Ewa Demarczyk Sings Zygmunt Konieczny's Songs

★★★★✰

   The modern song genre has its roots in romantic culture. Song as a dramatic narrative showing through lyrics and music whole spectacle became the new type of preforming art. This was both continuation of folk narrative song traditions and establishing new national directions of music culture. The era of national schools took all kinds of music, from orchestral to stage, but it was the song which remained the most popular romantic means of artistic expression. Romanticism in Poland was closely related to the aspirations of rebuilding an independent state. While in many European cultures much of the Romantic songwriting was focused on sentimental subjects, Polish poems and songs dealt with the most serious existential and social issues. And this approach remained a permanent feature of many Polish songwriters in the 20th century.
   This phenomenon also concerned popular songs with artistic ambitions. For this reason, what in Polish culture corresponded to the genre of French chanson or Russian romance in the second half of the 20th century was called "sung poetry". As a result, the Polish equivalent of the chanson genre are three different categories: songs sung by bards, sometimes referred to as "piosenka autorska” (author's song), songs composed to poetic works, referred to as "poezja śpiewana” (sung poetry) or "piosenka poetycka” (poetic song), and "piosenka aktorska” (acting song), performed as a short dramatic act. In the 1960s, sung poetry became a fully-fledged field of artistic expression, which, thanks to its symbolic and metaphorical content, could overcome the restrictions of political censorship. This also applied to other genres in which the poetic text allowed a certain freedom of expression. Similar mechanisms operated in many autocracies. There were many poetic song performers famous in Polish culture, Czesław Niemen, Marek Grechuta and probably the most valued and most famous Polish poetic song performer Ewa Demarczyk.

Ewa Demarczyk sings Zygmunt Konieczny's songs (1967)

   Ewa Demarczyk was actress and singer, performer of artistically demanding repertoire based on choice of best Polish and European poetry. Her name became famous with series of songs written by Zygmunt Konieczny to Polish 20th century poets. Performances of these songs were rewarded on most significant festivals in Poland and recording of her debut album which became emblematic and radiant artistic statement. Album Ewa Demarczyk śpiewa piosenki Zygmunta Koniecznego (Ewa Demarczyk sings Zygmunt Konieczny's songs), she published in 1967, became her instant success. Her black and white, posterised photo, begin the series of records unifying popular music with deeper existential, moral or historiosophic themes. As Juliusz Kydryński  stated in sleeve notes, her position of truly great artist “is confirmed by her inability to make compromises, to do things the easy way. She is demanding of herself and the public as well”,  Then popular music critic added “She always takes the risk: reaches for the top. She is audacious and at the same time extremely hard-working. Perhaps this is why she always wins”. 

   Her debut LP was significant and complexe recital of songs based on poems by Miron Białoszewski, Bolesław Leśmian, Julian Tuwim, Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński, Maria Jasnorzewska-Pawlikowska and many others. The accompaniments were recorded by Zygmunt Konieczny's instrumental band and the Polish Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Stefan Rachoń.

   Brave, dramatic interpretations make these songs being more modernistic mini-dramatic performances than typical popular song genre. The sound of her voice, means of interpretation made these recordings a standard for many subsequent albums, not only those close to Ewa Demarczyk in terms of genre. Brave, dramatic interpretations make these songs being more modernistic mini-dramatic performances than typical popular song genre. The sound of her voice, means of interpretation made these recordings a standard for many subsequent albums, not only those close to Ewa Demarczyk in terms of genre. In Polish musical culture, it became an event with momentous consequences, it was reissued at least 11 times, thus filling the generation gap and creating a context for most poetic songs. Four stars would be sufficient for objective reasons, but from the point of view of Polish culture, the album undoubtedly deserves the full five stars. Ultimately, I propose to accept a rating of four and a half stars, understanding that such a rating does not fully reflect the importance of this album at a specific historical moment and a specific place on the map of Europe.