Talk:Polish songs (Chopin)

Jakież kwiaty

Jakież kwiaty is very hard to find! But I found an incipit :-) from http://pl.chopin.nifc.pl/chopin/composition/detail/id/23 (Polish).

4 T C 10:56, 3 September 2011 (UTC)

Some of the Witwicki texts

http://books.google.com.ru/books?id=14UAAAAAcAAJ Double sharp (talk) 06:28, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

There are some quite substantial differences though. e.g. Hulanka: 2nd and 3rd stanzas. Double sharp (talk) 06:30, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Now also available on Polish Wikisource at pl:s:Piosnki sielskie. Double sharp (talk) 15:08, 19 April 2018 (UTC)

Krasiński

I removed the text "a rival with Chopin for the affections of Delfina Potocka" and replaced it with "the lover of...". Chopin's supposed affair with Potocka is apocryphal and not supported by any contemporary evidence.173.22.51.180 (talk) 04:49, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

The Chopin Institute recordings

There sure are a lot of difference between what is sung there and the first Polish edition. "Życzenie" has a few rhythm changes, "Pierścień" has gained a verse, and I don't even know what is going on with "Hulanka". Presumably there are some recently-discovered autograph readings here. Another mystery is why there appear to be some very traditional changes to the text since the first edition: you will not find the two lines "Leci liście z drzewa, / Znów leci z drzewa" in the first edition of Op. 74 No. 17, for example. Double sharp (talk) 08:31, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

P.S. The problem goes very deep. The Chopin Institute's page on Op. 74 No. 4 gives "co ty robisz! stój!" (the "traditional" version that you will hear in many recordings) while the singer sings, as the first edition gives, "bój się Boga, stój!" Double sharp (talk) 08:33, 4 June 2016 (UTC)

An example of the textual problems in the Chopin songs

I will use No. 17, Śpiew z mogiły, as an example. Pol's original Polish text is on Wikisource.

In line 6, Pol has dobrą (should be "dobra" apparently) with the first edition, while the standard text generally heard on recordings except the Chopin Institute's (as you can find for example in Schultz's Singing in Polish, which is where I got all these translations instead of relying on my almost-nonexistent Polish skills) gives dobrze. Wiktionary seems to tell me that the former is an adjective and the latter is an adverb: is the distinction therefore between "it wasn't good for you, oh Poland" and "it hasn't gone well for you, oh Poland"?

In lines 7 and 8, the first edition repeats the words a twe, while the standard text repeats wszystko. The latter is certainly an improvement, repeating the more important word meaning "everything", while the former sounds odd, although one could perhaps argue that, together with Chopin's appoggiaturas, it demonstrates that the speaker is having some difficulties getting the whole tragic story out.

The standard text inserts between Pol's lines 36 and 37 the extra line Leci liście z drzewa, znów leci z drzewa! ("Leaves are falling from a tree, again they fall!") The first edition simply repeats line 37 as O! Polska kraino! Polska kraino! O! Polska kraino! ("Oh Polish land!"; going into the reprise of the ²
₄ section and the music first heard at Nie było). Now it seems to me that the standard text is a pretty inspired change: we have just had in the previous two lines pusta ([Pol has pusto]) leży gleba, darmo kwitną wdzięki ("empty lies the soil, in vain blossom the flowers"), so we are prepared for this reappearance of the natural imagery that the poem opens with.

Despite the fact that these little changes seem to improve the text's setting, we are still faced with a little problem. They do not appear in Fontana's first edition, so where do they come from? Given that this song is something of a recorded improvisation (and that Fontana's copy has the character of a reconstruction from memory), does it make sense to think of a definitive text for it, either in the music or the lyrics? There is also an extant manuscript from Chopin of this song (where the date of composition, 3 May 1836, is exclamation-marked). Is this entire state of affairs (Chopin improvises a song which he only later writes down, and is witnessed doing so by Fontana who also only later writes it down) the reason for the textual and musical problems posed by the songs (as seen in the numerous divergences between what you hear on the Chopin Institute's recordings and see in the first edition)? Double sharp (talk) 09:35, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

P.S. On YouTube, currently, there is a video with score of Stefana Woytowicz singing this song, accompanied by Wanda Klimowicz, where you can see the traditional text. Double sharp (talk) 09:38, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

P.P.S. From its description in Frédéric Chopin: A Research and Information Guide, Wojciech Nowik's paper "Pierścień (The Ring)—a flawed gem in Chopin's Lyrical Music [Op 74 Nr 14].", published in Chopin Studies v2 (1987): 33–54 may be useful. Double sharp (talk) 09:59, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

The shared sets

Surely the split sets, though complete, would result in neither singer singing the whole Op.74 by him- or herself? If we want to keep those, then the focus of the section should not be singers but rather complete recordings. Double sharp (talk) 09:48, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

Płótno

Chopin's music is lost, but this is likely to a text by Witwicki: a poem of this title appears in the collection Piosnki sielskie that many of the texts Chopin set come from. Double sharp (talk) 13:49, 30 October 2019 (UTC)