The cycle consists of six contrasted (alternately fast and slow) movements. The music is rooted in modally tinged major-minor tonality, which results from its being based on Ukrainian folk material. The first section (Allegretto moderato) is a setting of a tune similar to ‘Oy, zaikhav kozak’, the second – an arrangement of a ritual New Year wishing song (shchedrivka), in which, however, as Luba Kijanowska observes, the rhythm of many motifs is close to a kolomyika and one motif resembles the polka song ‘Magdalena Was Dancing’ from Wacław Zalewski’s collection Pieśni polskie i ruskie regionu galicyjskiego [Polish and Ruthenian Songs from the Galicia Region] (Lwów 1833). Section three uses a kolomyika variant as its theme. Movements four and five feature vernal songs (from the Ukrainian-Belorussian borderland). The last, sixth section, is in the style of a fiery kozachok