Ukrainian Village Music

These songs help you realize how close village music of the world is. It sometimes sounds exactly like fiddling from the Appalachian mountains! There are 24 different songs on this set, all recorded back between 1928 to 1933. These are the types of songs our grandparents would have been dancing around to at weddings and festivals.

There are a variety of polkas represented, as well as a waltz, a Hussar dance, and other styles of music as well. Most of it is instrumental, while some contain words. There are also often spoken introductions to the songs.

You really get an amazing sense of the power and energy of these songs! It's important to remember that in 1932 to 1933, the Soviet government deliberately created a famine in Ukraine, trying to subjugate the Ukrainian population. Up to 10 million people - primarily the poor Ukrainian peasant farmers - died as a result. Even with these events going on, the Ukrainian people found a way to dance away their cares and lose themselves in the whirl of the music, if only for a night.

When I recently went to visit my Ukrainian relatives, they talked about what it was like to live back in the days of World War II. They had little food, and slept 12 to a room - but they sang all night, enjoying each others company. I find that same joy here, in these songs. They might have been hungry, but they had each other, and they had the ability to sing and enjoy life. They were going to celebrate that.

Of course this isn't a classical music symphony! These aren't studio-trained musicians. They were farmers, weavers and blacksmiths who, on a fine Ukrainian evening, picked up their well worn instruments and helped to entertain their friends and relatives. You can hear with every note that these were real people. I really treasure this collection.

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