Oginski - Piano Music

Michal Kleofas Oginski

Michal Kleofas Oginski (1765–1833) was a Polish diplomat and politician. He was also a composer of some 20 polonaises, piano pieces, mazurkas, marches, romances and waltzes.

The Polonaise in A minor, known as "Farewell to the Homeland", an extremely popular composition and widely recognizable in Poland, has long been considered to be the work of Oginski.

According to one of the myths surrounding the piece, it was written in 1794 as a commemoration of the defeat of the Kosciuszko Uprising, which also resulted in Oginski's emigration. No sources confirm such a scenario. The name "Farewell to the Homeland" appears for the first time - in the Polish or French version - only in editions created around 1860, more than a quarter of a century after the supposed composer's death. There is no known autograph of the piece. Oginski's name appeared for the first time in the context of a polonaise in A minor in an arrangement by Ignacy Feliks Dobrzynski, published in Warsaw by Rudolf Friedlein around 1855. In the following decades, the work became popular in many new arrangements, all erroneously attributed to Oginski.

According to new research (2023) by musicologist Agnieszka Leszczynska, the earliest known version of this piece comes from the print Marche triomphale suivie d'un Polonaise nationale (ca. 1831) signed by Kasper Napoleon Wysocki. Dr. Leszczynska concludes that Wysocki should be considered the actual creator of this famous composition.

Oginski Piano Sheet Music

for digital devices or to download & print

Total pieces by Oginski: 2