On May 5, 1819, Stanislaw Moniuszko was born. On this occasion, the Polish Parliament adopted a resolution on July 20, 2018, which reads:
2019 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Stanislaw Moniuszko, an eminent composer, conductor, organist, educator, director of the Grand Theatre in Warsaw, and creator of the Polish national opera.
The compositional output of Stanislaw Moniuszko, comprising operas, songs, cantatas, religious, symphonic, chamber and solo works, as well as operettas, ballets and music for drama, is impressive in its variety, melodic richness and deep roots in the national musical tradition. His operatic and song output constitutes the core of the Polish vocal repertoire and is often the axis of artistic interest of the most outstanding Polish singers.
He was the author of the "Śpiewnik domowy" ("Home Songbook") containing over 200 songs. The term "homemade" had a deeper meaning, in order to avoid Russian censorship, and in a veiled way, it emphasized the national character of the songs contained in the songbook.
In his works, the composer willingly drew on elements of folklore and folk customs. Giving his works local color by referring to tradition and folk music influenced the popularity of the then established so-called national schools, i.e. groups of composers of one nationality who created music based on elements of their own culture - traditional melodies, rhythms of national dances and texts in their native language.
Stanislaw Moniuszko was an exemplary patriot and, as Zdzislaw Jachimecki, a scholar of his work, wrote in 1921, "blood from blood and bone from bone Pole". The composer's works, his great operas such as "Halka" and "The Haunted Manor", touching the essence of the Polish idiom - both in text and music - are to this day an inspiration for many artists, and in his contemporaries they created a palette of colors with which Poles painted the most beautiful shades of patriotic feelings and national identity. He was one of the founders of the Warsaw Musical Society - an organization whose role in the development of Polish musical culture cannot be overestimated, and which today bears the name of this exceptional artist.
The Sejm of the Republic of Poland, convinced of the special significance of the composer's work, paying tribute to this outstanding figure, establishes the year 2019 as the Year of Stanislaw Moniuszko.
Speaker of the Sejm: Marek Kuchciński
Events related to the Year of Moniuszko across Poland:
