Mazurka
The Mazurka (
History
The folk origins of the Mazurk are three Polish folk dances which are:
- mazur, most characteristic due to its inconsistent rhythmic accents,
- slow and melancholic kujawiak,
- fast oberek.
The mazurka is always found to have either a triplet, trill, dotted eighth note (quaver) pair, or an ordinary eighth note pair before two quarter notes (crotchets). In the 19th century, the form became popular in many ballrooms in different parts of Europe.
"Mazurka" is a Polish word, it means a
Mazurek is also a rural dance identified by some as the oberek. It is said oberek is a danced variation of the sung mazurek, the latter also having more prominent accents on second and third beats and less fluent of a rhythmical flow, which is so characteristical of oberek.[4]
Several
Chopin first started composing mazurkas in 1824, but his composing did not become serious until 1830, the year of the November Uprising, a rebellion in Congress Poland against Russia. Chopin continued composing them until 1849, the year of his death. The stylistic and musical characteristics of Chopin's mazurkas differ from the traditional variety because Chopin in effect created a completely separate and new genre of mazurka all his own. For example, he used classical techniques in his mazurkas, including counterpoint and fugue.[5] By including more chromaticism and harmony in the mazurkas, he made them more technically interesting than the traditional dances. Chopin also tried to compose his mazurkas in such a way that they could not be used for dancing, so as to distance them from the original form.
However, while Chopin changed some aspects of the original mazurka, he maintained others. His mazurkas, like the traditional dances, contain a great deal of repetition: repetition of certain measures or groups of measures; of entire sections; and of an initial theme.[6] The rhythm of his mazurkas also remains very similar to that of earlier mazurkas. However, Chopin also incorporated the rhythmic elements of the two other Polish forms mentioned above, the kujawiak and oberek; his mazurkas usually feature rhythms from more than one of these three forms (mazurek, kujawiak, and oberek). This use of rhythm suggests that Chopin tried to create a genre that had ties to the original form, but was still something new and different.
The mazurka began as a dance for either four or eight couples. Eventually,
Outside Poland
The form was common as a popular dance in Europe and the United States in the mid to late nineteenth century.
Cape Verde Islands
In Cape Verde the mazurka is also revered as an important cultural phenomenon played with acoustic bands led by a violinist and accompanied by guitarists. It also takes a variation of the mazurka dance form and is found mostly in the north of the archipelago, mainly in São Nicolau, Santo Antão. In the south it finds popularity in the island of Brava.
Czechia
Czech composers Bedřich Smetana, Antonín Dvořák, and Bohuslav Martinů all wrote mazurkas to at least some extent. For Smetana and Martinů, these are single pieces (respectively, a Mazurka-Cappricio for piano and a Mazurka-Nocturne for a mixed string/wind quartet), whereas Dvořák composed a set of six mazurkas for piano, and a mazurka for violin and orchestra.
France
In France,
A creolised version of the mazurka is mazouk which—beginning around 1979 in Paris—morphed into the globally popular dance style “
Ireland
Mazurkas constitute a distinctive part of the traditional dance music of County Donegal, Ireland. As a couple's dance, it is no longer popular. The Polish dance entered the UK in the 1840s, but is not widely played outside of Donegal.[8] Unlike the Polish mazurek, which may have an accent on the second or third beat of a bar, the Irish mazurka (masúrca in the Irish language) is consistently accented on the second beat, giving it a unique feel.[9][10][11][12] Musician Caoimhín Mac Aoidh has written a book on the subject, From Mazovia to Meenbanad: The Donegal Mazurkas, in which the history of the musical and dance form is related.[13][14][15] Mac Aoidh tracked down 32 different mazurkas as played in Ireland.[16]
Italy
Mazurkas are part of Italian popular music including the Liscio style. Typical of Italian mazurkas are groups of triplets, strong dotted rhythms, and phrase endings of two accented quarter notes and a rest, unlike a waltz.
Brazil
In Brazil, the composer Ernesto Nazareth wrote a Chopinesque mazurka called "Mercedes" in 1917. Heitor Villa-Lobos wrote a mazurka for classical guitar in a similar musical style to Polish mazurkas.
Cuba
In Cuba, composer Ernesto Lecuona wrote a piece titled Mazurka en Glisado for the piano, one of various commissions throughout his life.
Nicaragua
In
Curaçao
In Curaçao the mazurka was popular as dance music in the nineteenth century, as well as in the first half of the twentieth century. Several Curaçao-born composers, such as Jan Gerard Palm, Joseph Sickman Corsen, Jacobo Palm, Rudolph Palm and Wim Statius Muller, have written mazurkas.
Mexico
In
Philippines
In the
Portugal
In Portugal the mazurka became one of the most popular traditional European dances through the first years of the annual Andanças, a traditional dances festival held nearby Castelo de Vide.
Russia
In Russia, many composers wrote mazurkas for solo piano:
The mazurka was a common dance at the balls of the Russian Empire and it is depicted in many Russian novels and films. In addition to its mention in Leo Tolstoy's Anna Karenina as well as in a protracted episode in War and Peace, the dance is prominently featured in Ivan Turgenev's novel Fathers and Sons. Arkady reserves the mazurka for Madame Odintsov with whom he is falling in love. During Russian balls, it was danced elegantly and famously by the Tsarina Maria Feodorovna, the second-to-last tsarina of the Russian empire before its collapse in 1918.[17]
Sweden
In Swedish folk music, the quaver or eight-note polska has a similar rhythm to the mazurka, and the two dances have a common origin. The international version of the mazurka was also introduced under that name during the nineteenth century.
United States
The mazurka survives in some old-time fiddle tunes, and also in early Cajun music, though it has largely fallen out of Cajun music now. In the Southern United States it was sometimes known as a "mazuka". Polish Mazurka was danced in upstate New York in the 1950s and 1960s (similarly to the krakowiak, millennium of Christianity) in Polish community centers or social clubs, which can be found throughout the US. The polka remains the best known dance of the Nation of Poland and its people and is regularly danced at weddings, dance halls and public events (e.g., summers outdoors, barn dances) in US. [18]
California
In addition to being part of the repertoire of
See also
- Mazur (dance)
- Bourrée
- Fandango
- Ländler
- Mazurkas (Chopin)
- Polish music
- Polonaise (dance)
- Polska (dance)
- Waltz
- Pols
Notes
- ISBN 0-415-97440-2.
- ^ Randel, D. M., Ed., The New Harvard Dictionary of Music, Harvard University Press, 1986
- ISSN 0147-2526.
- )
- ^ Charles Rosen, The Romantic Generation (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995)
- ^ Jeffrey Kallberg, The problem of repetition and return in Chopin's mazurkas, Cambridge, England, Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- ISBN 978-0-87910-325-5.
- ^ Cooper, P. (1995). Mel Bay's Complete Irish Fiddle Player. Mel Bay Publications, Inc.: Pacific, p. 76-80
- ^ Vallely, F. (1999). The Companion to Traditional Irish Music. New York University Press: New York, p. 231
- ^ "Rhythm Definitions – Irish Traditional Music Tune Index". Irishtune.info. 5 December 2012. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ^ "Irish Flute Tunes » Blog Archive » Masúrca Gan Ainm". Irishflute.podbean.com. 5 May 2007. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ^ "Mazurka" (PDF) (Press release). Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ^ "Late session". Retrieved 26 June 2013.[dead link]
- ^ [1] Archived 27 May 2012 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ "9780955903106: From Mazovia to Meenbanad : The Donegal Mazurkas – AbeBooks – Mac Aoidh, Caoimhin: 0955903106". AbeBooks. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ^ "Séamus Gibson Caoimhin mac Aoidh Niall Mac Aoidh Martin McGinley... • From Mazovia to Mennbanad • cdtrrracks". Cdtrrracks.com. Retrieved 26 June 2013.
- ISBN 9781400065509.
- ^ Racino, Julie Ann. (2014). Reflections on community integration in rural communities in upstate New York. Rome, NY: Community and Policy Studies.
- ^ Mende Grey, Vykki (2016). Dance Tunes from Mexican and Spanish California. San Diego, CA: Los Californios.
- ISBN 9781610656139.
- ISBN 978-0976372233.
- ISBN 1-890771-04-X.
- ^ Morgan, Aaron. Cowell, Sidney Robertson (ed.). Mazurka. California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties Collected by Sidney Robertson Cowell. Library of Congress. Retrieved 11 August 2018.
Bibliography
- Downes, Stephen. "Mazurka" Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 17 November 2009.
- Kallberg, Jeffrey. "The problem of repetition and return in Chopin's mazurkas." Chopin Styles, ed. Jim Samson. Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
- Kallberg, Jeffrey. "Chopin's Last Style." Journal of the American Musicological Society 38.2 (1985): 264–315.
- Michałowski, Kornel, and Jim Samson. "Chopin, Fryderyk Franciszek" Grove Music Online. Oxford Music Online. 17 November 2009. (esp. section 6, "Formative Influences")
- Milewski, Barbara. "Chopin's Mazurkas and the Myth of the Folk." 19th-Century Music 23.2 (1999): 113–35.
- Rosen, Charles. The Romantic Generation. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1995.
- Winokur, Roselyn M. "Chopin and the Mazurka". Diss. Sarah Lawrence College, 1974.
External links
- history, description, costumes, music, sources
- Mazurka within traditional dances of the County of Nice (France)
- The Russian Mazurka
- The Mazurka Project
- Halman, Johannes and Robert Rojer (2008). Jan Gerard Palm Music Scores: Waltzes, Mazurkas, Danzas, Tumbas, Polkas, Marches, Fantasies, Serenades, a Galop and Music Composed for Services in the Synagogue and the Lodge. Amsterdam: Broekmans & Van Poppel.*[2]
- 'Vincent Campbell's Mazurka' as played by Vincent Campbell in Co. Donegal