Name: Mazurek Ciarkowskiego NEW ALBUM "Knee-Deep in Heaven" by Prusinowski Kompania
Duration: 2 min 39 s
Description: What struck me right away about this music was its amazing ability to mix the feel and power of village dance music with the personal contemporary sensibilities of the players. —Michal Shapiro (Huffington Post 2012)

What struck me right away about this music was its amazing ability to mix the feel and power of village dance music with the personal contemporary sensibilities of the players. —Michal Shapiro (Huffington Post 2012)

Mazurek Ciarkowskiego NEW ALBUM "Knee-Deep in Heaven"

“There was I, there was I, knee-deep in heaven, 
but it was for you, my dear, that I did return”

There exist many heavens: “the starry heavens above”, “heavenly taste”, “seventh heaven”. There are “sometime-somewhere” heavens and “here-and-now” heavens; and occasionally (quite by chance) you can fall in and find yourself ankle-deep, knee-deep, ear-deep in heaven.

Can you experience heaven if you do not believe in its existence? It seems to me that the symbolic space of heaven has disappeared from dinner table discussions, from the media, from the public discourse; it has been superseded by notions of “success” and “pleasure”. And because nature abhors a vacuum, the void left by heaven has been replaced with sadness. Those who lack an appetite for life do not know – perhaps because they have not experienced it, or because nobody showed them the way or told them about it – that it is possible to end up knee-deep in heaven.

I hope the these tiny, imperfect reflections of heaven will inspire you to take rhythmic steps on the ground and, at the same time, take a bold look to the skies. 

Janusz Prusinowski

Knee-Deep In Heaven / Po Kolana W Niebie NEW ALBUM

Mazowsze Pólnocne, po Michale Rubinie, ze zbioru Tadeusz Kiszczaka. Nagranie 2002, Studio Rogalów.
Remek Hanaj - skrzypce, Katarzyna Andrzejowska - wtór, Daniel de Latour - bas.

Pies Szczeka - Chodzony od Gruduska / North Masovia

Maria Siwiec - an outstanding singer from Gałki Rusinowskie who has memorised hundreds of secular and religious songs and special dance songs, from which musicians develop melodies and the whole rich content of their mazureks. She belongs to the most famous vocal group from the Radomskie region. She is one of our Great Teachers.

*Guest performance on Janusz Prusinowski Trio (now Kompania) album "Knee-Deep in Heaven".


Mazurek about Love

Oh, beloved God, are you there in heaven,
Do these pleas of mine ever reach you there?

Down the village road walked a girl with a prayer
That she’d finally meet some boy, even one that’s lame.

Shine, my little moon, for my star has faded,
And that dark night found me at my girl’s place.

The night was so dark, in the darkness I got caught.
What a foolish girl I am, couldn’t wait till daylight.

Oh, my life’s so hard, I didn’t sow the land,
So the girl I love shouldn’t work too hard.

Oh, my love, my love, I wish you never got me,
For this wretched love makes my eyes still weep.

The moon shines for you, and the stars shine for me,
For you’re only loved by one, but everyone loves me.

In the dark hall, on a ladder, a black cockerel perched,
I would kiss your lips if they remained sealed.

I would kiss your lips if they remained sealed,
Let it be our little secret, and let no one know it.

Oh, I have no money, but what is money for?
I can’t take it up to heaven, I don’t need it there.

Oh, I do and I don’t, I can’t have what I want,
But I’ll have what I want when Johnny comes home.

Oh, my heart splits in two, in two halves it breaks,.
One half cries in sorrow, but the other is joyous. 

Oh, so sad is my heart, but it’s also proud.
Oh, I never could forget who my first love was.
Oh, da dana…


Maria Siwiec & Prusinowski Kompania - Mazurek o miłości/Mazurek about Love

Weselcie się ludzie, już wam dobrze będzie, 
Bóg zwalczył szatana ,co zdradził Adama

Ty piekielny smoku , koniec ci w tym roku,
Już ci łeb zdeptano jako obiecano.

Już ci nic nie sprawisz ,darmo się tu bawisz
W Rajuś nas z zazdrości pozbawił radości

Co Ewa straciła, Panna naprawiła
Porodziła Syna, dziwna to nowina.

Anieli Śpiewają ,pokój ogłaszają
Na ziemi wesele, że Bóg żyje w ciele

Wszystko się zmieniło jak nigdy nie było
Wino rzeką ciecze ciepło jakby w lecie

Lwami drzewo worzą ,niedźwiedziami orzą
Zając z chartem siedzą, jednej misy jedzą

Liszka pasie kury, kot myszy i szczury
Wilk owcom nie szkodzi, wespół z niemi chodzi

Ptacy tez wspomnieli ,co przedtem umieli
Gdyż fraktem śpiewają ,na muzyce grają

Skowronek dyszkantem, a sikora altem
Wróbel zaś tenorem, gawron jest kantorem


Weselcie Się Ludzie 1

From the "Knee-deep in Heaven" album.
(after “Christ”, a poem by Julian Tuwim)


I do not complain, Father; I do not complain, My Lord,
That you’ve  given my heart this devastating love.

I do not complain, Father, that I must walk alone,
That I feel so weary upon this thorny road.

I pass the huts with the news: “It’s coming, by heaven’s grace”.
And people say: “Farewell…” And give me a piece of bread.

How can they find my words so hard to understand?
They really cannot see Your Holy Kingdom’s Kingdom is near.
(…)

The birds have little nests, there’s shelter for every bug,
But only Son of Man has nowhere to rest his head.

But that is no complaint, O Lord, just use your Mighty Will,
To help those quiet people to understand what I bring.


Mazurek Skarga / Mazurek Complaint

Single from the new album of Janusz Prusinowski Kompania, to be released 15.12.2018.

Premiere concert: Folkowo Bemowo, Warsaw: https://www.facebook.com/events/193104194950494/

fot. A. Rózga

Deszczowy / Rainy - Pre-release / Premiere 15.12.2018

Gdzie jest ta miłość / Where Is This Love - Pre-release / Premiere 15.12.2018

Pawelczyk / Oberek from Stanisław Pawelczyk - Pre-release / Premiere 15.12.2018

Kto jestem / Who I Am - Pre-release / Premiere 15.12.2018

Oberek z repertuaru skrzypka Józefa Ciastka (1920- 2012) z Czermna na Mazowszu Płockim.
Mateusz Niwiński - skrzypce I, śpiew
Iga Wasilewska - skrzypce II
Jacek Mielcarek - sopran sax
Agnieszka Niwińska - baraban
Jakub Mielcarek - basetla

Czerminianka

Janusz Prusinowski Kompania (formerly: Janusz Prusinowski Trio) is a group of musicians who follow in traditions of village masters they have learned from: Jan Lewandowski, Kazimierz Meto, Józef Zaraś, Piotr and Jan Gaca, Tadeusz Kubiak and many others – but they are also an avant-garde band with their own characteristic sound and language of improvisation. They combine music with dance and the archaic with the modern.

The Kompania’s unique style is the result of their attempt to find new ways of interpreting the most important elements of village music from central Poland. It brings together mazurkas – sung, played, danced to, improvised live – and modern man. What new quality can be given to archaic and seemingly simple melodies and rhythms without resorting to trendy sample mixing? It turns out that traditional music of Polish villages can be a reference point for a variety of genres: reminiscent of Chopin in its melodic pattern and the use of rubato, sharing a love of improvisation with blues and jazz, evocative of contemporary music in its tone, and possessing the expressiveness of rock music.

Between 2008 and 2012 the band performed in most of European countries, Asia, Canada, the USA (including Carnegie Hall and Chicago Symphony Center) – and of course Poland. Besides playing concerts with traditional Polish music the band prepared a special programme of performances “The village roots of Frédéric Chopin’s music” with pianist Janusz Olejniczak. In 2012 Kompania begun a unique project "Kujawy” with three masters of Polish music: Tadeusz Kubiak, Tomasz Stańko, Janusz Olejniczak, and a group of singers led by Ewa Grochowska.The group also performed with Michał Urbaniak, Artur Dutkiewicz and Alim Qasimov. Apart of concerts, Kompania’s music can be heard at the parties of village and urban Dance Clubs or theatrical performances at the Polish National Theatre and the Polish Radio Theatre. They also run musical and dance workshops. In 2008 the band released “Mazurkas”, an album which received rave reviews. This was followed in 2010 by their second album “Heart”. 

In October 2012 Janusz Prusinowski Kompania performed at the prestigious world music fair – WOMEX 2012 in Thessaloniki. In 2013 they spent a full month in USA with close to 30 concerts, and having seduced American audience with mazurek, they reached for Germany, France, Benelux, Great Britain, Croatia and a couple of other countries, everywhere leaving dedicated lovers of wild Polish melodies behind. They’ve also returned to Womex (Cardiff 2013) with the „Wild Music of the Heart of Poland” project, created to present Polish traditional music to the international audience. In 2014 Kompania is involved in various events of Oskar Kolberg’s Year. Currently promoting also their new album, named - and putting the listener - "Knee-deep in Heaven”. 

At present the band members include:

Janusz Prusinowski – fiddle, voice, dulcimer, Polish accordion 
Piotr Piszczatowski – baraban drum, frame drum
Michał Żak – wooden flutes, shawm, clarinet
Piotr Zgorzelski – folk bass, dancing
Szczepan Pospieszalski – trumpet
 

"I learned my first kujawiak from my father. After that it was blues and the electric guitar, and then in an Andrzej Bieńkowski film I heard the Józef Kędzierski band. It was a revelation: the authenticity, intensity and ease that I had been looking for throughout the world existed right here, beside me – in my own language and the musical phrases belonging to it. I started visiting village musicians and became fascinated with mazureks, getting to know a whole world around them. It turned out that almost every musician puts his fingers in different places, which means playing different sounds, in different scales. Of course there are lines and schools of musicians, but human life is long enough for a unique style to evolve, especially if someone plays at three weddings per week".
Janusz Prusinowski

Mazurek Ciarkowskiego NEW ALBUM "Knee-Deep in Heaven"

Prusinowski Kompania

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