After many months of not discussing much, I am finally back in some sense of tangible rhythm, and with internet access to I can return to my usual output and discussions of Baltic composers.
Today I will quite simply show you all the interview I have been in the process of creating with one of my undeniably favourite composers; Justė Janulytė. There are numerous cases of me praising her various premieres that I have had the luxury of attending over the recent years.
So without further ado, lets move onto the leading lady herself:
Labukas Justė! I want to jump straight into
the elephant in the room, when people discuss your music, including yourself,
the word monochromatic gets thrown around. What exactly do you mean by that?
Well it all started with my
series of pieces for homogenous groups of instruments; only strings, only winds
or only voices. And so I called it monochrome music. This term though has created a
lot of discussions all the time because the result was rather opposite - if you
briefly consider voices - even if they are all male voices, every person has
his very individual, specific timbre from which you can recognise him on the
phone, for example. The same occurs with instruments, maybe the differences are
not so big like with voices but still they are, considering an instrument’s physical characteristics, whether it is old or new,
the manner of playing, the articulation and so on. So as a paradox, these
formally monochrome compositions, like blank sheets of paper or textile, exalt the colour
up to their extremes. Just like looking at the monochrome Rothko paintings -
one experiences his blue color in the most powerful and straight way, the
colour itself becomes a really strong physical experience. This kind of effect
is what I'm trying to achieve in my music as well.
Anyway, after purely monochrome
instrumentations, I have gradually extended my limits into various amalgams
(like Observation
of Clouds for voices, strings and winds, Plonge for cello solo and 12
voices, The
Color of Water for saxophone(s) and symphony orchestra, Here at the quiet limit for male choir and
string orchestra, 2018) but still remaining faithful to the word mono.. while concentrating
myself only on one idea, 1 process (even if cyclical), 1 acoustic phenomenon in
one certain composition.
Untitled (blue divided by blue) - Mark Rothko (1966) |
From my own
standpoint, I find the word monochromatic extremely reductive, and at times
almost counterintuitive. I personally find a parallel between your music and
the Buddhist interpretation of emptiness. An emptiness which is defined by the
fact the item doesn’t exist because it is
constructed of constituent parts, and those parts in turn are empty because
they only exist because of everything else. Can you see the parallel?
As Laurie Anderson said once, emptiness
must be an utopic space impossible to experience as it would be destroyed
immediately while one enters into it. But probably you refer to the fact that
taking a single line out of my dense textures it would not have any sense as it
works only as a constructive element to build the whole body?! In fact, those
single, pulsating lines are like breathing pores of the skin, like the smallest
dimension of a big fractal structure. What I’ve
tried to do in my latest piece Midnight Sun for cello solo and 54 strings
was to ‘zoom’ on
the cello solo part in several steps highlighting it in confrontation with the
orchestral texture as if it would be written in a bold typeface or if one
detail of a dense texture would be observed through a microscope to overlap and
represent at the same time different fractal dimensions of the same material.
As we have spent many
days discussing our loves and hates, as well as our joys and stresses, I
wondered what I could ask you that I haven’t already in some form or other.
But I briefly pondered a quote from Hector Berlioz, who essentially remarked if
all his music were to be destroyed, except for his Grande Messe de Morts he
would be happy. Is there one piece you hope could survive and therefore truly
define you?
It’s
quite difficult for me to choose one piece as they are connected into a chain
of a particular continuous creative process - one idea brings another,
sometimes a less consistent result becomes very important later for some
further development and so on. What I see quite clearly being a big fetishist
of numbers and coincidences is a certain cycle of 7 years - a period of time in
which human skin completely changes as
they say - a period of time in which I gradually open a new window (maybe still
into the same garden but at least from a different perspective or in a
different light).
In 2003 I composed a piece for 2
pianos–my first conscious monochromatic
piece with a very gradual metamorphosis from ‘white’ to ‘black’ (from diatonic pointilistic melodic lines to clusters)
and a spacious stereo sound coming from 2 pianos…
After 7 years came Sandglasses (2010) for 4 cellos,
live electronics, and video scenography which, thanks to video-maker Luca
Scarzella, has brought up a manifestation of my visual thinking. This
previously had only been embodied in musical structures or alluded to within my
titles. My collaboration with Michele Tadini and Antonello Raggi helped bring a
fantastic world of electronic music to my piece; ultimately producing one the
purest conceptual examples of my monochrome aesthetic… And after another 7 years, finally The Colour of Water (2017) was written
for a soloist playing with 3 different saxophones (soprano, alto, and baritone)
and symphony orchestra, destroying my initial prejudice against the hierarchy
in the ensemble and seeing that even very different elements can build one
single organism made of different parts almost like organs in a larger striving
to make this body live, breathe, and move in space.
What connects all these 3 pieces,
which I have realised only now, is my beloved ‘catabasis’ form - a gradual descending in
register, in the Baroque rhetoric, this implied the going down to another world…I wonder when and how this thing caught up to me but
probably it's all focuses around
gravitational force, which is one of those phenomena of nature which
attracts me the most.
Coming back to my
parallels with Buddhist philosophy, would you agree that there is scope for
your music to be a tool for meditation? And if so, have you or others tried it?
I don’t
think it can be a tool for meditation even if sometimes my music is really slow
and makes the listeners loose the ordinary sense of time flow and even go into
trance. But it is not meant to be background music for some other activity than
just listening to it as it requires quiet strong concentration to be able to
perceive the symbolism of the structures, processes, concepts which are
embodied inside. I hope it has a stronger force and can evoke wider, richer
sensations than a common meditation is able to do.
As a Lithuanian
diaspora, I can only imagine Italian, or other foreign commentators, have at
one point or other dropped a line suggesting an obvious ‘Lithuanian’ or ‘Baltic’ sound. Would you say there is one
in your work? How much do you think it matters?
I’m
sure my sound is Baltic automatically just because I’m
100% Baltic myself. Moreover my composition studies with Lithuanian composers
Bronius Kutavičius and Osvaldas Balakauskas were
much longer than with foreign tutors and besides of that the first strongest
musical experiences were also connected to the Baltic music like Centones meae urbis (1997) by Onutė Narbutaitė,
ajapajapam by Rytis Mažulis (2002) or Aporia by Šarūnas
Nakas (2001), so I’m rather proud to be a part of
some Baltic tradition… Anyway, it’s quite superficial to speculate on national or gender
issues...hopefully they are enough profound, natural and essential without any
declarations.
And finally, as I have
done with everyone else. If you were lost on a desert island, with only 5
recordings, what would they be?
From one side it is a very
reductive request, from another one - I would definitely be happy to finally get some silence but if you really insist, here is a list of the moment:
(1) Passion(s) by J.S.Bach and
all I can bring by J.S.Bach
(2) Symphony no. 45 Farewell by J. Haydn
(3) Canon of the last day by Ben Lunn
(4) Passio by Arvo Pärt
(5) Corsican polyphonic chants -
or am I going to be lost in my beloved Corsica? :)
To conclude, firstly I want to highlight a personal enthusiasm to get back into the habit of writing the blog, especially as I have missed the actual centenary events in Lithuania and Estonia. So please wait to see more coming in the next few weeks.
And finally from our participant, let us take this opportunity to listen to her Colours of Water with Arvydas Kazlauskas and Normunds Šnē - listen here.
And finally from our participant, let us take this opportunity to listen to her Colours of Water with Arvydas Kazlauskas and Normunds Šnē - listen here.