Sheet music: 33 Sorbian Folk Songs – for vocal & piano (paperback)

Bjarnat Krawc (Bernhard Schneider), composer, musicologist and conductor of notable Dresden choirs, was born near Kamenz in Saxony on 5th February, 1861, and is considered one of the outstanding Sorbian artistic figures in the first half of the twentieth century.
After his studies at Bautzen teacher training college and three years as a teacher, he moved to Dresden to study composition at the conservatoire with Professor Felix Draesecke, a pupil of Franz Lizst. His main interest was folk song, particularly the songs of his own people, the Sorbs. He was similarly aroused by the musical aesthetics of B. Smetana and A. Dvo®ák, as well as of R. Schumann and J. Brahms. His artistic reputation as composer, music teacher and choral conductor spread far beyond Dresden and the Lausitz and was acknowledged when he was awarded the title of Royal Saxon Director of Music.
In the years following World War I. Krawc exercised a decisive influence on Sorbian cultural life. As conductor, president and later honorary president of the Sorbian choral society, founded by him in 1922, Krawc effectively moulded the artistic maturity of the amateur choirs.
In 1925, Krawc’s 33 folk song arrangements, selected from around 1000 Sorbian folk melodies, were published for the first time. Krawc himself valued these songs as “diamonds from the soul of the people”. Almost all the songs in this collection had been published earlier in two booklets. “Zerja” (1921) and “Wulka lubosć” (1923), for 4- and 5-part mixed and male voice choirs. These arrangements earned praise and considerable respect in concerts both at home and abroad. Experts including such eminent figures as L. Janáček agreed that in his arrangement of simple folk song Krawc successfully achieved a masterly diversity and sensitive discrimination in the developement of the individual motifs.
Marking the 51st anniversary of the composer’s death, the “33 Sorbian folk songs for solo voice with piano accompaniment” have been published at long last in a new edition by the Sorbian music publisher SERVI, with assistance from the Sorbian People’s Foundation. Alongside the (original) Sorbian song texts, the collection includes new German language texts by various authors, to enable the Sorbian folk songs to reach a wider public. This song collection appears at the same time on CD, complete for the first time in a new recording.