Music Lost/Found
The last village musicians
Ethnic folk music archive from Eastern Europe (Poland)
Recordings from Andrzej Bienkowski's archives from years 1980-2000
www.musiclostfound.com

Label: Muzyka Odnaleziona, Poland (2007)
Catalogue No: 001
Format: CD (digi-pack) with booklet
Booklet: 28 pages, in Polish language, many photos with detailed description.
CD: 26 tracks, total time 74 min 34 seconds

The Last Village Musicians:

This recording is an extraordinary document. It was recorded in Central Poland between 1980 and 2000 in the homes of rural musicians who had not played together in years. The emotions which ensued are clearly audible in the recording – this atmosphere is impossible to replicate in a recording studio.
As time passes, it will become increasingly impossible to produce a recording like this.  A chance to listen to rural folk bands playing in the same style as their predecessors of over 150 years before, and to hear the basses and accordions of village musicians at weddings in the 1980s.

Andrzej Bienkowski

Program:

1. Mazurka, Microregion Rzeczyca, 1980 / Kazimierz Meto (born 1922) fiddle, Józef Meto (born 1939) bass, vocal

2. Oberek, Microregion Rzeczyca, 1987 / Jan Lewandowski (born 1919) fiddle, Stanislaw Lewandowski (born 1927) bass, Stanislaw Kaczmarek (born 1924) tambourine

3. Oberek 2, Microregion Rzeczyca, 1987 / Michal Rydz (born 1924) fiddle, Stanislaw Goska (born 1925) bass, Wladyslaw Piatkowski (born 1932) tambourine

4. Oberek Melody, Microregion Rzeczyca, 1987 / Stanislaw Skiba (born 1932) fiddle, Jan Osinski (born 1927) 3-string bass, Stefan Chudy (born 1938) tambourine

5. Oberek, Rawa Region, 1987 / Aleksander Nowakowski (born 1905) fiddle, Wladyslaw Koska (born 1935) bass, Stefan Nowakowski (born 1930) baraban drum

6. Oberek Melody,  Radom Region, 1981 / Boleslaw Zarebski (born 1913) fiddle, Edward Fogt (born 1930) vocal

7. Endless Oberek, Radom Region, 1987 / Jan Rogolinski (born 1907) fiddle, Józef Lament (born 1911) tambourine

8. Endless Oberek,  Radom Region, 1981 / Marian Lipiec (born 1937) accordion, Piotr Strzalkowski (born 1926) fiddle, Marian Lipiec (born 1958) rataplan drum

9. Oberek Rdzuchowiak, Microregion Kajoków, 1983 / Józef Kedzierski (born 1913) fiddle, Stefan Kedzierski (born 1921) bass, vocal, Józef Kedzierski (born 1939) tambourine

10. Oberek Melody,  Microregion Kajoków, 1988 / Józef Piecyk (born 1932) fiddle, Jan Kietla (born 1913) tambourine, vocal

11. Oberek Melody, Microregion Kajoków, 1983 / Walenty Mirecki (born 1911) fiddle, Józef Janowiecki (born 1910) bass, Jan Sadowski (born 1925) tambourine, vocal, Helena Wojtunik (born 1928) vocal

12. Oberek Kazimierkowy, Microregion Kajoków, 1997 / Stanislaw Ciarkowski (ur 1931) fiddle, Józef Ciarkowski (born 1926) drum, Leokadia Ciarkowska (born 1929) vocal

13. Oberek Pobiedzinski,  Pilica Valley, 1988 / Jan Michalski (born 1916) accordion, Waclaw Rek (born 1928) fiddle, Józef Michalski (born 1939) baraban drum

14. Oberek Rytka, Microregion Krasnica, 1984 / Józef Fiderek (born 1909) fiddle, Franciszek Wolowski (born 1919) bass, Tadeusz Fiderek (born 1940) baraban drum

15. Oberek,  Microregion Krasnica, 1984 / Michal Wijata (born 1920) fiddle, Adam Goska (born 1909) bass, Stefan Tomasik (born 1910) tambourine

16. Oberek, Opoczyn Region, 1984 / Tadeusz Podwysocki (born 1926) fiddle, Stanislaw Wilk (born 1914) tambourine

17. Oberek, Lowicz Region, 1981 / Leopold Talarowski (born 1904) double-breasted accordion, Stanislaw Domanski (born 1926) baraban drum

18. Mazur,  Microregion Ksiezaków, 1992 / Jan Szewczyk (born 1925) fiddle, Józef Szewczyk (born 1966) baraban drum

19. Mazurka,  Rawa Region, 1990 / Jan Dziag (born 1922) fiddle, Jan Dziag (born 1950) baraban drum

20. Oberek,  Rawa-Ksiezaków Borderland, 1994 / Stanislaw Lewandowski (born 1934) fiddle, Józef Szymczak (born 1927) drum

21. Mazurka, Radom Region, 1986 / Wladyslaw Cieslik (born 1919) fiddle, Józef Drum (born 1919) pedal accordion, Stanislaw Cieloch (born 1924) tambourine, vocal

22. Swiatówka, Radom Region, 1981 / Antoni Wyrwinski (born 1921) pedal accordion, Adam Wyrwinski (born 1924) fiddle, Jan Karczewski (born 1944) baraban drum

23. Mazurka Lesiacki, Radom Region, 1992 / Antoni Wrzesien (born 1914) fiddle, Józef Wrzesien (born 1911) fiddle, Stefan Kaczmarek (born 1922) tambourine

24. Oberek Kajoki Beetle, Radom Region, 1984 / Franciszek Regula (born 1916) harmonica

25. Endless Oberek, Radom Region, 1982 / Stanislaw Motyl (born 1904) fiddle, Jan Przybyszewski (born 1917) fiddle, Stanislaw Przybyszewski (born 1951) accordion, Stanislaw Wiatkowski (born 1941) tambourine

26. Oberek Bielinskie Olszynki, Radom Region, 1986 / Jan Karas (born 1917) fiddle, Jan Babis (born 1914) bass, Stanislaw Rogulski (born 1919) tambourine, vocal

About Music Lost/Found Series

Poland, 1980, and Communism is facing collapse. Petrol is being rationed, the shops are empty. I begin my journey through the countryside to record music. It’s strange, because there are a great many folk bands, but their services are no longer required in the villages or towns. Musicians stop playing and sell off their instruments; slowly but surely they are forgotten. The first difficulty we faced was finding them replacement instruments. I met musicians who hadn’t seen each other in years, having once played weddings together regularly; this was the last generation of village musicians. Then came the dawn of the pop era. We filmed and made unique music recordings in the musicians’ homes, which were natural, stress-free environments. We searched throughout Poland, Ukraine and Belarus and found 1500 musicians, as well as singers, and from this number we reconstructed eighty bands. Our archive contains recordings of some of the oldest village bands, as well as contemporary wedding music. We have thousands of field photographs. However, the real jewels in our collection are undoubtedly the photographs taken by the original village photographers, who faithfully captured weddings, parties, funerals and daily life.

Andrzej Bienkowski

Andrzej Bienkowski is a painter, ethnographer, writer and professor at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts. For the last thirty years he has traversed rural Poland to document and record the music of village fiddlers, accordionists and singers. He has produced many books and films about rural Polish music, including the Music Lost & Found series. He owns the largest private collection of rural music in Poland.

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