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Calendric Songs
The Pendulum of Life and the
Changing of Seasons
Polish Christmas Songs
• Poland has an exceptional wealth of Christmas songs
known as koledy (Christmas songs) and pastoralki
(shepherds’ songs).
• These are almost all anonymous
• Their origin goes back to the 14th century, many to the
16th and 17th centuries.
• A central figure in such a repertoire is the infant Jesus,
poor and homeless, born in a stable surrounded by the
familiar domestic animals, appeals to the heart and the
imagination of all peoples.
• Three kinds of carols from Poland
Type 2: Legendary
• These contain many legends and details for
which strict historical truth cannot be
assumed
• These are not accepted by thechurch
• Very much loved by the people
• Songs involving the turning points in the year.
• Folk songs associated with each respective
season.
• Midwinter processions with songs describing
the kindness of land owners, farmers and their
families
• Christmas songs became very important in the
European folk music repertoire.
Type 1: Religious
• These are among the most beautiful and
profound in feeling of all Polish hymns
• They owe their origin to monks in cloisters
Type 3: Imaginative
• These are also called shepherds carols
• They owe their origin to people of humble
birth
• They make use of familiar surroundings
• In most cases these contain merry dance
rhythms like the mazurka
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General Musical Observations on
Polish Christmas Carols
• Melodies reflecting the musical styles of
different eras.
• Melodies related to the mazurka and other
Polish dances
• Some are in the style of a minuet
• Some include recitative formulas
• Melodies constructed on the folk music
principles of addition and variation.
Humorous Songs and Celebrations
• When people celebrate they sometimes
include humourous songs.
• One special kind of humorous songs found in
many countries is the cumulative song.
• A cumulative song is one in which each stanza,
while presenting something new, also
incorporates elements from the previous
stanzas.
Traditional Dance
• Traditional dance in Europe has had four basic
functions:
• Ritual
• Ceremonial
• Social-participatory
• Presentational-competitive
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Spring and Summer Songs
• Spring was celebrated with ceremonies and
festivities that included cries, songs and
instrumental music
• Many of the songs of spring were more like
calls than songs.
• The Swedish midsummer celebration
coincides with the feast of St John the Baptist
Day. It provides another illustration of an
ancient link between secular festivals and a
Christian observance
Celebration and Dance
• In Europe, dance, like music, has been
classified into three main types:
• Traditional dance (originated among rural
villagers)
• Theatrical dance (began in the aristocratic
courts of the 15th through the 18th centuries)
• Social dance
Ritual
• Ritual dances are believed to have a magical effect
on nature or the human body and psyche. They are
usually linked to the agricultural or Christian
calendar. Some examples:
• Agricultural fertility rituals, such as the masked
carnival dances of Switzerland and Bulgaria
• In Bulgaria, women and girls perform ritual dances as
part of rain-begging rituals. [The idea of water that
brings life and women’s fertility that brings life as
well]
2

• In summer, if there was no rain, then rain-
begging songs known as peperuda (lit.
‘butterfly’) might help.Peperuda.flv
• More ritual women’s dances from Bulgaria
• The Bistritsa Babi Archaic Polyphony, Dances
and Rituals from the Shoplouk Region.flv
Ceremonial Dances
• Ceremonial dances dignify important
moments in life-cycle rituals, rites of passages
and festive, secular events.
• These dances are found in weddings, during
national holidays etc.
• These dances may take a variety of forms such
as solo and pair dancing, the latter without
touching.
• Paired dancing without touching occurs to
express gender/social divisions.
Social or Participant Dances
• Social or participant dances are danced, in principle,
by all present whenever people gather socially.
• Unlike ritual and ceremonial dances, they are not
limited to particular ceremony, occasion, or time of
year.
• Social dancing is almost always about gendered
forms of behaviour and relations between sexes (in
the Balkans for instance, when boys learn or are
taught dances, they are shown how to act like men,
actions that include bold physical gestures)
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Ritual (cont.)
• Because of elaborate costumes (such as heavy
bells) and handheld props (such as flowers
and sticks), the dancers often make similar
steps but without touching—in lines, circles,
or pairs.2010 01 30 Перник България Сурва
Pernik Bulgaria Surva .avi.flv
• The dances are usually simple, involving just a
few steps in place, but they can be demanding
and virtuosic.
• Such dances are still found mainly in Eastern
and Southern Europe.
Ceremonial Dances (cont.)
• For example, in Macedonian Gypsy weddings,
female relatives of the bride and groom dance
opposite one another to express symbolically
the transfer of the bride from the household
to the other.
• In much of Southern Europe, men perform
sword dances in opposed pairs.
Social or Participant Dances (cont.)
• Girls are taught to restrain their motions (and
emotions) in and throughout a dance
• In areas still under Islamic influence, men and
women may not touch each other in dance
• In couple dances we see men lead or direct women,
In itself this conveys gender relations in a particular
society.
• Social dance styles also give visible form to age and
ethnic differences, and allow those differences to be
expressed with pride and joy.
• Tsamiko with acrobatic stunt.flv
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Presentational and
Sevdalinka
Competitive Dances
• Presentational and competitive dancing displays individual • Bosnian love songs most commonly
dance skills.
performed in weddings.
• It involves a separation of performers from an audience in a
manner not associated with the other kinds of dance. • Most of these songs are adaptations of sacred
• It may have its origins in certain kinds of ceremonial dances. songs.
• Such dancing may involve demanding dancing techniques and
physical strength (and therefore it may only be danced by
men)MORIAS,, TSAMIKO,, GREECE.flv
• In the 20th century, dance presentations and competitions
became especially important means for the preservation of
traditional forms of dance.

Tamburitza Orchestra
• A type of ensemble that dates back to the
1840s.
• These are ensembles that always insisted on
precise, almost mechanized performance, an
aesthetic deeply opposed to the more
informal village way of music-making.