Polish Musical Traditions

Timetable

Module aim (aims)

The aim of the module is to present Polish musical traditions in their broad spectrum, including folk, professional and popular music. In the course, historical and cultural features and contexts of Polish music will be included, with the idea to reconstruct the older traditions, to demonstrate the present state of music in Poland, as well as to describe numerous changes and variants that have appeared in Polish musical practice and history.

 

 

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

 Interest in Polish music and culture

 

Syllabus

Week 1: Ethnomusical regionalization of Poland (ŁS)
Week 2: Traditional music and its context (ŁS)
Week 3: Polish traditional instruments (ŁS)
Week 4: Professional music in Poland – a historical outline (RDG)
Week 5: Two patterns of the 19th century Polish music: Chopin and Moniuszko (RDG)
Week 6: The Tatra highlanders' style in Polish professional music (RDG)
Week 7: Imaginary Poland and musical stereotypes in European symphonic music (RDG)
Week 8: Polish themes in European opera (RDG)
Week 9: Traditional music revival in urban context (ŁS)
Week 10: Examples of Polish folk-rock and folk-pop fusions (ŁS)
Week 11: The phenomenon of the Polish big-beat music (JK)
Week 12: Czesław Niemen and Polish art rock of the 70s (JK)
Week 13: Official and underground scenes of the Polish “rock boom” of the 80s and 90s (JK)
Week 14: Polish sung poetry: between cabaret and singer-songwriter traditions (JK)
Week 15: Polish hip-hop at the turn of the 21st century (JK)

 

Reading list

Main literature:

 A Companion to Moniuszko, ed. by Ryszard Daniel Golianek, Kraków 2024 (article: Grzegorz Zieziula, Main Operatic Works).

Golianek, Ryszard Daniel, Imaginary Poland. The Musical Depiction of a Non-existent Country in Instrumental Music by Nineteenth-century Foreign Composers, “Ad Parnassum”, 12 (2014), No. 23, pp. 107-133.

Golianek, Ryszard Daniel, The Concept of Polish Music: In Search of Adequate Criteria, “Musicology Today”, 15 (2018), pp. 5-16.

Gradowski, Mariusz, Success, Failure, Splendid Isolation: Czesław Niemen’s Career in Europe, in: ed. Ewa Mazierska, Zsolt Gyari, Eastern European Popular Music in a Transnational Context: Beyond the Borders, Palgrave Macmillan 2019, pp. 119-136. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-17034-9_6

Idzikowska-Czubaj, Anna, Rock and Politics in the People’s Republic of Poland, [in:] Made in Poland. Studies in Popular Music, ed. Patryk Galuszka, Routledge 2019, pp. 37-49: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339714640_Rock_and_Politics_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_Poland

Kasperski, Jakub, Sociological and Aesthetic Aspects of Polish Symphonic Hip-hop. The Case of 2015 by Miuosh, Jimek and NOSPR, “Interdisciplinary Studies In Musicology” No. 24, 2024, pp. 17-34. https://pressto.amu.edu.pl/index.php/ism

Nowak, Tomasz, Polish Folk usic in the Period of Polish People’s Republic – Look from Afar, “Musicology Today” 7, pp. 129-137.

Pasternak-Mazur, Renata, The Black Muse: Polish Hip-Hop as the Voice of “New Others” in the Post-Socialist Transition. “Music & Politics”, Volume III, Issue 1, Winter 2009: https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mp/9460447.0003.103/%E2%80%94black-muse-polish-hip-hop-as-the-voice-of-new-others?rgn=main;view=fulltext#top

Pekacz, Jolanta, Did Rock Smash the Wall? The Role of Rock in Political Transition, “Popular Music”, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Jan., 1994), pp. 41-49: https://www.jstor.org/stable/852899; https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/popular-music/article/abs/did-rock-smash-the-wall-the-role-of-rock-in-political-transition/B86DA85F7062A3B2C57649D616F92736

Poland, entry in: The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, on-line: http://han.amu.edu.pl/han/grove-music/  (for users with UAM library card).

Smoluch, Łukasz, The Man without a Digital Recorder, “New Eastern Europe” 2014, pp. 201–205.

Tracz, Angelika,. Gender in Traditional Music: An Overview of the New Challenges Related to Polish Ethnomusicology in the 21st Century,“Kwartalnik Młodych Muzykologów UJ”, 2020, No. 2, pp. 105–120.

 

Supplementary literature:

Czekanowska, Anna, Pathways of Ethnomusicology, edited by Piotr Dahlig, Warszawa 2000. 

Czekanowska, Anna, Polish Folk Music, Cambridge 1990.

Golianek, Ryszard Daniel, “Pologne” (1883) by Augusta Holmès: A Symphonic Poem about Freedom and National Memory, w: Beethoven 8, Studies and Interpretations, red. Magdalena Chrenkoff, Kraków, Akademia Muzyczna im. K. Pendereckiego, 2021, pp. 117-124

Gradowski, Mariusz, Rock and Roll Styles and Genres in Poland (1957–1973), in: “Musicology Today” 13 (1), pp. 106-112.

Kremer Aleksandra, The Sound of Modern Polish Poetry. Performance and Recording After World War II. Harvard University Press 2021, pp. 39-74.

Rogala, Jacek, Polish Music in the Twentieth Century, Kraków 2000. 

Ryback, Timothy W., Rock Around the Block. A History of Rock Music in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, New York-Oxford 1990. 

Tomaszewski, Mieczysław, Chopin: the Man, his Work and its Resonance, transl. by John Comber, Warsaw 2015.

Trochimczyk, Maja, After Chopin: Essays in Polish Music, Los Angeles 2000.

https://culture.pl/en/article/8-most-unusual-polish-folk-instruments

http://ludowe.instrumenty.edu.pl/en/instruments-

https://culture.pl/en/article/how-sung-poetry-became-an-integral-part-of-polish-musical-culture