Mazurs for the ballet 'A Wedding in Ojców'
for piano
A Wedding in Ojców was an extremely popular work in nineteenth-century Warsaw, as we can gauge
from information given by the Kurier Warszawski in April 1871, according to which this ballet had been staged 722 times to date. The history of this work’s performance began on 14 March 1823 at the National Theatre in Warsaw. And although Poland’s tumultuous history occasionally saw it disappear for a while from the theatre, its popularity never waned. A Wedding in Ojców was also staged in smaller towns and cities, as well as beyond the present-day borders of Poland (the whole work or excerpts), for instance in Prague, Lviv, Minsk, Kiev, Vilnius and cities that are now renowned for their excellent ballet companies, such as Paris, St Petersburg and Moscow. Besides the numerous productions, the popularity of this ballet is evidenced by the multitude of sheet music publications to have appeared over the course of the nineteenth century. It was mainly dances that were published, in the form of piano scores, but also – albeit rarely – the whole ballet in that format. Given the work’s subject matter, which deals with a wedding in the Cracow region, this ballet features exclusively Polish dances – mainly mazurs and krakowiaks. Despite the setting of the action in the Lesser Poland region, it is Mazovian mazurs that dominate, presumably in connection with the popularity of that dance in European salons and theatres, particularly on the territory of the former Commonwealth of Poland–Lithuania. One may assume that this ballet contributed to, and was at the same time a response to, the phenomenon of ‘mazuromania’. After all, it was ever-present in the theatrical repertoire throughout the nineteenth century, and also – thanks to piano scores – in drawing rooms. In those days, it was customary for dances to be changed or added in ballets, while a body of music attesting to the work’s identity remained. And indeed, new dances written by various composers, most often mazurs, began to be written for A Wedding in Ojców. A marked contribution was made in that domain by Józef Stefani, who conducted ballet shows at the National Theatre in Warsaw. He was also the son of Jan Stefani, who wrote music for this ballet, alongside such composers as Józef Damse, Karol Kurpiński and his own son Józef.
In connection with the waning popularity of A Wedding in Ojców during the twentieth century, most of the dances from the ballet and most of the composers, such as Józef Damse and Józef Stefani, have partly fallen into oblivion and are not known today to a wider audience, even though, in their day, they helped to forge the musical landscape of Warsaw. So we wish to remind musicians and listeners of this small fragment of nineteenth-century Polish musical life connected with A Wedding in Ojców and with dance culture in general. It is our sincere wish that this music will find a place in the teaching, dance and concert repertoire.
- Series: Strumento
- ISMN 979-0-2740-3289-0
- Language of edition: pl, eng
- Number of pages: 44
- Cover: softcover
- No. of edition: 1
- Published: 2021
- Type: instrumental solo
- Size: N4 vertical (235x305 mm)
| Józef Damse | Mazur No.1 in B-flat major |
| Józef Damse | Mazur No.2 in D major |
| Józef Damse | Mazur in D major |
| Karol Kurpiński | Mazur in D major |
| Józef Stefani | Mazur in D major |
| Józef Stefani | Mazur in D major ‘Peasant’ |
| Józef Stefani | Mazur in D major ‘Łazienki’ |
| Józef Stefani | Mazur in D major ‘Agreement’ |
| Karol Kurpiński | Mazur in E-flat major |
| Józef Stefani | Mazur in G major |
| Józef Stefani | Mazur in G major ‘Augustus’ |
| Józef Stefani | New Year Diary. Two Mazurs - Mazur in C major |
| Józef Stefani | New Year Diary. Two Mazurs - Mazur in F major |
| Józef Stefani | New Peasant Mazur in D major |
