Lithuanian composers

Started by Maciek, June 21, 2007, 02:41:28 PM

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Maciek

I thought it was about time we restarted some more threads from the old forum. So here is one of my favorites.

First, a link to the old one.

Has anyone made any new interesting discoveries in this field lately?

I'll be going to Vilnius for 2 weeks at the end of September and I'm hoping to bring back an enormous pile of CDs. 0:) ;D

Maciek

Christo

Quote from: MrOsa on June 21, 2007, 02:41:28 PM
I'll be going to Vilnius for 2 weeks at the end of September and I'm hoping to bring back an enormous pile of CDs. 0:) ;D  Maciek

Tell us all! We want the details, we want the CD titles & pics, we want everything that's to be said about them!  :D
(I will be staying in Turkey, in the meantime, and tell all about the Turkish CDs I bought).
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Maciek


Christo

... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Black Knight

Well I'm Lithuanian and born in Vilnius  :)

Our most known composer is Mikolajus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875 - 1911), and I have two CDs of him. His most famous works are the two symphonic poems Jūra (The Sea) and Miške (In the Forest). However, I am also very fond of his piano works (I especially find his fugue for piano in C minor to be a jewel). There is a lot of late romanticism in his music, I have also read that he composed some serialism stuff, but I never heard it myself. Besides, he was also a very talented painter (search for his sonatas - 7 cycles of wonderful paintings). Here are the CDs that I own:




From the present day composers department, I would like to mention Raminta Šerkšnytė, a very promising young female composer, who just won a international composer contest in France (I can't find its name at the moment).

For further reading and listening:
http://www.mic.lt/index2.html (Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre. Click "Composer's Index", you'll find heaps of information on heaps of Lithuanian composers. If you click "recordings" under publications on the left, you can search for recordings of Lithuanian composers. Most CDs that come up give free samples of the CD tracks!  :))
http://www.youngartists.lt/en/?pid=8&id=129 (more information about Šerkšnytė)

For starters, here are some 1 minute samples:
Šerkšnytė - Iceberg Symphony:
http://www.mic.lt/settings/download.php3?id=205&FILE1_SAVE=file&table=pieces&path=/home/vserver1/webusers/mic.lt/www/mp3
Šerkšnytė - Vortex:
http://www.mic.lt/settings/download.php3?id=340&FILE1_SAVE=file&table=pieces&path=/home/vserver1/webusers/mic.lt/www/mp3

Amazon also has samples of Mikolajus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, if you want something less modern sounding  :)

P.S. When you're in Lithuania, try our national meal - Cepelinai, and national drink - Gira. Damn, I'm hungry now...  :)

Maciek

This won't be my first visit. 8)

Black Knight

Quote from: Maciek on June 23, 2007, 04:02:30 AM
This won't be my first visit. 8)

Alrighty then. Be sure you don't miss the summer festival of St. Christopher. There will be one premier (sp?) of a Lithuanian work, a chamber opera by G. Kuprevičius, and another premier of a work by Bronius Kutavičius.

violinconcerto

Quote from: Christo on June 21, 2007, 04:17:26 PM
Tell us all! We want the details, we want the CD titles & pics, we want everything that's to be said about them!  :D
(I will be staying in Turkey, in the meantime, and tell all about the Turkish CDs I bought).

I hope both of you can find some recordings of rare violin concertos and tell here!



Christo

Quote from: Black Knight on June 23, 2007, 04:08:49 AM
Alrighty then. Be sure you don't miss the summer festival of St. Christopher. There will be one premier (sp?) of a Lithuanian work, a chamber opera by G. Kuprevičius, and another premier of a work by Bronius Kutavičius.

Labas! I actually attended the St. Christopher summer festival one time, I think six years ago. I attended some other Lithuanina music festivals as well, mostly in Vilnius. Though I know most major Lithuanian composers at least by name and reputation, I must confess I missed the news about Raminta Šerkšnytė.

Your zeppelins (cepelinai) will be well-known to anyone who ever visited Lithuania; what I always enjoyed was the local Tatar and Karaite (Karaimai, for you) food in Trakai. But tell us everything about the music scene in Vilnius, nowadays!
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

Black Knight

Quote from: Christo on June 23, 2007, 12:53:17 PM
Labas! I actually attended the St. Christopher summer festival one time, I think six years ago. I attended some other Lithuanina music festivals as well, mostly in Vilnius. Though I know most major Lithuanian composers at least by name and reputation, I must confess I missed the news about Raminta Šerkšnytė.

Your zeppelins (cepelinai) will be well-known to anyone who ever visited Lithuania; what I always enjoyed was the local Tatar and Karaite (Karaimai, for you) food in Trakai. But tell us everything about the music scene in Vilnius, nowadays!

Labas!  :) Don't worry, the news about Šerkšnytė are really new, my grandmother told me about her winning that competition only a couple days ago. I haven't heard about her before that either, but it's really cool when young composers get some fame.

What sucks about the music scene in Vilnius (and most other scenes, for that matter) is that it is on vacation in the summer, and that is when I'm in the country. However, the St. Christopher summer festival has run steadily for many years now, so I guess I can't complain  :) I really hope I can catch the Kutavičius premiere, he is one of the big shots, as I understand. I am also planning to do a winter visit sometime and hit the concert halls  ;D


Maciek

Quote from: Black Knight on June 23, 2007, 01:36:43 PM
I haven't heard about her before that either, but it's really cool when young composers get some fame.

Not that I want to brag but ;D:

Quote from: MrOsa http://www.good-music-guide.com/forum/index.php/topic,13455.msg401123.html#msg401123

For a start here are my favorites (I'm sure I've left somebody out, and included some that I wouldn't really like had I the chance to listen more ) - in no particular order:

[blah blah blah blah blah]

Raminta Serksnyte

[blah blah blah blah blah]

The names are without diacriticals - don't have time for that today. Sorry.

Out of pure curiosity - is there any way you could find what competition that was? I know that Ugnė Giedraitytė (sounds like a hot babe ;)) just got a UNESCO Rostrum recommendation earlier this month in the under 30 category, for her piece Panneau - I haven't heard it (yet?).

Cheers,
Maciek

Maciek


Black Knight

Quote from: Maciek on June 23, 2007, 02:18:14 PM
Not that I want to brag but ;D:

Out of pure curiosity - is there any way you could find what competition that was? I know that Ugnė Giedraitytė (sounds like a hot babe ;)) just got a UNESCO Rostrum recommendation earlier this month in the under 30 category, for her piece Panneau - I haven't heard it (yet?).

Cheers,
Maciek

I can't seem to find anything on the net, so I'll have to ask my grandmother next time I talk to her again (which shouldn't be far in the future) and hope she remembers it. On a side note, Ugnė Giedraitytė does sound like a hot babe, as her name comes from "Ugnis", which means "Fire" (Maybe you knew that?)  ;)

Maciek

Quote from: Black Knight on June 23, 2007, 03:08:05 PM
I can't seem to find anything on the net, so I'll have to ask my grandmother next time I talk to her again (which shouldn't be far in the future) and hope she remembers it. On a side note, Ugnė Giedraitytė does sound like a hot babe, as her name comes from "Ugnis", which means "Fire" (Maybe you knew that?)  ;)

Yeah, that's what I meant. ;D

Christo

Found this one, from an unexpected source (Toccata Press!), in the Internet:

             

I wonder who's heard it! Bacevicius being the elder (Lithuanian) brother of leading Polish composer Grazyna Bacevicz. Being an experimental, more or less avant-garde composer in the thirties, he no doubt had good reasons not to wait for Stalin's verdict on his music, and fled towards the US, where he lived in New York, and disappeared into obscurity.
... music is not only an 'entertainment', nor a mere luxury, but a necessity of the spiritual if not of the physical life, an opening of those magic casements through which we can catch a glimpse of that country where ultimate reality will be found.    RVW, 1948

some guy

I just bought that Bacivicius disc for two bucks in the used bin of my corner music store.

It's pretty nice. I go back to the sixth symphony the most frequently, but occasionally spin the whole disc.

I bought it on the strength of having liked Kutavicius' music very much (I started with Lokys, the Bear), and being curious about other Lithuanians. Their music isn't distributed very well, so I'll be going to Vilnius in 2008 for the big new music festival there in the fall, and seeing how many discs I can score from that.

vandermolen

Quote from: some guy on October 20, 2007, 03:24:22 PM
I just bought that Bacivicius disc for two bucks in the used bin of my corner music store.

It's pretty nice. I go back to the sixth symphony the most frequently, but occasionally spin the whole disc.

I bought it on the strength of having liked Kutavicius' music very much (I started with Lokys, the Bear), and being curious about other Lithuanians. Their music isn't distributed very well, so I'll be going to Vilnius in 2008 for the big new music festival there in the fall, and seeing how many discs I can score from that.

I recently bought this CD too and agree that the Symphony is worthwhile but I need to listen to it more. Ciurlionis's The Sea is a work I love. I have two recordings; one on Marco Polo and one on Lituanus. The Lituanus recording is, extraordinarily, ten minutes longer than the Marco Polo version, making it sound like a completely different work!
"Courage is going from failure to failure without losing enthusiasm" (Churchill).

'The test of a work of art is, in the end, our affection for it, not our ability to explain why it is good' (Stanley Kubrick).

Maciek

I have that CD too (albeit in an earlier, Lithuanian incarnation) and, frankly, I'd say I find it mildly interesting at best. I'm not mad about his sister but I think her music has much more allure. His piano music (there's a CD available, and a 3-volume complete sheet music edition too) doesn't exactly excite me either (and I adore hers!).

All this IMHO, of course. :P

As for Ciurlionis, I think he deserves a thread of his own. In fact, I'm going to start one right now! (Again, I'm not much of a fan but there are many people who think him a genius, so I'll indulge them.)

Maciek

I was never so hot about Algirdas Marinaitis, so why does he seem to be the only Lithuanian I listen to these days?

("These days" meaning "over the last two months or so".)

Sefer Zikaron and Arma Christi especially.

some guy

Hey Maciek, I'm in Vilnius right now, for the Gaida/ISCM World Music Days festival(s).

The first concert, which played to a full house, featured Jonathan Harvey's ...towards a pure land for large orchestra, Kent Olofsson's Fascia for charango, electric MIDI guitar, orchestra and electronics, Peter Eötvös' Jet Stream for trumpet and symphony orchestra (including three other trumpets, one in back with the percussion, one on either side of the orchestra in front), and, since this is a Lithuanian composers thread, Poussla for ensemble and symphony orchestra by Vykintas Baltakas, who looks all of twenty or maybe eighteen. (He's thirty-six.)

A very good concert. I wrote of Baltakas' piece that it was a "I want a recording of this so I can listen to it over and over again" kind of piece. I won't say anything about the other three, 'cause they're not Lithuanians. There are rules, you know.