Stanisław Moniuszko, Wiktor Każyński, and Adaptations of Lithuanian Folk Songs

Abstract

The article analyses carefully selected and research-focused biographical facts and documents of two prominent musicians, Stanisław Moniuszko (1819–1872) and Wiktor Każyński (1812–1867), who lived and created in Vilnius in the middle of the nineteenth century. The research enables us to identify which one of them is the author of the manuscript titled “Material for Further Adaptations of Lithuanian Folk Songs” (Pol., “Materialy dalsze do obrabiania pieśni ludu litewskiego”). The publication highlights the importance of this document the title and content of which entail the activity of collecting Lithuanian folk songs that is so significant for the studies into the music history of Lithuania. New insights into the biographies, creative work, and correspondence of the two musicians provide an opportunity to verify the possibly erroneous statement established in historiography, according to which the authorship of this manuscript is attributed to Stanisław Moniuszko. Clarification of various circumstances associated with the origin of the above-mentioned document presented in the article leads to the conclusion that its authorship should be attributed to Wiktor Każyński, a composer and contemporary of Stanisław Moniuszko.