![40 Polish Folksongs for piano, Op. 6 [5] (1925) / 5 Folk Songs for soprano (tenor) and piano, Op. 6a (1934)](/upload/thumb/2024/09/40-piesni-ludowych_01_auto_1800x900.jpg)
40 Polish Folksongs for piano, Op. 6 [5] (1925) / 5 Folk Songs for soprano (tenor) and piano, Op. 6a (1934)
40 Polish Folksongs for piano, Op. 6
Dedication: No. 29 - 'Dla Róży R.' [For Róża R.]
Manuscript: Unknown
Publication: Forty Polish Folksongs, Józef Koffler. Published and owned by Anton J. Benjamin, Leipzig-Milano. Copyright 1926. A.J.B. 8390. 39 pages
Premiere: No data available
Contents: 'Boże coś Polskę' [God Save Poland]; 'Jeszcze Polska' [Poland Is Not Yet Lost]; 'Z dymem pożarów' [With the Smoke of Fires]; 'Wśród nocnej ciszy' [In the Stillness of Night] ; 'Bóg się rodzi; [God Is Being Born]; 'Lulajże Jezuniu' [Lullaby, Little Jesus]; 'Stała się nam nowina' [News Has Come to Us]; 'Oj! Kołyszże się kołysz' [Oh, Rock, Cradle, Rock]; 'Miałeś chłopie złoty róg' [You Had a Golden Horn, Peasant]; 'Umarł Maciek, umarł' [Maciek Died, He Died]; 'Co to za gwar?' [What's This Commotion?]; 'Siwa gąska' [Grey Goose]; 'Rzucam chatę' [I Abandon My Cottage]; 'Stoi jawor zielony' [Green Maple Stands]; 'Pojedziemy na łów' [Let's Go Hunting]; 'O mój rozmarynie' [Oh My Rosemary]; 'Hej tam w polu' [Hey, In Yonder Field]; 'Idzie żołnierz' [The Soldier Goes]; 'Oj! Idzie se Janicek' [Oh! Janicek Goes]; 'Przykazali mi matula' [Mother Ordered Me]; 'Siałem proso' [I Sowed Millet]; 'Matuś moja matuś' [Mother, My Mother]; 'Świeci miesiączek' [The Moon Is Shining]; 'A jak będzie wiosna' [When Spring Comes]; 'Wieją wiatry' [The Winds Are Blowing]; 'Którędy Jasiu?]' [Which Way, Johnny?]; 'Porównaj Boże' [Compare, Oh God]; 'Koło mego ogródeczka' [Close by My Garden]; 'Ty pójdziesz górą' [You'll Go by the Hill]; 'Hejże ino! Fiołecku leśny!' [Hey Now! Forest Violet!]; 'Już dziś ostatnią nockę' [Already Tonight Is the Last Night]; 'Żył tu przed laty' [He Lived Here Years Ago]; 'Podkóweczki dajcie ognia' [Horseshoes, Give Fire!]; 'Poczekaj Hanka' [Wait, Hanka]; 'Czarna kura' [Black Hen]; 'Miała baba koguta' [A Woman Had a Rooster]; 'Krakowiaczek ci ja' [I'm a Cracovian]; 'Nie chodź Marysiu' [Don't Go, Mary]; 'Albośmy to jacy tacy' [Are We Just Anybody]; 'Pije Kuba' [Jamie Drinks to James]
5 Folk Songs for soprano (tenor) and piano, Op. 6a
Movements: 'Kołysanka' [Lullaby], 'Wojna' [War], 'Miesiączek' [The Little Moon], 'Wieją wiatry' [Winds are Blowing], 'Fiołeczek' [The Violet]
First press mention of performance: Vienna, 31 March 1935, Lola Urbach – voice (Der Wiener Tag 1935, no. 4236)
(Muzyk Wojskowy 3 (1927)), this collection occupies a special place in Koffler’s output as the first composition to have won a lasting place in his personal catalogue and the last one he wrote before embracing dodecaphony as an artistic technique. The collection fits into the folkloric-national trend characteristic of Poland’s interwar music. The cycle is based on selected popular traditional songs of varied provenance and on various themes. All of Koffler’s settings may be performed with voice (with text aligned above the piano part) or as purely instrumental miniatures.
drawing inspirations from Debussy’s impressionism, Bartók’s folklorism, and Prokofiev’s vitalism, among others. Koffler was convinced that every folk tune ‘is a living organism that generates its own harmony, counterpoint, texture, voice leading, type of sound and timbre’ (‘Drei Begengungen’, in Arnold Schönberg’s sixtieth birthday memorial book). He therefore drew such musical conclusions from the melodies of carols (such as ‘God Is Being Born’), old ritual songs (e.g. ‘Close by My Garden’), and folk dances (e.g. ‘A Woman Had a Rooster’). His arrangements use the full spectrum of musical means, from simple diatonic and tonal to modality (‘Oh! Janicek Goes’), whole-tone scale (‘I Abandon My Cottage’), and sharp dissonances (‘Hey, In Yonder Field’).
In his discussion of Koffler’s setting of ‘Oh, Rock, Cradle, Rock’, Jerzy Freiheiter even suggests that in this song ‘harmonies do not result […] from a functional interpretation of the notes of the melody, but from sounding those notes simultaneously’ (J. Freiheiter, ‘Reports on Contemporary Polish Musical Literature’, Muzyka Polska 6 (1935), 140), which foreshadows the twelve-note technique.
Koffler did not view this collection as an integral whole. He himself selected some pieces for concert performance. For instance, Ernst Křenek’s contemporary music concert series (‘Österreichische Studio’, Vienna 1935) included a programme featuring Koffler’s own cycle of five folksongs arranged for soprano and piano (‘Lullaby’, ‘War’, ‘Winds Are Blowing’, ‘The Moon’, ‘The Violet’). They were sung by Lola Urbach, with most likely Křenek himself as accompanist.
This collection was designated as Op. 6a in Koffler's list of works from 1935.