This new CD from The Fryderyk Chopin Institute (NIFC) presents the songs of Stanisław Moniuszko, performed here by Marius Godlewski (baritone) and Radosław Kurek (piano). The album has been recorded on Moniszko's own piano, preserved at Warsaw's 'Teatr Wielki' Polish National Opera.

For their third joint album, baritone Mariusz Godlewski and pianist Radosław Kurek have curated a selection of songs which represents the full diversity of themes found within Moniuzsko's oeuvre. In aid of the preservation of Polish national identity, The Warsaw Society of Friends of Learning (TPN) published Julian Ursyn Niemcewicz's Historical Songs (1816): thirty-two poems about Polish kings, knights, and commanders, complete with drawings, set for voice and piano by about a dozen different musicians. With twenty successive editions, this collection became the bible of the Polish youth, and the songs were sung in homes throughout Poland, including the Moniuszko family's household in Ubiel (Minsk Region, now Ubel' in Belarus). Moniuszko spent his childhood evenings singing those songs with his mother Elżbieta; he apparently learned them by heart. Moniuszko went on to become known as the 'Polish Schubert'.

In his Studies on Romantic Song, Mieczysław Tomaszewski lists the main thematic areas of Schubert's Lieder: namely, historical and love songs, pieces dedicated to social life, concerning the fatherland and nature, as well as philosophical and religious ones. Similar themes can be found in the songs of Stanisław Moniuszko, the Polish Schubert.