Dumka: 'Thought'

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Dvorak - Slavonic Dance No.2 in E minor, 'Dumka'

Today marks the date of the death of the Czech composer Antonin Dvorak (8 September 1841 - 1 May 1904). Listen to this beautiful 'Dumka' by Dvorak:


Jarema's dumka (1879), a painting by Stanisław Masłowski in the National Museum in Warsaw.


'Dumka' (думка) is a musical term introduced from the Ukranainian but with cognates in other Slavic languages. The word "dumka" literally means "thought". Originally, it is the diminutive form of the Ukrainian duma, a Slavic (specifically Ukrainian) epic ballad...generally thoughtful or melancholic in character. Ukrainian and other Slavic composers drew on the harmonic patterns in the folk music of their countries to inform their compositions, most notably Antonin Dvorak. In instrumental music it has come to mean 'a type of instrumental music involving sudden changes from melancholy to exuberance'. 

Antonín Dvořák - Wikipedia
Antonin Dvorak

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