The collection of the Regional Society in Wola Osowińska at the Regional Museum in Wola Osowińska
Kocka 29,
21-345 Wola Osowińska
http://towreg.prv.pl/
Wacław Tuwalski (1909 – 1995) – teacher, regionalist, he was documenting the songs from the region of Wola Osowińska. When he wasn’t teaching, he would go around the nearest area (Wola Osowińska, Osowno, Olszewnica, Oszczepalin) and record songs. He started docummenting before the war, mainly the wedding repertuare – unfortunately most of that work was destroyed during the war. Tuwalski resumed his work later, using ZK140T tape recorder.
In 2015 IS PAN Phonographic Archives recieved Tuwalski’s collection of recordings from his daughter – Alina Bryńczak. The collection consists of 24 magnetic reel tapes and 2 casette tapes. They have been digitalized by Kaja Maćko-Gieszcz and Ewelina Grygier within the 2nd stage of the project. It is worth to mention that a couple years earlier Janina Szymańska was interested in the collection, which she partly described in the volume dedicated to Podlasie region of Polish folk songs and music series.
The material is splitted in two groups: ethnographic and ethnomusical recordings. The first one consists of interviews e.g. about folk medicine – herb treatment of people and animals. The second one consists of ethnomusical recordings – documenting folklore and members of Tuwalski’s group of mandolinists that had been functioning since the 80s. Tuwalski documented wedding, funeral, love and patrotic songs as well as town folklore. That being said, the material is full of different kinds of recordings, but most of them are ceremonial-wedding songs.
There’s only one interview with a man – Jan Balbra – because Wacław Tuwalski would document mainly elderly people, almost only women Less common are groups of younger girls („girls from Olszewnica”) or students. Apart from the recordings of the group of mandolinists that was run by Tuwalski himself, there is no documentation of instrumental music from Wola Osowińska and its surroundings, There are also many recordings of patriotic songs, most likely performed by Tuwalski’s students or members of his group of mandolinists.
Apart from the sound there is also a written documentation – mainly transcript notebooks with the music and lyrics written down. The Wacław Tuwalski’s recordings collection is a valuable source of research on a local folklore of Wola Osowińska and its nearest areas. The documentation of the recordings collection of the Regional Society in Wola Osowińska has been digitalized and described by Ewelina Grygier within the Polish folk music – phonographic heritage project.
Zob. więcej:
Ewelina Grygier, Kolekcja nagraniowa Wacława Tuwalskiego – mało znana karta polskiej etnofonografii, w: Polska muzyka tradycyjna – dziedzictwo fonograficzne. Stan aktualny, zachowanie, udostępnianie, Instytut Sztuki Polskiej Akademii Nauk, Stowarzyszenie Liber Pro Arte, Warszawa 2017, s. 124-151.