Jankiel

[Joshua Horowitz <horowitz...>]

A couple of years ago after a gig in east Germany I was watching Polish
TV in my hotel room at 3:00 in the morning, trying to get to sleep. It
was around the time of Fasching (Mardi Gras). The show featured some
folk theater/dance group doing Krakowiaks and Mazurkas in puffy costumes
with generic flower stitchings all over them, when suddenly this figure
comes out on the set, with a caftan, long beard and peos with a cymbal
draped around his neck. I couldn't understand the text being sung, but I
guess it was supposed to be Jankiel. The music sounded like Goralska
stuff, not Jewish (there's no mention in Mickiewicz's poem of Jewish
music either) and the tsimbl player played very rudimentarily. Josh 

Peter Rushefsky wrote:
> 
> Wow-- does Josh get to play Jankiel in the movie version?
> 
> >>> Jerzy Matysiakiewicz 02/17 2:09 PM >>>
> Of course it refers to the instrument. In Polish
> "cymbaly" that is instrument with strings hammered by
> player with two sticks.
> Toy version names "cymbalki" and is with metal plates
> in diatonic scale hammered by sticks.
> "Cymbaly" are the instrument on which played Jankiel in
> Polish romantic poem "Pan Tadeusz" /just adapted to the
> screens by Andrzej Wajda/. Every children in Poland
> knows what is "Koncert Jankiela" /Yankele's concerto/
> with phrase "bylo w Polsce cymbalistów wielu, ale zaden
> nie smial zagrac przy Jankielu" /there were many
> cymbals player in Poland but no one comparable with
> Yankele - in crude translation/.
> Jankiel was described by Mickiewicz as were positive,
> highly patriotic person.
> 
> Jerzy Matysiakiewicz M.D., Ph.D
> Poland-Polska


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