Elwira Janasik, Jolanta Pawlik - Moniuszko: Pieśni / Songs (2020)

Perhaps most of us associate "Halka" and "The Haunted Manor" with Moniuszko. Perhaps, as an example, "Prząśniczka". And the "Bajka" overture. And so much ... About the fact that Stanisław Moniuszko created 13 operas, 7 operettas, masses, cantatas, music for plays, ballets, symphonic, chamber and piano music - hardly anyone knows. And yet Moniuszko is above all the author of over 300 songs.

A dozen or so are well-known, several dozen known to a handful of specialists, nobody knows them all. It may be too bold, but I will risk it. If there is someone who knows them all - not just the titles - I take back what I wrote. Moniuszko's legacy is rarely recalled. And yet it is one of the canons of our culture.

The idea of ​​presenting Moniuszko's well-known, little-known and unknown songs came from Jolanta Pawlik, a lecturer at the Warsaw Academy of Music. This is not the artist's first, interesting and original initiative. Together with the great and unjustly unknown mezzo-soprano Elwira Janasik, this time they are discovering the new face of the still underestimated composer.