Description

Prince Michał Kleofas Ogiński (1765-1833) was the father of the Polish pianistic tradition. As the inventor of the Polonaise and the Mazurka for piano, designed for listening rather than dancing to, he was a primary infuence on the old Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the treated music purely as a hobby, yet his Polonaise “Farewell to the Fatherland” remains to this day perhaps the best known and loved piece of music in all the Slav lands from the River Oder to the Bering Straits.His progeny, the Ogiński Dynasty, has produced published composers and performing musicians with every generation to the present day. This is the remarkable story of that musical gene, often passing through the female line, now in its seventh generation and showing no signs of abating.CD enclosed. Hardback.