Zabawa w Lipinach [Merrymaking at Lipiny] (1952)

Zabawa w Lipinach [Merrymaking at Lipiny] (1952) – ballet

Ballets

Zabawa w Lipinach (excerpt)

Performers: Orkiestra Polskiego Radia [w Warszawie], Stefan Rachoń – conductor
PR

instrumentation: fl picc, 2 fl, 2 ob, cor ing, 2 cl B, cl b, 2 fg, cfg, 4 cor, 3 tr, 3 trbn, tb, 4 tmp, xyl, cel, ar, pfte, tmb, gr c, tam-tam, ptti, trgl, quintetto d’archi

dedication: –

duration: ca 40’

manuscript: Zygmunt Mycielski Archive, Manuscript Department, National Library, no. IV 14235 akc. 020636
[Edition: PWM, no date, sheet music for rent]

premiere: Stanisław Moniuszko State Opera in Poznań, 25 July 1954, choreography Stanisław Miszczyk, set and costume design Stanisław Jarocki, musical direction Walerian Bierdiajew, conductor Stanislaus Renz

part I

I. Overture – II. Andantino – III. Allegro – IV. Lento – V. Allegro – VI. Poco meno

part II

VII. Lento – VIII. Allegro risoluto – VIII b. Risoluto – IX. Waltz tempo – IX b. “Czerwonki” Vivo (like a music box) – IX c. Polka starowieska – IX d. Tranquillamente – X. Krakowiak tempo – XI. Oberek – XI. Cantabile – XII. Vivacissimo

Part I: Girls want to dance after work. Joasia is dragging Antek to dance with her, but he returns to his tractor. Saddened, the girls sit down on the stage; Joasia is dreaming of happiness. Władzio the “Pheasant” is courting her and although she dislikes him, she agrees to dance with him as there are no other boys. Joasia would prefer a Polish dance, but Władzio wants to dance as the latest fashion would have it. He summons his friends, the bikiniarze (Teddy Boys or hipsters of the day), who try to dance with the girls to the sound of the radio. The girls chase them away.

Part II: The girls decide to drag the boys away from the tractor. The latter willingly abandon their work and let themselves be drawn into merrymaking. They dance the wedding dance (weselny) and some elderly persons, who dislike the dance, try to show them how dancing looked in the past. Initially, they parody a court waltz, and then show a country waltz and polka (accompanied by the violin and the clarinet). The Teddy Boys take off their jackets and colourful ties and get down to repairing the tractor. The tractor gets repaired and the former Teddy Boys are led onto the dancing platform (krakowiak, oberek).

In her reminiscences in Kamerton, a journal published by the Zygmunt Mycielski Society, Maria Iwaszkiewicz wrote:

Photograph from the premiere of Zabawa w Lipinach (final scene)

Perhaps no one remembers that in the 1950s, that is right in the middle of the Stalinist period, Zygmunt and my father wrote a ballet that was even staged in Poznań [premiere: 25 July 1954, Stanisław Moniuszko State Opera in Poznań, musical direction: Walerian Bierdiajew, choreography: Stanisław Miszczyk]. It was by no means a masterpiece, but the authors of the music and the libretto had great fun composing it. This was not about giving in to propaganda, as someone will probably write now, but about having fun, and, well, earning some money (Maria Iwaszkiewicz, “Wspomnienie o Zygmuncie Mycielskim”, Kamerton 1993 no. 2, p. 19).

Zabawa w Lipinach is another example of neoclassicism tinged with folklorism in Zygmunt Mycielski’s oeuvre. Yet in addition to clear stylisations (waltz, polka, krakowiak, oberek) we also find here a reference to jazz, which at that time in Poland functioned in the “underground”. The composer marked a place in the score, where an authentic jazz recording was to be played from tape to characterise the bikiniarze community.

Although the folkloristic stylisations are evident and the musical language does not go beyond the style defined by such compositions as Silesian Overture and Polish Symphony, Zofia Lissa accused the composer of introducing harmonic exuberance incomprehensible to mass audiences.