Ophelia and Moniuszko

I'm not thinking of stablishing 14th February as "Ophelia's Day" on Liedarabend, but I jotted down some Ophelia's songs in my notebook and we’ve only heard, so far, those of Brahms (last year, at the very same period) and Strauss (some weeks later). So, this week we're talking about Ophelia and Moniuszko, no matter the song doesn't talk exactly about Valentine's Day.

Stanisław Moniuszko is considered the father of Polish national opera; pieces such as Halka or Straszny Dwór (The Haunted House) made his name known beyond the Slavic countries. He's also considered the liaison between the most international figure in Polish music, Frédéric Chopin, and the greatest name of the 20th century, Karol Szimanovski. To set the context, Moniuszko lived between 1819 and 1872; It was, therefore, nine years younger than Chopin (and also, than the whole first generation of Romantic composers born around that year: Liszt, Schumann, Mendelssohn or Wagner) and died ten years before Szimanowski was born.

Born in Ubiel (today in Belarus), his family moved to Warsaw years later. The young Stanisław completed his musical education in Germany and when he came back three years later, in 1840, he settled in Vilnius, where he taught music (as well as composing, naturally), before he settled again in Warsaw. He travelled often along Europe, being in touch with many of his colleagues in Germany, France or Russia. From 1858 and for fifteen years, he directed the Warsaw Opera, being always conditioned (as the whole country was) by their political circumstances and watched closely by the censorship imposed by Russia.

In addition to opera and operetta, he virtually cultivated all genres: ballets, sacred, symphonic, incidental or chamber music, solo piano and, naturally, songs. He wrote his first ones in 1848, shortly after arriving at Berlin; There were three songs with poems by the most important Polish poet of the time, Adam Mickiewicz, and they were published by the famous editors Bote & Bock, with good reception among critics. He wrote his last songs the year he died, and, all in all, they add up to more than three hundred. In 1843, he published a collection of eighteen songs with the title Spiewnik Domowy (Songbook for Home Use). He explained in an article that he did his best to choose the best poets, and hoped that the collection would be of some interest for his readers:

He published twelve volumes until 1859; in total, 267 songs. As the composer remarks in those lines, most of the poets he chose were Polish, but there were also some French, German or English (such as Shakespeare) ones; Music is often inspired by folklore, but some songs find inspiration in religious music or German Romanticism. Moniuszko wanted his songs to be performed at home, by non-professional musicians; the musical language is often simple and there are some pieces specially devoted to children.

We’ve heard so far, enough songs to unsderstand that talking about "a simple song" is not at all derogatory; it can be as beautiful as our song today, Piosnka obłąkanej Ofelii (which could be translated by Song of the mad Ophelia); "just" a charming melody is needed, subtly underlined by some chords at the first stanza and the triplets at the second.

Moniuszko chose, in the Polish translation of Krystyn Ostrowski, four of the verses that Ophelia sings in her delirium at the beginning of scene V in the fourth act, immediately before of those we heard in Brahms and Strauss' songs. Today, the performers of Piosnka obłąkanej Ofelii are Olga Maroszek and Elżbieta Tyszecka.