Oginski, Michal Kleofas

Born Sept. 25, 1765, in Gu-zów, near Warsaw; died Oct. 15, 1833, in Florence. Polish composer and politician. Count.

Ogiński studied piano with J. Kozłowski and violin with I. M. Jarnović, G. B. Viotti, and P. Baillot. He served as a deputy in the Four Years’ Sejm (1788–92) and participated in T. Kościusz-ko’s uprising, emigrating in 1795. In 1802 he settled in Zalesie, near Vilnius, and as a senator of the Russian empire, frequently visited St. Petersburg. From 1822 to 1833 he lived in Florence.

Ogiński wrote patriotic songs and marches, art songs, and some 40 piano pieces, including polonaises (of which the best known is Farewell to the Motherland), waltzes, mazurkas, and other dances. Some of these works are included in the Selected Works for Piano, published in Moscow in 1954. He is also noted for his opera Zélis et Valeur, ou Bonaparte au Caire and the song “Poland Has Not Yet Perished,” which subsequently became the Polish national anthem. His memoirs were published in four volumes in Paris in 1826–27, and his Letters on Music were issued in Kraków in 1956.