Folk songs of Poland?

Subject: Folk songs of Poland?
From: GUEST,Big Ballad Singer on a friend's PC
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 05:16 PM

Hi folks,

Anyone here familiar with or aware of folk songs (lyrical ones) from Poland?

English-language songs about Poland and its history?

Just wondering... my adoptive mother's family are Polish. Don't have any relatives who know very much about their history.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Cheers,

BBS

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 05:56 PM

Maud Karpeles's "Folk Songs of Europe" (Novello, 1950s) has four of them. I might have others but it'll take a while.

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: Jack Campin
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 07:09 PM

Also, check out CDs by the Warsaw Village Band. They don't provide translations, though.

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: Joe Offer
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 07:11 PM

Hi, BBS-
This Website (click) will give you some songs and carols, and Mamalisa has children's songs. Wikipedia has some.

I have three books of Polish songs, and all three are excellent. The one I like best is Treasured Polish Songs with English Translations, published by the Polanie Club of Minneapolis in 1953 (I have the 1978 edition). This book has 220 songs, and it's wonderfully illustrated. A used copy should cost you less than twenty bucks.

Easier to find is Merrily We Sing: 105 Polish Folksongs, collected and edited by Harriet M. Pawlowska (Wayne State University Press, Detroit, 1961 & 1983). Again, used copies are well under twenty bucks.

The third is called The Polish Heritage Songbook, published by Polish Heritage Publications in 1995 (originally published in Poland as O Moj Rozmarynie in 1988. This book is mostly military songs and has no English translations, so I don't use it much.

The first two books have served me well. Whenever my Polish wife and her mother can't fully remember a song they learned in childhood, I can usually find it and fill in the blanks for them. Christmas and Easter are particularly fun in our household, when my wife and her mother cook up a storm and sing Polish carols to each other. The rest of the year, they have to put up with my cooking and singing.

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 30 Jun 10 - 07:37 PM

Poland has more than its share of good Shanty singers too !

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: GUEST,Philippa
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 10:43 AM

Poland's borders have changed many times and I don't think there is one single body of Polish folk music, but rather music of diverse backgrounds. re Leadfingers comment, The shanty singers I've heard were from the area around the Balkan sea, the east of Poland. I went to a wonderful folk fest in Kazimierz Dolny. I was in Poland in 1995, but I found a fairly recent link to info about the festival at this webpage http://www.polandforall.com/national-festival-of-folk-groups-and-singers-kazimierz-dolny.html

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: GUEST,mg
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 12:18 PM

Pope John Paul II has a record out in Polish...folk songs or religious songs I am not sure which but he had a nice voice and loved music. mg

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: Art Thieme
Date: 02 Jul 10 - 03:42 PM

I'm going to refresh this so Kat Thieme can more easily look in here. I think she may have some suggestions.

Art Thieme

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: Big Ballad Singer
Date: 03 Jul 10 - 03:36 PM

Thanks, Art and others.

Feel free to PM me links or other suggestions.

Regards,

BBS

Subject: RE: Folk songs of Poland?
From: Arthur_itus
Date: 03 Jul 10 - 04:07 PM

BBS
Backwoodsman who is a Mudcatter together with somebody else from the band he is in called Mark Addison, wrote a song that was used for the memorial at Faldingworth RAF in Lincolnshire to commemorate what the Polish Pilot's did towards the war.
He may well notice this thread, but I will PM him just to make him aware.