For several Yiddish-speaking Jews, music served as a vehicle for spiritual resistance during the Holocaust. Writers often composed new lyrics to pre-existing tunes from popular songs and folksongs, and the music chosen was often both easily identifiable and significant to the writer. Through adapting older, well known songs, the writers were able to express subtle messages and meanings to their listeners. Broadly speaking, songs could be adapted in three ways: reuse, rewriting, and response. Reusing older melodies allowed concentration camp inmates to create a song that reflected their reality while also observing their Jewish heritage. Rewriting, or adding new lyrics to existing tunes, drew on the listeners’ familiarity with both the original tune and the original words to create symbolic meanings. Finally, songs in the response category would make references to original song texts, but not the original tunes, creating a deliberate contrast between the new song and the source.

Works: Anonymous: Ani Ma’amin (55, 57); Anonymous: Zog Nitkeyn Mol (57); Anonymous: Tsen Brider (57-58); Rilke Glezer: Papirosn (62); Yankele Hershkowitz: Papirosn (62); Sh. Sheinkinder: Papirosn (63); Yankele Hershkowitz: Nishtu Keyn Przydziel (62-63); Shimshon Fersht: Unter di Grininke Beymelekh (64); David Beyglman: Nit kayn Rozhinkes, nit kayn Mandlen (64).

Sources: Abraham Goldfaden: Rozhinkes mit Mandlen (54, 60-61, 64); Ani Ma’amin (57); Mordecai Gebirtig: Es Brent (56, 57); Anonymous: Tsen Brider (57-58); Abraham Goldfaden: Shulamis (58-59); Herman Yablokoff: Papirosn (61-62); A. M. Bernstein: Tsum Hemerl (58-59).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

Through the simulation and essentialization of recognizable folk-musical traits, several Eastern European nations competing at the Eurovision Song Contest in the early 2000s were successfully able to represent, misrepresent, or brand the ethnic folk traditions of their home nation. The Eastern European countries that consistently won the contest between 2001 and 2007 played upon Western stereotypes of the East by incorporating stylized national music, instruments, and ethnic musical characteristics into their song entries. In doing so, they created a distinctively alternative sound to the modern musical styles (such as pop, rock, or disco) featured in the Western countries’ entries. In particular, the Ukrainian singer songwriter Ruslana exemplifies this kind of simulation and essentialization, with her winning entry Wild Dances making use of various traditional instruments, folk-inspired performance practices, and stylistic allusions to Hutsul traditional music that she collected during her ethnographic field work in the Carpathian Mountain region. Her entry is both an example of simulation, as she is presenting a commercialized and stylized version of traditional folk music, and an example of essentialization because her entry only represents a small demographic within Ukraine. Other winning entries, such as Željko Joksimovi’s Lane Moje, also incorporate ethnic folk elements and folk musical tropes.

Works: Ruslana: Wild Dances (175-77, 180, 184); Željko Joksimović: Lane Moje (178), Lejla (178), Call Me (178); Boris Novković: Vukovi umiru sami (179-80).

Sources: Damir Lipošek, Vedran Božić, and Husein Hasanefendić: Moja domovina (179-80).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

Ignacy Jan Paderewski’s Polish Fantasy, Op. 19 follows the conventions of the piano fantasy genre and one-movement concerto forms. The work contains original folk-inspired themes that borrow characteristics from the Mazur, Krakowiak, and Oberek Polish folk dances, which can be identified throughout the work. Particularly, the theme from the rondo section shares similar rhythmic patterns and melodic direction as the Krakowiak melody Albośmy to jacy tacy. The rhythmic pattern of the Mazur can also be found in other works by Paderewski, such as the third piece of his from Dances Polonaises, Op. 9. A comparison with Chopin’s Mazurkas and the Piano Concerto in E Minor, Op. 11, demonstrates how stylistic allusions from Polish folk dances can be incorporated into original themes.

Works: Ignacy Jan Paderewski: Polish Fantasy, Op. 19.

Sources: Anonymous: Albośmy to jacy tacy (23).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

Although the tango originated in Buenos Aires, several Ashkenazi Jewish songwriters in Europe soon adopted this genre as their own, either by giving existing tango melodies new lyrics in Yiddish or by composing new ones. The Ashkenazi Jews soon exported their Yiddish tangos to cities like New York City and Buenos Aires, where they became staples of Yiddish theater and musical productions. During World War II and after, the tango became an especially symbolic and even painful genre for Jews, as Nazis sometimes forced prisoners in concentration camps to play tangos when other prisoners were killed. Despite this, the tango genre also offered Jewish prisoners a medium for expression and a tie to their heritage, and the familiar melodies allowed the prisoners to easily remember their new lyrics. For instance, songs like Kinder yorn and Makh tsu di eygelekh include musical gestures that allude to the tango, while the contrafact camp song Yiddish Tango was adapted and reworked from Shpil zhe mir a lidele in yidish as a song of resistance.

Works: Anonymous: Death Tango (116); Anonymous: Der Todesfuge (116); Dovid Beigelman: Kinder yorn (117), Makh tsu di eygelekh (117); Ruven Tsarfat: Yiddish Tango (118); Rikle Glezer: Es iz geven a zumertog (118); Anonymous: Niewolnicze tango (118); Mary Sorianu: Tango fun libe (118).

Sources: Eduardo Bianco: Plegaria (116); Julio César Sanders: Adios Muchachos (111); Ángel Villoldo: El Choclo (111); Dovid Beigelman: Ikh ganve in der nakht (114); Henech Kon: Shpil zhe mir a lidele in yidish (118); Herman Yablokoff: Papirosn (118); Gerardo Matos Rodríguez: La Cumparsita (118).

Index Classifications: 1900s, Popular

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

Mikoła Gomółkas’s Melodie na psałterz polski, his only surviving work, contains 152 short psalm settings which actively reflect the composer’s interest in Calvinist theology and humanistic philosophy. The settings can be divided into four categories. The first type of settings resembles Protestant chorales, with syllabic melodies and note-against-note accompaniment. The second type was influenced by the secular madrigal and chanson and features free polyphony. The psalms in the third category have more complex settings, with imitation between two or three voices. The last category of psalm settings was influenced by secular genres; pieces in this group either resemble German Lieder or are set in triple meter and have a dance-like character that is similar to an Italian villanelle. Several psalm settings also feature borrowed melodies from a variety of sources, including Gomółkas’s own music, Czech and German hymn books, Polish psalters, and Clemens non Papa’s setting of the Dutch Souterliedekens. Gomółka’s work showcases the cultural multiplicity of Polish society and the popularity of vernacular psalm settings in Poland during the 1500s.

Works: Mikołaj Gomólkas: Melodie na psałterz polski (15-22).

Sources: Clemens non Papa: Souterliedekens (18); Martin Luther: Ein feste Burg (18).

Index Classifications: 1500s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

Maria Szymanowksa’s piano music influenced Chopin as a young composer, and Chopin’s works subsequently influenced the piano works by Pauline Viardot-Garcia and Clara Schumann. Chopin, who attended a number of Szymanowska’s concerts, adopted all of Szymanowska’s musical genres, and there are several musical and stylistic similarities between Chopin’s Études and Szymanowska’s Vingt exercises et preludes. Both composers’ piano works share textural similarities, but Szymanowska’s mazurkas, which were written to accompany salon dances, are not as virtuosic as Chopin’s. Towards the end of Chopin’s life, Pauline Viardot-Garcia arranged fifteen of Chopin’s mazurkas for voice, and it is likely that Chopin’s Mazurka in E minor, Op. 41, No. 2, was the source for some of her settings. Clara Schumann also composed works in several of the genres that Chopin frequently composed in, such as the mazurka and polonaise. Her Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7, may have been inspired by the Adagio from Chopin’s “La ci darem la mano” Variations, Op. 2. Schumann also borrowed gestures, textures, accompaniment styles, and fragments of several themes from Chopin’s piano works. For example, the “sighing” motive of a descending fourth in Schumann’s Soirees musicales, Op. 6 also appears in Chopin’s Mazurka in G minor, Op. 24, No. 1.

Works: Chopin: Nocturne in E-flat major, Op. 9, No. 2 (31), Etude, Op. 10, No. 2 (31), Etude in C major, Op. 10, No. 7 (31), Etude in A-flat major, Op. 25, No. 1 (31), Prelude in E-flat major, Op. 28, No. 19 (31); Pauline Viardot-Garcia: L’Oiselet (34); Clara Schumann: Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7 (40), Soirees Musicales, Op. 6 (41), Caprices en forme de valse, Op. 2 (41), Valses Romantiques, Op. 4 (41), Rondo in B minor (41), Souvenir de Vienne, Op. 9 (41), Variations de concert sur la cavatine du Pirate de Bellini, Op. 8 (41), Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 7 (42).

Sources: Maria Szymanowska: Etude in D minor (31), Etude No. 15 in C major (31), Etude No. 17 in B-flat major (31), Etude No. 8 in E-flat major (31), Nocturne in B-flat major (31); Chopin: Mazurka in E minor, Op. 41, No. 2 (34), Mazurka, Op. 68, No. 2 (34), Variations, Op. 2 (41-42), Mazurka in G minor, Op. 6, No. 6 (41), Mazurka in G minor, Op. 24, No. 1 (41), Mazurka in B major, Op. 7, No. 1 (41), Mazurka in E major, Op. 6, No. 3 (41), Mazurka in F-sharp minor, Op. 6, No. 1 (42), Mazurka in E minor, Op. 17, No. 2 (42).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

A plainchant Kyrie melody bearing the label “ungaricum,” which appears in several variants in medieval manuscripts from Central European cities, demonstrates the influence of cultural exchange on the transmission of late medieval melodies. By tracing its history through Southern Germany, Hungary, and Poland during the late medieval period, and by examining the variants which appear in Melnicki’s Kyrie and Thannabaur’s Sanctus catalogues, it can be proven that a single plainchant melody could be adapted to serve multiple functions. An appendix lists the sources where the “ungaricum” melody can be found.

Works: Anonymous: Ungaricum sanctus de beata virgine pulchrum sequitu (20-21); Anonymous: Sequitur ungaricum kyrieleis (20-21).

Index Classifications: 1500s, 1600s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

The relationship between Ives’s musical forms and his political beliefs manifests itself in his music, where Ives created progressive sonic backgrounds to house his regressive views of America in the form of American tunes (quoted or otherwise). Ives identified America as New England before the Civil War: a prominently rural, white and Protestant community. His main challenge in creating a true American music was to incorporate tunes of Americana in a musically authentic way. The music needed not to sound American, but intrinsically be American. Ives utilized two compositional techniques to accomplish his aims. The first is the creation of a sparse “acoustic horizon” in which various pieces can be quoted, altered, or layered. The second is a cyclical form that is created when the end of the piece recalls the beginning, though not necessarily the beginning melody. These two methods of composition create the world that Ives thought was destroyed by urban modernity, the old-fashioned America he idealized so much.

Works: Ives: Thanksgiving and Forefathers’ Day (466) and Washington’s Birthday (470) from A Symphony: New England Holidays.

Sources: Ives: Prelude and Postlude for a Thanksgiving Service (466); Edwin Pearce Christy: Goodnight Ladies (470).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Devin Chaloux, Cynthia Dretel, Nathan Landes

Song parodies written in Nazi concentration camps between 1939 and 1945 generally featured two distinct types of newly created lyrics. The first type tended to be pessimistic, but could also include themes of resistance and rebellion, and writers sometimes added poetic phrases to tunes that reminded them of the beauty of their native tongue and music. The second category showcased darker, more macabre subject matter. Despite featuring lyrics describing the horrors of camp life, the transformation of the subject matter provided a way for the writers to gain control over their situation by turning daily horrors into something humorous in order to enliven their spirits. Several songs also feature pre-existing melodies drawn from classical opera arias, hymns, carols, and popular genres such as foxtrots, waltzes, and tangos.

Works: Anonymous: Kolysanke dla synka w kremato-rium (3); Anonymous: Tango truponoszow (3); Anonymous: Dicke Luft (3); Anonymous: Judische Todessang (3); Anonymous: March to the Crematorium (4); E. Polak: How tenderly the wind caresses the birch tree (6).

Sources: Anonymous: Wojtusia z popielnika iskiereczka mruga (4); Beethoven: Germania (7).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

Inmates in concentration camps often provided new lyrics to well-known melodies, and in several cases the new lyrics parodied the subject matter of the original piece. Aleksander Kulisiewicz’s lyrics to Heil, Sachsenhausen offer a satiric narrative of the Sachsenhausen camp experience, mocking the Nazi racial purity laws with lyrics in both Polish and German. Through his parody of Mieczyslaw Miksne’s Madagaskar, Kulisiewicz also compares the Germany’s treatment of Poles to Poland’s treatment of the Jews. It is apparent that Kulisiewicz, who only heard Madagaskar for the first time in the camp, was unaware that Miksne, through his satirical song, expressed a desire to go to Madagascar because he believed that the natives would be more civilized that the Poles who planned to send the Jews there. The psychological effects of the parody can still be noted, however, as Kulisiewicz’s lyrics also mock an oppressor.

Works: Aleksander Kulisiewicz: Heil, Sachsenhausen (270), Jüdischer Todessang (278).

Sources: Mieczysław Miksne: Madagaskar (270).

Index Classifications: 1900s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

The supposedly authentic folk music traits of Chopin’s mazurkas, as well as the myth that Chopin avidly listened to folksongs played by Polish peasants, have convinced many scholars that Chopin’s mazurkas contained authentic Polish folk melodies. While the Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 2, and Mazurka Op. 68, No. 3 do contain Polish musical elements, Chopin was actually borrowing musical conventions from an urban tradition, not a rural or peasant one. The mazurka models that Chopin drew upon had originated as a genre of piano works that were popular in the salons in Warsaw. Polish parlors and theaters in the early nineteenth-century became places where composers could experiment with creating a national art music that often featured the supposedly folk characteristics found in Chopin’s mazurkas. This style of music, with distinctive Polish markers, was created by cultural elites as a part of an effort to forge a national tradition. Furthermore, many of the songs Chopin heard in the country had actually derived from urban songs, vaudeville, and operas that were written in a simple and folk-like fashion.

Works: Chopin: Mazurka, Op. 24, No. 2 (114-20), Mazurka, Op. 68, No. 3 (115-21); Karol Kurpiński: Wesele w Ojcowie (133-34).

Sources: Anonymous: Oj Magdalino (118-21).

Index Classifications: 1800s

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone

Since the 1970s, the Polka Mass, a variant of the Catholic Mass that replaces traditional anthems with Polka songs, has been performed in the United States by Polish, German, Slovenian, and Czech congregations. The words and music draw upon familiar melodies and secular traditions to enhance the sacred occasion. This style of mass was created to respond to tensions from immigrant communities who felt like they were losing their ethnic Catholic identities in America. Oftentimes, the composers and arrangers of Polka Masses either replaced the lyrics of well-known polkas, waltzes, or country songs with standard liturgical texts, or parodied secular texts to adapt them for a sacred setting. Some of the parodies involved simple changes, such as changing the word “sun” to “Son” in Let the Son Shine In. Other parodies, however, could reinterpret an original song into one of sacred devotion, as seen in Gene Retka’s Gathered Together. Some Polka Mass writers even drew upon genres and styles such as tango, country, and bebop, which caused controversy in some churches. For example, the use of the tune from the country song, Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain, by Willie Nelson was justified only when Frank Perkovich claimed that the melody was from the Czech tune Place Oci.

Works: Fr. Frank Perkovich: At This Sacrifice (188-90, 193), Let the Son Shine In (186-87, 191), The Church in the Valley (187); Fr. George Balasko: We Offer Bread and Wine (187); Gene Retka: Song for Meditation (187), Gathered Together (192), Lord, Have Mercy; Christ, Have Mercy; Lord, Have Mercy (189-90), Each and Every Day (191, 198-99).

Sources: Hair: Let the Sunshine In (186); Walter Ostanek: The Barking Dog Polka (187); Walt Solek: Julida Polka (187, 192); Hank Thunander: The Tavern in the Valley (187); Willie Nelson: Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain (188-89, 193); Lil’ Wally Jagiello: Johnny’s Knocking (191, 198-99).

Index Classifications: 1900s, 2000s, Popular

Contributed by: Cynthia Dretel, Matthew G. Leone