Polonaises by Michał Kleofas Ogiński, 1943.

The arrangement of eight Ogiński’s polonaises made during the war, at the time of the composer’s stay in Żerosławice (commissioned by Edmund Rudnicki, head of the radio section of the Underground Association of Musicians) is one of Palester’s most frequently played compositions. This is how the author describes the circumstances, the work was written (Fragments of Memories, 1939-45):

"Encouraged by a hefty fee, I got down to work vigorously and wrote a piece for a small orchestra called Ogiński’s Polonaises. It was in fact a difficult, painstaking work and I spent more time on it than I did on various complex compositions. I simply had to extract from Ogiński’s oeuvre anything that could be still regarded as valuable, put these pieces together, join them sometimes even mid-phrase and, preserving the classical harmony, enliven it by instrumentation, figuration and various internal voices. What’s more, I did not want the whole thing to become just another potpourri of polonaise-style melodies, but a musical poem, a tale of the past made in the style of pre-Chopin polonaise, its colour deliberately faded. The work was performed for the first time on 14 April 1945 at the inaugural concert of the Cracow Philharmonic conducted by Zygmunt Latoszewski. The audience understood very well that in this case the music was to pay a sad tribute to what had gone for good".

In his composition Palester used eight polonaises in the keys of B flat major, F minor, C minor, F major, G major, D minor (two) and A minor (known as "Pożegnanie Ojczyzny" - "Farewell to the Fatherland"). They are very different in character, serious and light, sad and cheerful, melancholic or even tragic. It is the only piece by Palester that exploits early music material.