Stanisław Moniuszko

Stanisław Moniuszko (May 5, 1819, Ubiel, Minsk Governorate – June 4, 1872, Warsaw, Congress Poland) was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher. He wrote many popular art songs and operas, and his music is filled with patriotic folk themes of the peoples of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (predominantly the Poles, Lithuanians and Belarusians).

He is generally referred to as the father of Polish national opera.

Moniuszko was born in Ubiel, Minsk Governorate (in present-day Belarus) in 1819 to a szlachta nobility of landowners from the eastern fringe of the Vilna Governorate of the already partitioned Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, its eastern subject, Grand Duchy of Lithuania. His mother (maiden-name Madziarska) had Polish-Hungarian-Armenian roots. Moniuszko displayed an early ability in music, and began private piano lessons with August Freyer in 1827. In 1837, once his talent and interest justified it, Moniuszko began to formally study composition in Berlin with Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen, the director of the "Singakademie" Music Society, who also instructed him in choral conducting. At the same time Moniuszko studied major works of the classical repertoire as well as the process involved in staging music. While in Berlin, he had an unexpected early success when he set three songs to the words of the Polish national poet, Adam Mickiewicz. Several of his songs composed during this period were published by Bote & Bock and were favorably received by the music critics.

...
Wikipedia