Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka

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Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka

23 Dec 13 - 11:52 AM (#3586037)
Subject: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: GUEST,leeneia

Recently Haruo posted a list of hymns for Advent, and one tune had the name Sliczna Panienka. (I believe this is Polish.) I found a few videos of this song on YouTube, but apparently no one has made a digital version of the tune. I liked it, so I made a MIDI.

It seems like a lovely song to play with friends. Flute, guitar, clarinet, triangle... The twelve days of Christmas are almost upon us, and this is the time for that sort of thing.

I've sent the MIDI to Joe, and I hope he can post it right here soon. (I hope he isn't travelling for Christmas.)

About the MIDI - if you go to YouTube, you will find a version of this song from western Pennsylvania, where a man plays a clarinet variation, then another sings the song. That's the version I made a MIDI of, with the clarinet first. When the MIDI sound changes to accordion, that's when the singing begins. The tune is in 3/4 time and the key of D.

23 Dec 13 - 11:55 AM (#3586038)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: GUEST

http://spuscizna.org/music/k6.html

23 Dec 13 - 12:19 PM (#3586044)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: GUEST,leeneia

I don't click on links unless I know who posted and what they lead to.

23 Dec 13 - 12:31 PM (#3586050)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: Haruo

I agree, this is one of the best (and one of the least well-known—even some Polish folksingers I've talked with don't know it) kolędy, leeneia. Glad you like it and are doing something with it. We sang it in church a few years back, and I recently ran across the bulletin insert from that service, which is what reminded me to post it. Here is a link to one of my posts of it, with a link to a karaoke sound file.

23 Dec 13 - 01:16 PM (#3586064)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: Joe Offer

I was born in Detroit, and my dad worked in Hamtramck, a Polish immigrant town completely surrounded by the City of Detroit. Then we moved to Wisconsin, and I went to school on the Polish south side of Milwaukee. And for the last twelve years, I've been married to a woman whose first language was Polish. My mother-in-law lived with us those twelve years, until she died in June at the age of 98. I'll miss the sound of my wife and her mother singing fragments of Polish carols as they prepared fabulous food for Christmas and Easter. This was one of the carols they sang, although they didn't seem to know any one carol all the way through.
Thanks for posting this song. It's one I've heard many, many times over my life.
We buried my mother-in-law in the parish graveyard of the Polish church in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The music at the funeral Mass was wonderful, and everybody sang along. Many of the songs were favorites we had sung at our wedding, but the singer wanted to end the funeral with a setting of the traditional "In Paradisum" (May the Angels Lead You into Paradise) - sung to the tune of "Sliczna Panienka." It was absolutely beautiful. It brought me to tears, and I couldn't sing.
-Joe-

Here's leeheia's MIDI:

Click to play (joeweb)

Here's a recording:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5NbZnnaGfZQ

Here's another, with a really strange instrumentation added - but the singing is good, and he does 8 verses - with lyrics displayed:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFgt0WSWIP4

This doesn't have anything to do with the song in question, but I wanted you all to see it - it's a group of traditional fiddlers playing carols in the beautiful town of Zakopane, far south on the Slovakian border, where the music is very different:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJqQjWSoQIo

23 Dec 13 - 02:07 PM (#3586080)
Subject: ADD: May the Angels
From: Joe Offer

Here's the song we sang at the end of my mother-in-law's funeral Mass in June:

MAY THE ANGELS

This was the nicest, sweetest funeral I've ever attended - and also the most fun I've ever had at a funeral. I really enjoyed my mother-in-law, and it was wonderful to have her living with us for the last 12 years of her life. She died at the age of 98. May she rest in peace.
-Joe-

23 Dec 13 - 02:15 PM (#3586082)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: GUEST,leeneia

Thank you, Joe. Those are wonderful memories. And Haruo.

There are so many versions of Sliczna Panienka on YouTube that it must be very popular in Poland. And yet I'd never heard it, even growing up in Milwaukee.

Here are some musical thoughts that result from my exposure to the various videos. First of all, let me say that I had a hard time getting the timing of the song.

1. The recording by Jay Droz alone is helpful. He sings in tune and his Polish sounds real. But I can't tell what the time signature is. I love the old-fashioned art; it takes me back to the magic Christmases of childhood.

I also enjoyed seeing the lyrics while he sang. It's interesting to compare how the language sounds versus how it's spelled.

2. The Americans (western PA) have that interesting intro, but the singer sounds like he is singing English, not Polish.

3. The village women seem naive at first, with their plangent tone, but their timing is impeccable. Everybody else seemed to lengthen the half notes subconsciously, leaving me wondering what-the-heck length they were supposed to be.

4. I hoped I could figure out the time signature from the formal choir from Kracow, but their director isn't directing, she's doing her own personal, creative modern dance. Call me reactionary, but I think when a pro directs a piece, we ought to be able to figure out the time signature from SOMEWHERE in the directing.

The upshot is that I hope somebody appreciates the piece and plays it, because it took a lot of work. Of course, I have been playing it myself. The chords are very easy.

23 Dec 13 - 02:45 PM (#3586091)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: Joe Offer

Here's another example of caroling from Zakopane:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhNWiPeu7wk

Koledy or Kolendy = carol

I don't think this one has anything to do with Christmas, but it sure is interesting - Polish Morris dance?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgnZ7htD8A4

23 Dec 13 - 09:25 PM (#3586165)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: Haruo

Maybe it's a regional thing within Poland. I have no Polish roots against which to measure the fact that some of the Polish singers I've shown it to are familiar with it (and as you say, it's well documented on the web) while others, despite being proficient folk singers with large repertoires of kolendy, have not heard of it (they tend to say the tune is familiar but don't know words). I got it from the International Book of Christmas Carols (Ehret and Evans) years ago.

23 Dec 13 - 10:51 PM (#3586176)
Subject: Time Signature of Sliczna Panienka
From: Crowhugger

The traditional time signature is 3/4. The following version is slow and rocking, which I was told by recent immigrants is how it's traditionally sung, and this definitely has good Polish pronunciation:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQsSVrtLR3M

A major reason for a vast difference between spelling and pronunciation: use of an English keyboard to write the Polish language. The English letters a, c, e, l, n, o, s, and z do occur in the Polish alphabet, with their specific sounds, plus the same characters also (when using an English keyboard) serve as stand-ins for characters that are uniquely Polish and have separate sounds. As with English and some other languages, certain sounds change according to where the letter occurs in a word, which I noticed most prominently with W (sounds V or F, depending). Best English parallel would be S which can sound S or Z, depending. (view the Polish alphabet here)

23 Dec 13 - 10:51 PM (#3586177)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: GUEST,leeneia

Thanks for the additional info.

Joe, the kids in that next-to-last link are so cute. I love the white skirts with red flowered borders.

24 Dec 13 - 12:56 PM (#3586343)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

http://spuscizna.org/music/k6.html

Repeating the url by Guest. It leads to sheet music, chords, and a midi.
It is safe, leeneia.

The music to this carol is familiar, but this is the first time I have heard the lyrics. Beautiful!

The version by Jay Droz (8 verse), linked by Joe, is good. For some reason I got an 'incomplete' on my download, but I will try again.

24 Dec 13 - 01:35 PM (#3586351)
Subject: RE: Tune Add: pretty Christmas song, Sliczna Panienka
From: Q (Frank Staplin)

Sliczna Panienka

Mary, the Maiden,
When she bore dear Jesus
Tenderly laid Him
Where the hay was sweetest.

Fresh hay, O fresh hay,
Fragrant as the lily!
You are the cradle
For the Son of Mary.

First verse and chorus, the only translation I have found.

24 Dec 13 - 07:35 PM (#3586405)
Subject: ADD: Sliczna Panienka
From: Joe Offer

Here are the Polish lyrics:

Sliczna Panienka

Sliczna Panienka
Jezusa zrodzila
W stajni powiwszy
siankiem Go nakryla
O siano, siano
siano jak lilia
Na ktorym klaszie
Jezusa Marya
O siano, siano
siano jak lilia
Na ktorym klaszie
Jezusa Marya

Czemuz litosci
me masz Panno droga
Zes w liche siano
owinela Boga
O siano, siano
siano kwiccie drogi
Gdy sie na tobie
kladzie Bog ubogi
O siano, siano
siano kwiecie drogi
Gdy sie na tobie
kladzie Bog ubogi

Source: http://spuscizna.org/music/k6.html

My favorite Polish carol recording is the two volume "Polish American Christmas" collection. Lyrics are here:

I'm glad you started this thread, Leeneia. The time I enjoyed my Polish mother-in-law most, was Christmas. I spent as much of my life with her, as I spent with my own mother, so she was very important and dear to me.
-Joe-