I could never control the ensuing tumult at recordings, much to my delight. The crowd tightly packed the room and the dancing began. This CD contains the music of this extraordinary village.
Music Lost/Found
End of the Basses: Krasnica, Opoczno County
Ethnic folk music from Eastern Europe (Poland)
Recordings from Andrzej Bienkowski's archives from years 1984-1997
www.musiclostfound.com
Label: Muzyka Odnaleziona, Poland (2008)
Catalogue No: 004
Format: Book with CD
Book: 48 pages, size 15 X 14 cm (5.5" x 5.9"), hard cover binding, in Polish language, many photos with detailed description.
CD: 28 tracks, total time 67 min
The end of the Basses: Krasnica, Opoczno County
The village of Krasnica, central Poland, at the end of the twentieth century. Until recently there had been seven folk bands playing at weddings and parties. Today, there is nobody. Old, battered instruments litter the village attics.
Previous visits to record had always ended in music and dance, with the whole village showing up. I could never control the ensuing tumult at recordings, much to my delight. The crowd tightly packed the room and the dancing began. While filming I was relegated to a corner because I was getting in their way. It was there that I sensed the true euphoria of dance. However, with each successive visit the numbers dropped – until finally nobody came.
This CD contains the music of this extraordinary village.
Andrzej Bienkowski
Program:
1. Oberek medley, Opoczyno region 5'53" / Józef Fiderek - fiddle, Franciszek Wolowski - 3-string bass, Tadeusz Fiderek - baraban drum (Krasnica 1984)
2. Tales of enchantment 1'35" / Józef Fiderek - fiddle, Franciszek Wolowski - 3 string bass (Krasnica 1984)
3. Polka 4'15" / Józef Fiderek - fiddle , Franciszek Wolowski - 3-string bass, Tadeusz Fiderek - baraban drum (Krasnica 1984)
4. Sheep-dog 1'55" / Michal Wijata - fiddle, Adam Goska - 3-string bass, Stefan Tomasik - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1984)
5. Oberek 1'48" / Michal Wijata - fiddle , Adam Goska bass, Stefan Tomasik - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1984 )
6. Bass rhythm for oberek, polka and waltz 44" / Wladyslaw Koperkiewicz - bass (Buczek 1984)
7. Chanted Oberek "I would give you half of apple" 1’59” / Wladyslaw Koperkiewicz - fiddle, Piotr Wiecek - 3-string bass, Józef Mastalerek - baraban drum with cymbal (Buczek 1984)
8. Rhythm for oberek and polka 35" / Wladyslaw Koperkiewicz - baraban drum (Buczek 1984)
9. Chanted Oberek "Once I was a young boy" 2'36" / Wladyslaw Koperkiewicz - fiddle, Piotr Wiecek - bass, Józef Mastalerek - baraban drum (Buczek 1984)
10. Cossack 2'11" / Wladyslaw Koperkiewicz - fiddle, Piotr Wiecek - bass, Józef Mastalerek - baraban drum (Buczek 1985)
11. Shepherd's song 2’33" / Aniela Lis - vocal, Genowefa Ziólkowska - vocal (Buczek 1985)
12. Oberek 40" / Adam Goska - fiddle, Michal Wijata - 3-string bass, Stefan Tomasik - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1984)
13. Oberek 58" / Adam Goska - fiddle, Michal Wijata - 3-string bass, Stefan Tomasik - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1984 )
14. Ober 3'55" / Andrzej Kowalczyk - fiddle, Tomasz Glabinski - 3-string bass , Stefan Tomasik - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1985)
15. Oberek 1'04" / Tadeusz Skorupa - harmonica (Deborzeczka 1985)
16. Polka 1'54" / Wladyslaw Kosylak - fiddle, Franciszek Glabinski - 3-string bass, Leon Glabinski - baraban drum (Antoniów 1994)
17. Oberek from Opoczno region 1'46" / Wladyslaw Kosylak - fiddle, Franciszek Glabinski - 3-string bass, Leon Glabinski - baraban drum (Antoniów 1994)
18. Oberek 3'9" / Jan Fiderek - fiddle, Jan Staniec - 3-string bass, Ignacy Wolski - tambourine (Krasnica 1987)
19. Oberek 1'49" / Jan Fiderek - fiddle, Jan Staniec - 3-string bass, Ignacy Wolski - tambourine (Krasnica 1987)
20. Oberek, Opoczyno region 1'18" / Jan Grzybowski - fiddle, Jan Staniec 3-string bass, Ignacy Wolski - tambourine (Krasnica 1987)
21. Ober 2'46" / Tadeusz Skorupa - fiddle, Michal Wijata - bass, Tomasz Glabinski - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1985)
22. Oberek, Opoczyno region 2'26" / Tadeusz Skorupa - fiddle, Michal Wijata - bass, Tomasz Glabinski - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1985)
23. Oberek 2' 38 " / Tadeusz Skorupa - fiddle, Piotr Wiecek - bass, Józef Mastalerek - baraban drum (Deba 1985)
24. Oberek 1' 40" / Tomasz Glabinski - harmonica, Unidentified neighbor - tambourine (Deborzeczka 1985)
25. Oberek 49" / Wladyslaw Puchala - fiddle (Krasnica 1997)
26. Oberek 3'4" / Jan Róg - fiddle, Antoni Róg - tambourine, vocal (Dzielna 1984)
27. Sheep-dog 1'29" / Jan Staniec - fiddle, Jan Fiderek - bass, Ignacy Wolski - tambourine (Krasnica 1987)
28. Polka 2'5" / Jan Staniec - fiddle, Jan Fiderek - bass, Ignacy Wolski - tambourine (Krasnica 1987)
29. Haymaker 2'46" / Ignacy Wolski - accordion, Jan Staniec - fiddle, Jan Fiderek - tambourine (Krasnica 1985)
30. Polka 2'6" / Ignacy Wolski - accordion, Jan Staniec - fiddle, Jan Fiderek - tambourine (Krasnica 1985)
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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