Making Music in the Polish Tatras: Tourists, Ethnographers, and Mountain Musicians

6 Village for Hire

6 Village for Hire Fall 1994, afternoon, any day of the week. Walking up Krupówki street from the bottom of the hill where the street ends at Kościeliska Street, I am bombarded with sounds. Closed to vehicles except horsedrawn carriages, so-called Górale taxis, the street is crowded with people ( fig. 6.1). I start my journey as I exit the old log restaurant Redykołka, where Górale musicians play in the evening and tapes of muzyka Podhala are played during the day. Immediately on my left, a late-nineteenthcentury stone church dominates the lower end of Krupówki. Inside this church, I once attended the memorial service for Tadeusz Sztromajer, the founder and longtime director of the song and dance troupe named after Bartuś Obrochta. Included in the music for the service were wierchowe played by Górale musicians, and the church organist played a few arrangements of Górale nuty. Back on the street I greet acquaintances, stop and talk with Andrzej, a young Górale taxi driver by day and Górale dancer at Redykołka by evening. Five young men in high spirits make their way down the street as I walk up it. They break into singing a wierchowa. Music cassette vendors, some in small booths set up on the edge of the street and some with stores, flood the street with recorded 204 Making Music in the Polish Tatras Figure 6.1. Looking up Krupówki Street across the intersection with Tadeusza Kościuszki Street, Zakopane, summer 1997. music to attract customers. One vendor constantly plays tapes by the local group Krywań, which specializes in plugged-in versions of muzyka Podhala . Others play more traditional muzyka Podhala or Polish, American, and Western European pop music. Crossing the intersection at Tadeusza Kościuszki Street, I hear muzyka Podhala emanating from the offices of the Zwia ˛zek Podhalan a few doors down on the left. Continuing up Krupówki I encounter a Roma ensemble with violin, accordion, and guitar. A man who appears to be getting a head start on the evening’s revelry requests a tune po góralsku Village for Hire 205 and sings a przyśpiewka. The violinist obliges with a short ozwodna, but he “swings” the tune with a fluid bowing style favored by Roma musicians (and American swing-style fiddlers, among others). At least three Roma bands are active in Zakopane. One plays weekly at an old inn on the road to Kościelisko, another moves between two restaurants on Krupówki Street in the evenings, and the third plays in one of the many dining rooms in the hotel “Morskie Oko.” This newly renovated historic hotel—a showpiece halfway up Krupówki—is an interesting study. In the evenings during high-tourist season, one has a choice of three different musics under the same roof. On the lower floor are two dining and dance areas: one is decorated like a posh 1950s nightclub and is for “Roma music”; the second features a rustic Górale-style interior with several open fireplaces. Górale ensembles are hired to play in this area, and they provide a few examples of muzyka Podhala usually with a pair of dancers, followed by polkas and waltzes for multiple-couple dancing. On the floor above, an old theater has been turned into a large techno disco with throbbing music and pulsating light shows. The festival stage and the fusion CD are not the only ways to experience music in Podhale. A walk up Krupówki Street any day of the week reveals an astonishing cornucopia of available musics, and the possibilities only multiply as one explores Zakopane’s other streets. Classical music recital series are offered at a number of venues, including a villa once occupied by the composer Karol Szymanowski .1 In addition to the Morskie Oko hotel, Zakopane boasts several discos, a jazz piano lounge, and an increasing number of “regional restaurants” that hire Górale ensembles. If isolation ever was the shaping force behind music in Podhale, it no longer is. Clearly the activities of Górale song and dance troupes, and the particular ceremonial representations on folk festival stages, are specialized corners of music-culture in Podhale. And it is too simple to conclude that the concert series and discos exist solely to cater to tourists, while Górale satisfy themselves with muzyka Podhala . In...