaw performing traditions which served as impulses for his compositions. This study examines how certain qualities of movement or gesture experienced in Kujaw...
Chopin Mazurkas and Its Influence on Polish Nationalsim
2014
professor of music theory and composition, who mentored me as my knowledge of music history and piano performance increased over the years. Dr. Carter was the first teacher that recognized my desire to pursue an academic career in ethnomusicology. I greatly appreciate the confidence Dr. Carter extended to me and hope that our friendship will continue to be an important part of my future academic career. I wish to thank the following individuals for their help and friendship: Leon Fleisher, Nikolaus Schimmel, Leon Neto, and Orlando Irizarry. I also wish to sincerely thank my uncle, Wilfredo Cintron, who gave me my first piano lesson at the age of six and mentored me when my knowledge of music was still at an infancy stage. His passing in 2012 was hard, and I will forever miss him. My deepest gratitude goes to my family: To my father, for his strong belief in musical education, and most important of all, for the unconditional love and support of my wife, Marilyn. Her patience and determination became an unwavering anchor for this research to come forth. Finally, I wish to express my appreciation to all of those who showed respect and admiration for this research and dedicate the fruits of my labor to my two children, Jesse, and Nichole. I thank them for allowing me to learn from their intriguing questions and curiosity.
2010
Although Chopin’s music is continually analysed within the context of its affinities with traditional folk music, no one has any doubt that these are two separate musical worlds, functioning in different contexts and with different participants, although similarly alien to the aesthetic of mass culture. For a present-day listener, used to the global beat, music from beyond popular circulation must be “translated” into a language he/she can understand; this applies to both authentic folk music and the music of the great composer. In the early nineties, when folk music was flourishing in Poland (I extend the term “folk” to all contemporary phenomena of popular music that refer to traditional music), one could hardly have predicted that it would help to revive seemingly doomed authentic traditional music, and especially that it would also turn to Chopin. It is mainly the mazurkas that are arranged. Their performance in a manner stylised on traditional performance practice is intended t...
National Dances in the Canon of Polish Culture
Musicology Today, 2016
The following dances are most commonly considered nowadays as national dances (or emblems of Polish national culture): the polonaise, the mazur, the krakowiak, the oberek and the kujawiak. These dances form the cultural canon as defined by Andrzej Szpociński (i.e. a constantly revised part of tradition which carries significance outside the domain of dance and is obligatory for all the community members). In Polish musicological studies it has been emphasised that the phenomenon of stereotypisation of native folklore has played a major role in the formation and emergence of emblematic national phenomena. However, some of the phenomena and processes that have taken place during the formation and revision of the national canon cannot be reduced to the idea of creating a stereotype. The author of this paper draws on Maria Janion’s treatment of the categories of myth and phantasm, which can be much more useful for the interpretation especially of borderline or clearly alien phenomena that have frequently found their way into the Polish national dance canon and played a very important role in that canon. The author also discusses the changing functions of dances from the canon, which resulted from external circumstances determined by political events and social processes.
Chopin in the writings and music of 20th-century Polish composers
The Culturology Ideas, 2023
Many volumes have already been written about the Polishness of Chopin’s music and about his influence on composers of various nationalities active in the Romantic and later periods. In this text the author looks at how Chopin was viewed by 20th-century Polish composers regarding two aspects: 1) how they interpreted his music in the context of its links to Polishness and 2) whether and how they took on his musical concepts in their own oeuvres. This will allow to shed some light on the reception and resonance (to use the terminology of Mieczysław Tomaszewski, a distinguished expert on Chopin and 20th-century Polish music) of the figure and music of Chopin in Polish music of the previous century. There will be examined an extremely patriotic public speech given by Paderewski in 1910, as well as Szymanowski’s opinions from the 1920s. Moreover, the politically driven celebrations of Chopin Year in 1949 will be recalled. The special attention will be put on the musical genres associated ...
The technique of mazurka dances in the gentry-bourgeois and peasant environments
Between national identity and a community of cultures (ed. K. Stępień-Kutera), 2016
toMasz noWak the teChnique of Mazurka danCes in the gentry-bourgeois and peasant environMents P oland during the Baroque and Classical eras was one of many European countries in which prototypes of peasant dances were adopted and interpreted by the nobility and townsfolk, thus helping to create an ideologically marked set of dances known as 'national dances'. During the nineteenth century, despite the rapid changes in dance fashions, the specific geopolitical situation of Poland meant that dances of peasant origin were not eradicated among the higher strata of society. On the contrary: because of the lack of statehood from the end of the eighteenth century for over one hundred years, forms of these dances were diligently fostered and developed, and even supplemented emblems of Polish culture, constituting evidence of the existence of cultural differences among the inhabitants of the country on the Vistula and Warta rivers. There still exists in the public consciousness a kind of stereotype of an historically formed set of five national dances (polonaise, mazurek, krakowiak, kujawiak and oberek), but, as we now know, initially only the polonez and mazurek (Eng. polonaise, mazurka) were considered national. Periodically, there appeared dances from outside the contemporary set (kozachok, zbojnicki, trojak), and today only one (polonaise) is commonly performed. However, these highly emblematic dance forms, especially those in mazurka rhythm, were the elements of Polish dance culture outside Poland, including in Scandinavia, that were most often perceived and imitated, and often modified as well. Dance anthropologists are invariably fascinated by the sheer fact that rather abstract social functions are assigned to dances deriving from recreational or ceremonial situations, allowing them to enjoy a long life and a privileged position. But it is this long life and continuous 1 However, it was only the krakowiak that played a major role in the relations between Poles and communities inhabiting the territories of today's Belarus, Lithuania and Ukraine. 2 Józef Reiss, Najpiękniejsza ze wszystkich jest muzyka polska [Polish music is the most beautiful of all] (Cracow, 1958), p. 92.
2018
This book was inspired by my deep affection for Karol Szymanowski's music, the Góral-or Highlander-culture of the south, and the beauty of the Tatra Mountains which soar in the Podhale region of my native Poland. As an active performer, I have faced criticism from teachers and fellow artists concerning my production of "harsh" sounds, my liberal approach to tempi, and my extensive use of rubato during my performances of Szymanowski's Mazurkas. This criticism arose from the mistaken belief that his compositions should be approached in the same way as Chopin's Mazurkas. This lack of knowledge about Góral culture, and in particular its music and character, became my motivation for choosing the subject of this dissertation. It is intended as a reminder that Karol Szymanowski's Mazurkas were predominantly inspired by Podhale folk music, that the compositions are a collection of various dances in a great variety of tempi, and that subsequently their interpretation should reflect the harsh and driven sounds that are found at the roots of Highland Góral music. This book is dedicated to my daughter. Karol Szymanowski and the European Music of the 1920s Karol Szymanowski (1882-1937) is the most noteworthy Polish composer after Chopin, and is considered the father of 20th-century Polish music. His musical output begins with a late-Romantic aesthetic inspired by Chopin in his opuses 1 through 26, absorbs impressionistic and exotic elements in opuses 29 to 42, and lands firmly at the New Objectivity period marked by a return to a Classical approach via folk material in his late works. The pronounced idiosyncrasies within the works of each period and a traceable "journey" in style are striking, as illustrated by three works, the Preludes op. 1, Methopes op. 34, and Mazurkas op. 50. A similar phenomenon can be observed in the output of other composers, most notably Schoenberg, Stravinsky, and Hindemith, where complexity and experimental tendencies of one period give way to a more Classical and historically self-conscious approach in the subsequent period. The contrasts between Schoenberg's Three Pieces op. 11 and Suite op. 25, Stravinsky's Petrushka and Serenade en la, and Hindemith's Suite 1922 and Ludus Tonalis immediately come to mind. Szymanowski's early piano miniatures, Preludes op. 1 and Etudes op. 4, clearly reveal Chopin's influence in regard to texture, figuration, ornamentation, and the treatment of harmony. Additionally, Szymanowski's Classical approach to phrase structure also resembles the aesthetic evident in Chopin's early style.