S. Moniuszko's ballads for voice and piano, and lyric songs

Publikuota: 2019-06-10 Autorius: Dr. Jolanta Pszczółkowska-Pawlik
S. Moniuszko's ballads for voice and piano, and lyric songs

Dr. Jolanta Pszczółkowska-Pawlik, pianist, lecturer of the Department of Vocal Performance at the Fryderyk Chopin University of Music in Warsaw, director of the concert agency ‚Pawlik Relations‘, initiator and head of the festival ‚Moniuszko at the Royal Route‘, in 2019 she received her doctorate for ‚The synthesis of poetry and music in the ballads of Stanisław Moniuszko‘, member of the Association of Moniuszko‘s Music Lovers (at the beginning of 2019, the association initiated naming of the Central Railway Station in Warsaw after the composer), laureate of ‚Perła Honorowa‘ in the field of culture by The Polish Market magazine for the popularization of Stanisław Moniuszko‘s music.

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Stanisław Moniuszko – the author of operas, symphonic and sacred works, pieces for organ and chamber music, has also composed around 300 songs for voice and piano that are collected in 12 volumes of the Songbook for Home Use. His songs cover a broad spectrum of thematic areas that include songs inspired by the foklore, sacred songs, love songs, patriotic songs, songs praising the beauty of the nature, as well as songs inspired by Polish history. What they all have in common is poetry of the greatest Polish poets of Moniuszko’s time, such as A. Mickiewicz, W. Wolski, W. Syrokomla, W. Pol, T. Lenartowicz, J. I. Kraszewski, J. Chodźko, A. E. Odyniec, T. Zan, J. Czeczot, S. Witwicki, J. Korsak, A. Kolankowski, J. Korzeniowski, as well as some international poets, such as V. Hugo, W. Scott, J.W. Goethe, to mention only a few, rendered by Moniuszko into music.

One of the most distinctive features of Moniuszko’s style is its accessibility that helped his songs gain substantial popularity among very diverse groups of listeners, both musically educated ones and amateurs.

The simplicity of the harmony and form, the beauty of a melody, lucid rhythms and uncomplicated accompaniment facilitated the reception of the works.

Among all the songs, there are several examples of more extended forms for voice and piano, particularly the ballads composed by Moniuszko from 1840-1859. According to many researchers, the Polish literary ballad derives from the messianic popular pride in Poland of the times of the reign of Stanislaus II (1764-1795). In Polish literature it was popularized by Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz, the author of such works as The Pride about Żółkiewski (1786) and Pride about Stefan Potocki (1788). In Polish music the first pride, the direct forerunner of the ballad can be found in the music of Józef Elsner in years 1803-1805 (Pride of a Lithuanian, Pride of Ludgarda and Pride about Stefan Potocki). However, it was around 1815 when ballads started to gain popularity in Polish literature. That period is even named the balladmania and its prime representation is the first volume of verse by Adam Mickiewicz (The Ballads and Romances, Vilnius 1822). Mikckiewicz’s works are regarded as unsurpassable masterpieces of this genre in Polish language. Also, the ballad Maliny by A. Chodźko (1829) is considered highly significant for the development of the genre. J. Słowacki also utilized the specificity of the represented world characteristic for ballad. His Balladyna, largely inspired by Maliny by Chodźka and Lilia and Świetezianka by Mickiewicz, is an example of a synthesis of a ballad and a drama. The title The Ballads and Romances was also used by Stefan Witwicki (1724) and Antoni Edward Odyniec (1825).

An important aspect of the emergence of the ballad form in the music of Moniuszko was the time of his studies in Berlin from 1819-1821, where he had an opportunity to get to know ballads by F. Schubert, R. Schumann and C. Loewe. Especially the latter composer, also known as the prince of ballad, is often compared to Moniuszko in this regard, as he rendered a large number of Mickiewicz’a ballads, published in the Die Polnischen Balladen collection in 1835, into music.

Seven ballads by Moniuszko constitute the essence of the idea of the Romanticism in music. They open up an extraordinary and mysterious world of extreme emotions, supernatural events, folk beliefs and stories, and get depicted through the whole richness of musical devices utilized by the composer in order to reflect the depth of the poetry. When comparing Moniuszko’s ballads with other songs of his Songbook for Home Use, we can observe vast differences between these two forms of vocal poetry.

The ballads appear as largely extended musical forms that pose enormous challenges both for the singer and for the pianist, such as:

- the performace time of a ballad is usually between 5 and 15 minutes, whereas typical songs last from 3 to 5 minutes, some of them around 1 minute;

- the syncretism of genres – combining the elements of poetry, narrative literature and a drama (protagonists presented in action and situation – sequences of recitatives);

- the piano part of ballads goes way beyond the accompaning role, it has an illustrative and narrative character and inherently complements the vocal part. It creates the atmosphere and inspires the singer;

- in every ballad the singer portrays a couple of characters, which requires an ability to modulate the voice in various registers, which is the case, for instance, in Rybka, where the female protagonist emerges in 3 different incarnations. The characters often change within short passages, like, for instance, in the A and A1 sections of Czaty, which requires a technical mastery from a singer who has to be able to express the nuances of the literary text while singing in a very fast tempo.

An important common feature for the ballads is the presence of the narrator observing the unfolding events from a distance.

performing or recording ballads, one can get an impression that each of them could serve as a literary material for a big stage form. Because of their extended nature they should be aimed at the singers having a suitable expertise in the area of vocal technique and pianists not afraid to face complex and virtuosic challenges of the piano part.

1.TRZECH BUDRYSÓW (Three Sons of Budrys, words by Adam Mickiewicz)

The first of published Moniuszko’s ballads (Berlin 1840, with the song Rozmowa). Mickiewicz wrote the poem during his internal exile in Russia. It tells the story of a war expedition of three sons of Budrys. Two of them intended to get some precious loots, the third one wanted to bring a daughter-in-law to his father – a Polish maiden. It turned out that each of three sons brought home a future wife – a Polish maiden.

2.ŚWITEZIANKA (The Switez Lake Maiden, words by Adam Mickiewicz; Songbook for Home Usevol.1, 1843)

The second of Moniuszko’s ballads was in fact a name-day present for his recently married wife Aleksandra. It tells about a girl who puts her beloved rifleman to the faithfulness test. She transforms herself into a nymph – świtezianka – and seduces the protagonist, who cannot resist. He is punished to eternal tortures in the depths of the Switez Lake, where the action takes place. There are even nine recitativos in this ballad and they play the dominant role in the process of creating the form of the piece. The longest Moniuszko’s ballad in its full version lasts fifteen minutes.

3.KSIĄŻĘ MAGNUS I TROLLA (Prince Magnus and Trolla - A Swedish ballad, Polish translation by Ludwik Siemieński; Songbook for Home Usevol.2, 1843-1844)

The title character is a historical figure – Magnus Vasa, prince of Sweden and Östergötland (1542-1595), son of the prince Gustav Vasa. He was mentally ill and supposedly interested in mermaids. Trolla is a mermaid, ondine or świtezianka (in Polish), who asks prince Magnus to marry her, but he refuses each time. As a folk ballad this story does not end with the clearly expressed moral, typical for the romantic ballad. The only message here is that the prince cannot marry the ondine who is not a Christian; for him the well-being of the homeland is more important than the chains of love.

4.MAGDA KARCZMARKA (Magda the Alewife, words by Ludwik Sztyrmer; Songbook for Home Usevol.2, 1844)

Sztyrmer’s poem is the story of an alewife, a recent widow (she buried her husband a week ago). An uhlan asks her for accommodation, she agrees. A big party in the inn ends with a thunder strike, which means a punishment to Magda who did not keep mourning. The motto, written in the poem as well as in the score, says: “A widow should remember her late husband at least a year and six weeks long.” The place where the inn was is cursed.

This ballad is very operatic in its form, but, compared with other ballads, has relatively

few recitativos. Characteristics of the protagonists, language and mood diversity depend on the frequent changes of the key, measure and pace. From the monotony and stagnation at the beginning, the ballad goes to the depiction of madness and destruction.

5.CZATY (The Ambush, words by Adam Mickiewicz, 1846)

The supernatural mystery, typical for many ballads, is absent in Mickiewicz’s Czaty. Some scholars say this is the manifestation of the transition from romantic exaltation to realism. Moniuszko’s ballad has a compact three-part form ABA1, with a spectacular final. Very forceful first and third parts describe the fury of the voivode; the middle part is a lover’s confession. The sound environment of the lyric text is based on the alliteration of the language of each protagonist.

6.POWRÓT TATY (Dad’s return, words by Adam Mickiewicz; Songbook for Home Usevol.6, 1857)

Mickiewicz’s ballad with a typically didactic message. Longing children pray for the happy father’s return. Thanks to their pious prayers dad miracously avoids death. The chieftain of the robbers, moved by the children’s prayers, recalls his homeland and decides to release his victims. The beginning and the end of the ballad form a kind of a bridge, based on the same key and measure; the virtuosic final of the piano part is specific to Moniuszko.

7.RYBKA (The Little Fish, words by Adam Mickiewicz; Songbook for Home Usevol.6, 1859)

Once again Moniuszko chooses Mickiewicz text, clearly referring to the idiom of water, this time – to the lake, where the protagonist lives after she has taken a character of świtezianka (a female ghost of the lake). Moniuszko’s work is probably the only text setting of Rybka and probably the most complex ballad. It is formally complicated, based on sophisticated composer’s transformations, full of dramatic recitativos; it is a thoughtful illustration of the text. The performing singer should have a wide vocal range, a rich emotional scale, as well as be an excellent actress in order to differentiate two roles: of the narrator and of the protagonist Krysia – a multidimensional woman, mother, abandoned lover, suicide, drowned woman, who transforms herself into świtezianka and returns to the living world for a while.

Seven Moniuszko’s ballads are the quintessence of Romanticism in music. They introduce us into the unusual world of extreme feelings, supernatural phenomena, folk beliefs and tales, that have their reflection in the richness of musical expression, used by the composer so as to show the depth of the poetry.

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