Stanisław Moniuszko was a Polish composer, conductor and teacher who wrote many popular art songs, operas, operettas, ballet and incidental works, with his music being particularly notable for its patriotic folk themes from the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

Moniuszko was born on 5 May 1819, Ubiel in the Minsk Governorate. In 1837 he left for Berlin, where he took private instruction in harmony, counterpoint, instrumentation and conducting with Carl Friedrich Rungenhagen, the director of the Singakademie Music Society. Having spent three years in Berlin, Moniuszko returned to Poland in 1840, where he married Aleksandra Müller and settled down in Vilnius, where he took the organist’s position at St John’s, and is credited with reviving the...