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Music of Poland
Polish mazurka and oberek, Hungarian táncház and csárdás, Romanian doina and taraf lăutari bands, Klezmer, Ukrainian bandura and Russian byliny.
Sung and searched in Polish. The YouTube button above can run your search in that language.
Roots and traditions
Classical music
The origin of Polish music can be traced as far back as the 13th century, from which manuscripts have been found in Stary Sącz, containing polyphonic compositions related to the Parisian Notre Dame School. Other early compositions, such as the melody of Bogurodzica, may also date back to this period. The first known notable composer, Mikołaj z Radomia (Nicholas of Radom), lived in the 15th century. During the 16th century, mostly two musical ensembles – both based in Kraków and belonging to the King and the Archbishop of Wawel – led the rapid innovation of Polish music. Composers writing during this period include Wacław z Szamotuł, Mikołaj Zieleński, Nicolaus Cracoviensis, Marcin Leopolita and Mikołaj Gomółka, who composed "Melodies to Polish Psalter". Diomedes Cato, a native-born Italian who lived in Kraków from about the age of five, became one of the most famous lutenists at the court of Sigismund III, and not only imported some of the musical styles from southern Europe, but blended them with native folk music.
Popular music
Contemporary
Between the wars, a group of new and emerging composers formed the Association of Young Polish Musicians; which included future luminaries Grażyna Bacewicz, Zygmunt Mycielski, Michał Spisak and Tadeusz Szeligowski. Following World War II and the country becoming a communist system, some composers, such as Roman Palester and Andrzej Panufnik, fled the country and remained in exile. In the early 1960s, a number of Polish composers formed the Polish Composers' School, characterized by the use of sonorism and dodecaphonism. The style emerged from the political crisis in 1956, following Stalin's death. In the same year the Warsaw Autumn music festival was inaugurated, both closely connected. According to conductor Antoni Wit composers were given artistic freedom because the Polish regime wasn't as harsh as other Eastern European dictatorships and music wasn't considered ideologically relevant unlike literature, theater or cinema.
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Music only, no news or talk. Stations that play the local tradition come first, then the most listened. They play in the corner of the page.
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