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It's "Bydlo"--the Polish word for "cattle" and pronounced "bid-wo" (approximately). It's one of the scenes from Mussorgsky's "Pictures at an Exhibition" and known among tubists for the very high tuba part in the orchestration written by Maurice Ravel.

knuxie wrote:

It's "Bydlo"--the Polish word for "cattle"

The more accurate meaning of Bydlo is 'a cart with big wheels drawn by a cow,' interpretative of the oppression of the people at the time.

Ken F.

The title is the Polish word for "cattle":

In a letter of Musorgsky's to Stassov, written in June, 1874, just before the "Pictures" were completed, the composer calls this movement Sandomirzsko Bydlo, ie, "Cattle at Sandomir", and adds that the picture represents a wagon, "but the wagon is not inscribed on the music; that is purely between us".
- from "Victor Hartmann and Modeste Musorgsky", by Alfred Frankenstein
Published in The Musical Quarterly, July, 1939

Hartmann's sketch depicted a Polish dray, drawn by a team of oxen. The music is eloquent of the steady, powerful pull of the beasts.

There is also a pejorative meaning to "Bydlo" to the Ukranians--that of a dullard, or coarse unsophisticated peasant--particuarly those from Poland.

Wikipedia Bydlo article

What's your source for "Bydlo" meaning an oxcart?

Hi Ken,

That's interesting, but I can find nothing in any Polish dictionary referring to "bydło" meaning anything but "cattle".

I wonder if Stassov was to Mussorgsky what Schindler was to Beethoven--full of interesting stories because he was a friend who could cash in as a biographical source; unfortunately, many of the same stories were apocryphal.



It doesn't make a lot of sense to read "oppression"into the work. In Mussorgsky's time, Russia, Mussorgsky's native land,was have been the primary oppressor. Alexander I was particularly nasty in that respect.

I think it's kind of funny that the Japanese page you cited spells it "Bydro" in the title, particularly since the stroke-l in Polish is pronouced as a "w"!

Well, I don't think we're going to sort it out here. But a painting of an oxcart called "cattle" in a foreign language kind of smacks of the following etymological snafus:

Yucatan: "I don't understand you"
Kangaroo: "I don't know"
Llama: "What's its name?"
Luzon: "What did you say?"

Is tubenet the only place in the world where people will argue over the meaning of Bydlo?

Ponts made, you can stop now.

Alex C wrote:Is tubenet the only place in the world where people will argue over the meaning of Bydlo?

I dunno, Alex. Maybe we should move the topic over to Trombone-L...