A new album by mezzo-soprano Izabela Kopeć, "Songs & Fantasmagories," by will be released on September 15. It was recorded with the accompaniment of the Teatr Wielki Polish National Opera Orchestra under the baton of Łukasz Borowicz and Ewa Pelwecka (piano).
The album is a result of the Polish mezzo-soprano’s 4-year research and artistic work over the accomplishments of a little-known, intriguing Polish composer active in the first half of the twentieth century, Ludomir Michał Rogowski, a Karol Szymanowski contemporary who has unjustly sunk into oblivion. On the album listeners will find unique recordings of Rogowski’s vocal and instrumental compositions he wrote over a period of 50 years of his career in Poland, France and Croatia.
The two-disc album contains 18 Croatian, French and Polish songs for mezzo-soprano, piano and violin, as well as 5 songs entitled "Fantasmagories” with orchestra accompaniment. Fantasmagoria is something ephemeral and exciting, an element of imagination rather than reality. It is something illusory.
At a time when Polish artists were paying tribute to cosmopolitanism, Rogowski struggled to promote Polish music and the work of Polish composers on Polish stages. He was regarded in the interwar period as one of the more promising composers whose style could be described as national art.
I was inspired by this unknown artist from Lublin. His mysticism, sensitivity to beauty, and uncompromising nature were all indicative of an extremely intriguing artist. I started my searches. It was not easy at all, because his vocal and instrumental music had never been recorded before. It was not published until now, 63 years after the death of the composer, says Izabela Kopeć.
Although Michał Ludomir Rogowski was one of the more interesting composers and conductors active in the first half of the 20th century, he is little known today in Poland. His biographers point out that "Rogowski's name appears in prestigious music encyclopaedias, but there are no recordings of his music." Izabela Kopeć recorded Rogowski's only preserved and musically interesting compositions, and the outcome of this undertaking is a two-disc album, "Songs and Fantasmagories."
Ludomir Michał Rogowski was born in 1881 in Lublin. He graduated from the Warsaw Institute of Music (he studied Composition under Zygmunt Noskowski and Roman Statkowski, and Conducting under Emil Młynarski). After that, he studied in Leipzig under Artur Nikisch and theorist Hugo Riemann, as well as in Munich, Rome and Paris (in 1911 he studied there singing under Józef Reszke). Before the First World War he was appointed Musical Director of Warsaw’s Modern Theatre. Apart from composing, Rogowski was also a very prolific columnist. In his literary work he dealt with the theory of music and the influence of a nation’s character on its music. He was an ardent promoter of the development of Polish national music and institution-building; among others, he lobbied for establishing a philharmonic in Vilnius. He was not understood and appreciated in Poland, either as a writer or as a composer. He was called a "national" artist. Warsaw salons of the interwar period cherished cosmopolitanism.
Although initially Ludomir Michał Rogowski was hailed one of the most promising composers – "Szymanowski, Różycki, Rogowski are the most popular representatives of our young generation at the moment," Mateusz Gliński wrote in 1925 – his works soon came in for criticism. In 1914 Rogowski left for Paris for several years, where he felt definitely better than in his homeland. He also lived in the south of France. Finally, in late 1926, he settled in Dubrovnik, where he lived until his death in 1954. During that time he visited Poland twice: in 1935 and 1938, and in 1938 he was presented an award from the Ministry of Religious Denominations and Public Enlightenment.
Rogowski's biographers, among others E. Wójtowicz, PhD, and Prof. M. Demska-Trębaczowa, note that after settling in Dubrovnik, the composer led the life of a hermit, while remaining a very fruitful creator at the same time.
The release of Izabela Kopeć's album is intended to bring back memory of Ludomir Michał Rogowski's genius and to draw attention to the cultural tradition linking Poland and Croatia. Rogowski lived in Dubrovnik from 1926 to 1954. There, he claimed, he found his paradise on earth. In June 2013 Croatia joined the European Union. Undoubtedly, it is worth recalling that the new member-state of the community, so intensely integrating with Europe, was once a second homeland for the remarkable Polish composer.
The album is available at Empik, good music stores, Internet websites
World premiere performance will be held at the King’s Castle in Warsaw on 8 October 2017.
The release of the album was financially supported by the City of Lublin as part of the celebration of the city’s 700th anniversary in 2017.
The project was made possible thanks to a scholarship from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Honorary patronage: Embassy of the Republic of Croatia in Poland
In partnership with: STOART. Związek Artystów Wykonawców, Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne, Polkomtel Sp. z o. o. operator sieci Plus, Biuro Tłumaczeń Diuna
Media sponsor: Polska The Times
The album was produced by Artmus-IK Izabela Kopeć.
