Kościół Najświętszej Maryi Panny w Warszawie
A Renaissance Ball in Warsaw
Kościół Najświętszej Maryi Panny w Warszawie
A Renaissance Ball
in Warsaw
Dance music of the Golden Age constitutes one of the
most extensive and attractive parts of the musical heritage of that
period. Hundreds of Polish dances are included not only in Polish
collections but also those originating in Germany, Sweden, Hungary and
Slovakia.
Music, then as today, was an inseparable part of society balls
and all kind of occasions and functions. Dance reflected the character
of the people, their temperament, and social and national background. A
colourful pageant in itself, it acted like a mirror to those directly
participating in it and the onlookers. This CD aims to give a musical
idea of the dances from the heyday of the Renaissance and the beginning
of the Baroque. The oldest ones (which begin the disc) date from the
Renaissance and are taken from the organ tablature of Jan of Lublin.
They include a pavan (the most popular dance of the time), a galliard,
a passamezzo, and a ballo, with charmingly Polonized names or without
title. They are of supranational character and their ancestry may be
traced to Italy, the homeland of the European Renaissance dance. It is
most likely that such dances were popular at Wawel Castle in Kraków,
during the reigns of Sigismund the Old (and his Italian wife Queen Bona
Sforza) and Sigismund II Augustus as well as at the Warsaw court of the
last Mazovian dukes.
Tablature of Jan of Lublin – compiled by the Regular Canon Jan –
is among the most extensive 16th-century musical collections in the
whole of Europe. It contains works by such well-known names as Josquin
des Prés, Heinrich Finck, Clement Jannequin, as well as Polish
composers, including Mikołaj of Chrzanów and Seweryn Koń. It also
includes 36 dances of Polish, Italian, German and Spanish origin. The
facsimile of the tablature has been published in the series Monumenta
musicae in Polonia, series B, vol. I, Kraków 1964.
Further on, the CD gives a cross-section of Polish dance music seen from the perspective of foreign musicians.
Valentin Haussmann (1565-1614) was a German organist and
composer active in Konigsberg, Magdeburg Hamburg and Poland. He
composed and published many dance collections, including 'Rest and
polnischen and anderen Tanzen' (Nuremberg, 1603).
The arrangement of Haussmann's three Polish dances
demonstrates very vividly the distinct colouring of the three
homogenous groups of instruments, known as consorts: 3 flutes, 3
trombones and 3 viols.
Next come the distinctly Polish dances by Wojciech Długoraj.
The Orchestra of the Golden Age performs transcriptions of dances
scored for lute, of which Długoraj was a famous virtuoso. The Polish
character of his dances is demonstrated in their melodic line, which is
imbued with warmth and intimacy (particularly Cantio Polonica).
Wojciech Długoraj (born c. 1550 in Gostyń, died after 1619) was
a leading composer of the Polish Renaissance, a prominent lutenist and
perhaps also a singer. He was in the service of the Polish nobleman
Samuel Zborowski, and later appeared at the court of King Stefan
Batory. The originals of his compositions are in the City Library of
Leipzig (D-LEm, II. 6. 15.)
The seven dances from the 'Polotsk' Manuscript constitute a choreographic sequence, as indicated by some of the titles of consecutive dances: the opening 'Witany', 'Goniony' – procession dance, at a very fast pace, 'Czapkowy' – danced with covered heads, 'Mieniony' – involving a change of partners, 'Wychodzony' – to round off the pageant.
The Manuscript of the Jagiellonian Library (BJ 127/56), also
known as the 'Polotsk' Manuscript, was discovered in 1962 by Jerzy
Gołos, in the cover of a missal used in the Uniate Church. It was
purchased by the Jagiellonian Library. It originated, most probably, in
Polotsk in the 17th century, when Cyprian Zochowski, a great lover of
music (d. 1693), served as Archbishop and Metropolitan of Kiev. An
extensive collection of over 200 pieces of both church and secular
music, it was clearly meant for day-to-day use by an unnamed
professional musician, connected with the court and burghers circles of
south-eastern Poland. It is the largest collection of Polish dances and
songs from the 17th century.
The three dances from the Vietoris Codex are of a very special character. They exhibit influences of regional music from south-eastern Poland (particularly in the Vallachian dance) and of the popular European music of the time.
Vietoris Codex (its name derived from the owner's name) contains
around 340 organ works, notated in Slovakia (close to Hungary) in the
second half of the 17th century. Of the 61 dances in the collection,
seven are of Polish provenance. The manuscript is in the Library of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.
The three pavans and Dutch galliards, which round off the
disc, constitute an intricate crowning of the ball. They follow the
style of monumental music of the court theatre, which existed at the
Royal Court in Warsaw during the reign of the Vasa dynasty.
Cornelius Schuyt was born into a musical family in the
Netherlands town of Leiden in 1557. After his father's death in 1601,
he became first organist of the Pieterskerk. He was also a composer,
looked after the bells of the city's churches, was active as a teacher
of music and was in charge of music at various town functions.
Schuyt's pavans and galliards are suitable for
dancing, even though their solidity suggests that they were performed
during particularly festive ceremonies. They correspond to the
prosperity of 17th-century Leiden and the developed skills of the Dutch
artists of those times.
Jacek Urbaniak
(Translated by: Michał Kubicki)