Cross-posted from my other blog on Wordpress where I describe our efforts to prepare for a concert featuring Ukrainian music in The Pine Tree State.
The Maine Balkan Choir is now rehearsing our programme of Ukrainian music for an upcoming concert to benefit a children’s charity in Ukraine. We have selected songs to reflect the wide variety of musical genres and the rich traditions of Slavic/East European choral music. We will sing mostly in Ukrainian but also in Russian and Yiddish. Pop tunes, love songs, classic folk songs and children’s lullies make up the tapestry of sound we will present.
This week we begin one in particular that deserves explanation – “The Duck Swims.”
It’s not new to this war
The song has been around for thirty years or more. A choir in Canada sang it in 1987. The link to their essay is: https://www.cheremshyna.ca/the-story-of-the-song-plyve-kacha-po-tysyni/
The essay referenced this version:
Many artists have covered this song, with many sets of visual images to convey the feeling imparted by the music. Here is one that uses scenes of families fleeing the conflict with their children.
I can’t do a better job at telling the story, but I can set the stage as to one other piece of the background. From a musicological perspective, the composition of the tune reflects a thousand years of history of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches. Here are two examples.
Miserere Mei Deus
A renaissance-era classic lament with a famous backstory involving Mozart (as in, Wolfgang Amadeus. that guy) and his 1770 visit to see the Roman Catholic Pope in the Sistine Chapel.
Russian Orthodox Church/ Ukrainian Orthodox Church
In this case, it is a small a capella choir of priests and nuns in Saint Petersburg. They are not singing Plivye Cacha, but rather “The Lord’s Prayer.”
A church service usually includes a psalm or two, from among the 150 presented in the Book of Psalms. It’s easy to find many examples of this style on YouTube, especially if you use search words in Cyrillic. This format for psalms is familiar in the order of Mass of the Roman Catholic church as well, where the psalm-singing is always presented in a predictable way so that the congregation might follow along with prompts from the choir.
To me, the inspiration for Pliyve Cacha comes directly from this other tradition. What makes it so powerful is that it is a secular (i.e., non-religious) song presented in this way. Can you hear what it is that I am talking about?
At the site of Top 10 Ukrainian Folk songs, it says:
“It is a farewell song. The song has become popular after the requiem for Euromaidan heroes in 2014. A duck crossing waters is a symbol of death and going to the other side. It is a beautiful lament that speaks to the dangers and price of war.
“The language is an example of the Transcarpathian dialect, so it may be a bit hard for Ukrainian learners. That said, if there is ever a case when you don’t have to understand the lyrics to get the meaning, this may be it.
Singing a choral tune involves the mechanical learning of lyrics, melody and harmony but at the highest level, also calls out for the singer to feel it in their heart. Then, so will the audience. If you believe in the power of music, you are sending a message of love and support to Ukraine. We are not a professional ensemble, but even in the quick intro from last week’s rehearsal in Belfast I thought we could pull it off. We will refine it further.
See you in Belfast Tuesday (or Pownal Wednesday) !