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"Bydło" is not Polish for "oxcart" but rather, "cattle"

Don't take my word for it (pronounced "bid-wo")

It's also the same word in Ukranian: "бидло", just pronounced with a hard "l".

Pejoratively, it's sometimes used in the sense of "unwashed peasants" or "human cattle" in Ukranian.

Here are some images of "Bydło" on various Polish sites. See any oxcarts?

Here are some Ukranian "бидло". No oxcarts here either.

A very interesting theory!

This would also make the slightly strained sound of a tuba in its highest register very appropriate - although of course Ravel probably did not know of this (potential) hidden meaning (and I know it would not sound so strained on French C tuba). But, it does make the tuba even more appropriate than we previously thought.

Neptune wrote:But, it does make the tuba even more appropriate than we previously thought.

Unless you miss notes.

I have a recording of the original piano-four-hands version, and I need to listen to it again.

But one thing we know without having to study the matter is that the notes need to be secure. And accomplishing that is apparently not as easy as some thing, given the number of times I've heard world-class players struggle with it in the actual performance situation.

Rick "where's my euphonium?" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:Unless you miss notes.

...one thing we know without having to study the matter is that the notes need to be secure. And accomplishing that is apparently not as easy as some think, given the number of times I've heard world-class players struggle with it in the actual performance situation.

But it just makes the "march to the gallows" that much more authentic!

the elephant wrote:Ah, yes . . . I know this now. So how did the whole "Ox Cart" thing become so widespread and pedestrian in our world if no picture by Hartmann is known to exist? Boy, did we fall for the cover story, or what?

Some guy writing his History of Music thesis probably had a copy of the Polish version of the Dirty Hungarian Phrasebook and worked from that.

Mój poduszkowiec jest pełen węgorzy.

So... does Bydło mean cattle and Bydlo mean oxcart?

The Ravel orchestration uses "Bydlo." What is used in the original Mussorgsky piano version?

quinterbourne wrote:What is used in the original Mussorgsky piano version?

"Bałłbuster"...

quinterbourne wrote:The Ravel orchestration uses "Bydlo." What is used in the original Mussorgsky piano version?

Probably "бидло", but I'll check. Still no cart. "Bydlo" in Ravel would be an accurate transliteration of the Cyrillic.

Close--in Russian, it's "Быдло", still meaning cattle, but more in the pejorative sense. But still no cart

But the piano part contains the following footnote:

"Быдло" - польÑ

Wow! I always thought Bydlo meant "root canal".

Matt Good wrote:Wow! I always thought Bydlo meant "root canal".

Too many K's...
канал корнÑ

I don't think Moussorgsky actually meant that 'Bydlo" means an oxcart, just that he couldn't do much with a picture of cattle standing around, so he added the allusion.

I guess he wasn't quite up to Rodgers and Hammerstein:

All the cattle are standing like statues,
All the cattle are standing like statues,
They don't turn their heads as they see me ride by.
But a little brown mav'rick is winking her eye.

If you say Bydlo to anybody here in Alabama, they would likely assume that you bought something really really cheap.

Pop Korn wrote:Secondly, bydlo means ox.

Polsih for "ox" is "wół". "Było" means cattle or livestock collectively, not the single animal. In Russian, "ox" is "бык"; in Ukranian, it's "бик".

[quote="Pop Korn"}
The young tenor peasant driving the cart is the honest, noble, hardworking peasant singing of his people's suffering. His is a lamentation with short heart-felt phrases and sighs, emotionally swelling with feeling. Those high G sharps should ring out - and hang full and golden in the air - not sound at all thin and strained - even sweet.[/quote]

I contend that the tuba is, instead, intended to mimic the lowing of the oxen as they struggle to pull the cart. Thus, I would expect a little straining or even growling.

ContraEuph wrote:I talked to a violinist who is FROM Poland and she told me its pronounce "BYDWO". SHe also told me that it only means ox and told me a word that sounds closely related that means a degrating word for someone. She told me that if you call someone Bydwo, that it is a degrading thing to be called the name. That's all I got.
Hope it helped.

My original comment on all of this was that "bydlo" (in whatever spelling you imagine it; (neither Hartmann nor Mussorgsky titled their stuff in Roman letters) does not mean an "oxcart". A statement of "Bylo in Polish means a cart drawn by oxen" or some such makes me suspect the rest of whatever scholarly pronoucements follow.

However, it seems that ol' Modest was trying to portray an oxcart as the following shows at the bottom of the movement in the piano part:



But I don't believe that it actually says that the word "means" an oxcart. That just doesn't make any sense at all. But then, it's "wiener sausage" and "hamburger sandwich", isn't it?

Chuck(G) wrote:However, it seems that ol' Modest was trying to portray an oxcart as the following shows at the bottom of the movement in the piano part:



But I don't believe that it actually says that the word "means" an oxcart. That just doesn't make any sense at all. But then, it's "wiener sausage" and "hamburger sandwich", isn't it?

Are you saying that you can read the Cyrillic text? If so, what does it say?

Rick "who spent two hours figuring out one Russian word, once" Denney

Rick Denney wrote:Are you saying that you can read the Cyrillic text? If so, what does it say?

Rick "who spent two hours figuring out one Russian word, once" Denney

Scroll up a few posts, Rick.