Noskowski, Zygmunt

Zygmunt Noskowski

Morskie Oko Op. 19 (1875)

(b. Warsaw, 2 May 1846 – d. Warsaw, 23 July 1909)

Preface
Zygmunt Noskowski was a Polish composer, conductor, and teacher. He began studying piano and violin at a very young age and went on to attend the Warsaw Music Institute from 1864 to 1867, where he studied violin with Apolinary Kątski and harmony with Stanisław Moniuszko. He then taught music at a school in Warsaw for the blind, an experience that inspired him to invent a system of music notation for the blind. He moved to Berlin in 1872 to study composition with Friedrich Kiel. His graduation piece was his first symphony, which later won first prize at the Carillon International Competition in Brussels. After graduating in 1875, Noskowski moved to Konstanz to become director of the Bodan singing society and music school upon Kiel’s recommendation. He returned to Warsaw in 1881, where he served as director of the Warsaw Music Society, professor of composition at the Warsaw Conservatory, and director of the Warsaw Philharmonic and Opera. He remained in Warsaw and was very active in its musical circles until his death.

A late Romantic composer, Noskowski was, along with Żeleński, one of the most significant Polish composers of his time. Noskowski was a prolific composer with several hundred items to his name in a variety of genres, including symphonies, tone poems, overtures, ballet and opera, cantatas, choral pieces, solo songs, and many solo and chamber works, primarily for piano. He is best known for his orchestral music, and his symphonic poem The Steppe was the first to be written by a Polish composer.

Morskie Oko, which translates to “Eye of the Sea,” was inspired by and named after a lake located high in the Tatra Mountains. Running approximately thirteen minutes, the piece begins with a peaceful scene at the lake, which is then interrupted by a storm. Morskie Oko is a concert overture with programmatic elements that also make it reminiscent of a tone poem. This type of work was previously represented in the Polish literature by Moniuszko’s Bajka (the Fairy Tale) and Żeleński’s In the Tatra Mountains.

Morskie Oko was written in 1875, and it was premiered on November 10th of that year with the composer conducting. The piece was not published until 1886, when Julius Hainauer published two arrangements in Breslau. Under its German title, Das Meerauge, one arrangement was published for orchestra and one was published for four-hand piano.

Mallory Sajewski, 2016

For performance material please contact Polskie Wydawnictwo Muzyczne (PWM) , Warsaw. Reprint of a copy from the Musikabteilung der Leipziger Städtischen Bibliotheken, Leipzig.