Photo: Sasa Mackic
Roskilde Festival 2005 interview:
Warsaw Village Band
A young Polish group that is gaining in popularity around
the world. The music is definitely different from the well-known
fakelore orchestras supported by the communists.
Mixing older Polish traditions and instruments with a more
modern approach, they remain rather unknown in their home
country though.
Magdalena Sobczak and Sylwia Swiatkowska, musicians and singers
in Warsaw Village Band put it quite simple: "We have
traditional music, Western Europe hasn't". But why? It
most certainly plays a role that Poland was a communist country
while Western Europe undergone a fast modernization and industrialisation,
where also the music in society changed a lot. In general
a big fascination of rock and jazz music from the USA silenced
the more traditional tones in western countries. In Poland,
the traditional music, the music of the peasants, was of great
(political) interest for the communist party. But the famous
big orchestras with singers and dancers in folk costumes was
mostly very "pretty and nice, it was invented tradition",
as Magda says. The communists also arranged big festivals
of folk music, and despite their partiality for the more 'well-behaved'
music, the festivals had a positive effect on folk music in
general, according to the two young Polish girls. On the other
hand there also existed smaller festivals offering more authentic
tradition. Nevertheless, the music that Warsaw Village Band
plays today is not Polish folk music in any of these two senses.
It is much more.
Polacks prefer drums, bass and guitar
Rather surprising maybe, when I ask the girls what the Polish
people think about their music the answer “we don't
know, actually”, followed by a kind of laughter. They
continue
“We are still quite unknown in Poland. Some people are
very interested in this kind of music, and they know us very
well, but in Poland generally we are unknown, and people are
very surprised to hear this kind of music. They don’t
understand our way of singing, or the style playing, for instance
on the violin. People in Poland prefer drumset, bass and guitar."
If they like it in the EU, we like it too
The girls can happily realize that following the BBC prize,
and big gigs like the one at Roskilde Festival, things are
changing for them in Poland too, step by step. "People
in Poland think: "wauw, they are getting quite known
in Western Europe, so we have to check them out." Because
western Europe is "cool", so if they like it, we
like it too", Magda laughs.
They hate our way of singing
We talk a bit about some Romanian roma orchestras like Taraf
de Haïdouks and Fanfare Ciocarlia which have had remarkably
little attention in the media of their home country, while
they hitting hard almost everywhere outside Romania. On the
other hand, the big names of roma artists inside Romania never
really got attention in foreign countries. Maybe it's the
same with Warsaw Village Band, they represent a certain kind
of Polish music better fit for foreign ears?
Silvia thinks a bit about this and then realizes that; "In
Poland people prefer music that is more 'easy' to listen to".
Magda agrees: "Yeah, this kind of music needs more education,
musically, and an open mind as well, in order to enjoy it.
But in Poland they are laughing at our way of singing; they
hate it!"
The girls are sad about this situation and hope that it will
change in the future;
"We would like to have more succes in Poland, we would
like to give people their traditional music - in a new way.",
the girls agree.
Maybe following the big success in Western Europe, the Polish
people will get more respect for WWB and learn to enjoy this,
maybe not-so-easy, but certainly very beautiful and spellbinding
music.
Mikkel Hornnes
Photos: Sasa Mackic
Published July 18th 2005
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