On 2006-01-25, at 10:29, LGS-Europe wrote: >> Dear David, >> I beg your pardon, please, but you mean by ''Eastern Europe-like >> 'classical' music''? > > I had no idea I had to be politically correct on this forum. > You gave only a partial quote, as I wrote "_former_ Eastern > Europe-like 'classical' music". What I heard was a choir singing > bombastic > music glorifying the regime. Propaganda, not music. Composed and > conducted > by friends of the regime. As might have been composed and performed in > any > country with a totalitarian regime, like the Eastern-Europe countries > in the > time of communism. > > David
Dear David, I don't think you have to be politically correct on this forum - but wouldn't be out of place to be historically correct here. Of course and foremost I can speak of Poland, but that may in part apply to other former Easter (or Central) European countries as well. I am not young, alas, but I've never heared of ''singing bombastic music glorifying the regime'' over here, in a way the words ''Louis, Louis...'' were sung for 20 minutes in all Prologues to operas by Lully and his contemporaries - Never!, this is an absurd, and, I am sorry, you must be a victim of some kind of Western propaganda. There was over here a period or style called _socrealizm_, basicly present in literature and arts, perhaps in social relations as well, you can name several popular songs of that kind, may be there are some precedents in art music as well, but any notion it was some sort of our ''classical music'' is a pure fiction. It was definitly a black period in our history (for outside, English language commentators see Norman Davies, Richard M. Watt, or others), but rarely for musicians, indeed. To be not acused of being for to long OT, I'll remind you just few facts from that worst period only relating to early music. In 1957 the Centre for Studies and Documentation of Musical Monumentat has been established by the priest prof. Hieronim Feicht at the Musicology Institute of the Warsaw Uniwersity. The Centre's activity brought to light the local sources of the earliest chant from the middle of the XIth century, the new Krakow and Nowy Sacz monastic sources of Notre Dame style of music, also the so called Pelplin organ tablature (c1620), the bigest in the world music collection of this kind. Church music of Mielczewski (mid-XVIIth c.), Szarzynski (end of XVIIth c.), Gorczycki (contemp. of JSBach) showed new faces of the Polish baroque. All this under the wings of the priest prof. Feicht and the only correct socialist Party - if I may simplify it so. The 1960's were also the happy years of the first Polish wave of the old masters performances preceded by critical (for that time) editions. Let me mention few pioneers of that movement: Tadeusz Ochlewski - the figure behind several editorial enterpises of Polish EM, started already befor the WWII; Miros³aw Perz - musicologist and editor; Kazimierz Piwkowski and his fascinating ensemble «Fistulatores et Tubicinatores Varsovienses», active in 1960's and 70's; Chamber orchestras specializing in EM - Capella Bydgostiensis (from 1962-), Capella Cracoviensis (from 1970-); Choir conductors: E. Kajdasz, St. Krukowski, St. Stuligrosz; You know what was the most popular professional, student and amateur choir repertory at the time? - Gomolka and Waclaw of Szamotuly (IInd half of XVIthe c.), Zielenski (1611), Pekiel (mid-XVIIthe c.), etc. The orchestral/ensemble repertory included music from renaissance organ tablatures, Jarzebski (1627), Szarzynski (before 1700), early Polish classical symphonies, and so on. Of course, all this performances were sort of old fashioned and absolutely unaware of the present historical correctness. But they were the pioneers then. In 1966 we were celebrating 1000 years of the Polish nationality and the EM was shining everywhere, radio and fonography included. Also in 1966 the Ist edition of the festiwal and the confrence ''Musica Antiqua Europae Orientalis'' has been established in Bydgoszcz and is being still organized every one or two years, however its character, then competitive to similar Western enterprises, has changed. Lets leave untouched all later music - the XIXth c. one, Chopin, Moniuszko, Paderewski, Szymanowski, and a legion of others. I'll only mention briefly the Warsaw Autumn, an International Festival of Contemporary Music, established in 1956 (the bad fifties!), held yearly untill now, which florished especially untill the late 1980's. And even as such a big, stately financed enterprise, was never forced to get back at the Party with something like... ''Grande Augusto'', a cantata by JAHasse celebrating the birthday of August the IIIrd, King of Poland and Saxony, among the many similar cantatas. But since the 1989 we have the so called ''democracy'' and are re-learning the market mechanisms. What it is for music nowadays I'll refrain myself from commenting, however - to keep with your, David, nomenclature - former classics, those from the regime era, have a hard time, indeed. Kind regards, Jurek ________________________ To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
