Justina Repeckaite: Toro

My choice of composer is built on two reasons, firstly it is always a novelty for me to see contemporary composers writing for my first musical instrument, the euphonium; secondly she is a composer I have admired her work for as long as I have known about her.

Justina Repeckaite (1989*) is a Paris based composer, who initially studied in under the guidance of Osvaldas Balakauskas and Ricardas Kabelis while she was studying in Lithuania. While in Paris she has studied with Jean-luc Herve and worked with many leading ensembles like Ensemble 2e2m and Ensemble Cours-Circuit. A meticulous composer, every single one of Justina's pieces is carefully considered and expertly crafted. In the profile I wrote about her for the Lithuanian music information centre, I made the comparison between her and a diamond which annoyingly now writing this blog post, I cannot find a way to top it. There is not much point in trying to compete with myself or rewrite myself.

The piece in question I wanted to show this week is Justina's work Toro (2015) for euphonium and electronics. the work was written for and dedicated to Vianney Desplantes a wonderful French euphonium player, who really brings so much out of such a beautiful instrument. Toro almost quite simply gets the most animalistic sounds out of the instrument, through percussive colours, multiphonics, and other extended techniques; and then further warps them with the electronics. The result is an extremely primal ritual. 

Despite the raw sounds and disjunctive shifts from gesture to gesture, the result is oddly hypnotic. The gradual build of energy in the centre of the piece is just fantastic; its almost like a whole new creature has been born out of this piece. Hopefully other euphonium players will see this piece and just realise how much more there is to their instrument, so they can finally put things like the Carnival of Venice to sleep. Anyway back to my point, the structure of the piece is handled so beautifully and the energy and musicality always well restrained; its almost like Justina knows the story of the ten bulls, this bull despite still being a wild animal, is well controlled and brings a new musicality to an instrument that has needed this input for a severely long time.

The recording of the piece can be heard here and people who want to discover more about Justina Repeckaite really should check out her website here. I am intrigued where she could take this instrument, and as always very intrigued to see where her music takes her next.

Bronius Kutavicius: String Quartet No. 1

As mentioned in my last post, I had gone on a bit of a bender in a local music shop where I had managed to buy four scores by Lithuanian composers for around 10 euros. I had discussed Stasys Vainiunas's second piano concerto. This week I am returning to the Lithuanian giant Bronius Kutavicius. In this previous article I discuss Kutavicius's background as well as the phenomenal Gates of Jerusalem. In the aforementioned music shop, I had managed to grab myself a copy of Kutavicius's first string quartet.

The work is an intriguing curiosity for many reasons, firstly it was written in 1971 and it is an intriguing period of Kutavicius's music, as it is still searching for 'identity'. The piece is in three movements simply called: Con Sordino, Pizzicato, and Arco. The three movements in their Feldman-like no-nonsense naming do exactly what the titles say. This mentality would have been a welcome relief for many composers of this time, as it opened the door to more extreme forms of experimentalism, detaching themselves from the romantically obsessed older generations; as well as being able to not go out of the confines of Soviet decreed social realism.

Musically the piece is more akin to early Gorecki or Penderecki, which is of no real surprise due to how important the Warsaw festival was to composers in the iron curtain. The chaotic flourishes, combined with aleatoric devices make the piece truly wild, a far distance from the hypnotic repetitions often associated with the giant.

The first movement, Con Sordino, is almost in a free sonata form, with the two main contrasting materials: the extremely quiet running lines, and the chorale-like texture. The harmonic emphasis of the work is on a tetrachord of A, Bb, B, and C, four tones each a semitone apart. This symmetrical harmony is a definitive sign Kutavicius was incorporating serialism, a form of music that is often seen as a dirty word even now. 

The second movement, Pizzicato, starts with a canonic material incorporating glissandi and many other variations of pizzicato. Then we hear a 8 voiced chorale which leads to an almost recitative like line from the first violin who is interjected by the rest of the ensemble. The centre of the movement is extremely dense, but oddly quiet, as the pluck single notes, but also continue tapping the string. This produces a very dense but quiet rustling from the ensemble. This suddenly breaks into a manic firework of fortissimo plucks which slowly die away into a final hearing of a melody being passed around the ensemble, before the final cadential chord.

The final movement is oddly more traditional, this maybe due to the fact, arco is the basic premise of the instruments. The opening pulses combined with later tremolandi and harmonics, make the movement the most energetic and colourful . The finale of the movement harks back to the dense circling melody we initially heard in the opening movement before coming to a final close on a B. 

Below is a wonderful recording of the work by the Vilnius String Quartet. The piece is an interesting work, but by no means one of Kutavicius's highlights. This is not to degrade the piece in anyway, but Bronius Kutavicius's greatest moments have been his oratorios. Works like Gates of Jerusalem or Last Pagan Rites, are truly astounding. This quartet is a very well crafted work, and a wonderful edition for the ensembles historical canon, but Kutavicius's greatest moments leave this in the dark. This being said, it has been wonderful to delve deeply into this score as it really shapes and give a lot of context to both the life and work of Kutavicius, but also opens up how composers attempted to deal with the situation they were put in during the Soviet Union. 

Until next time, I wonder what gem I'll discuss.

Stasys Vainiunas - Concerto No. 2 for Piano and Orchestra

Another installment arrives earlier this week, as I will be flitting off for a few days and didn't want to get lazy with this blog. It also ties in nicely with my little trip to the music book shop near the old town in Vilnius. I popped in, mostly to buy a friend a birthday present, but came across four scores of Lithuanian composers being sold at an extremely modest price, so I couldn't turn down the opportunity. One of those scores was Stasys Vainiunas's Concerto No. 2 for piano and orchestra.

Stasys Vainiunas (1909-82) is an intriguing composer, mostly from the sense of the fact he was in the first generation to be composing under Soviet occupation. What this ultimately meant was he and composers like Balsys Dvarionas and Antanas Raciunas had to write 'socialist realist' music. Despite the hindrances from external forces the music has some wonderful characteristics, which I think no regime could stamp out. Vainiunas himself was a composer and pianist, which like Chopin and Liszt before him, led him to write primarily for the instrument.

The concerto is a charming and modest three movement concerto. The modesty is probably what drew me to it. I am always put off by sickly sweet pieces which are too self indulgent, its my main complaint of a lot of composers between 1800-now. The form of the first movement is quite a curious little thing. The introduction of the movement is three major segments, with the opening material reappearing to round it off before the soloist gets going. What is interesting is how the introduction material gives away the entire shape of the movement. The rest of the movement plays around on the three areas really exploring their character and shape. The faster material is a modest nod to sutartines with its pulsing and irregular rhythms combined with intervals of a second.

The second movement is a rounded binary shape, with a beautiful harmonisation of the Lithuanian folk tune Beaustanti Ausrele, and the middle being a fast paced rhythmical material which also harks back to sutartines. The simplicity of the shape and open clarity of the harmonies makes the movement quite touching, and is oddly very similar to moment of Gustav Holst or Ralph Vaughan-Williams; especially in their slow melodic movements.

The Final movement is a pianistic tour de force, but is never to bombastic. Its sense of restraint and modesty makes the gestures more meaningful and feels like a necessary concerto and not another piece to bolster the ego of another diva.

Coming across this piece has been quite intriguing, mostly because I have had to do some serious digging to find out about him. The generation of composers in the Soviet era have ultimately been swept under the rug, as understandably, people don't want to reminisce about that period. What also strikes me is how knowing British audiences would adore this piece, mostly the Classic FM variety, but like many composers they become neglected because they are unfamiliar names. Which ultimately is sad, Classic FM listeners could have a wonderfully broad and international palette of music to listen to, but are constantly spoon fed a thousand renditions of Fur Elise or the New world symphony. 

But to come back to the point. Stasys Vainiunas, is a charming composer, who if under different circumstances could have produced something more 'modern'. But the sheer craftsmanship and elegance of the work goes beyond that.

So enjoy the recording below, sadly I could only find recordings online of the first two movements. Next time I will discuss another one of my findings. 

Rytis Mazulis - Canon Mensurabilis

Before I start my usual ramblings, my brief absence has been the combination of having my first visitor from the UK and being knee deep in other tasks. It has allowed me to spend some time thinking about who on earth do I discuss next. It then suddenly struck me, it has to be Rytis Mazulis next. Having been in Vilnius now for three months, I have been able to see the magnitude of Mazulis's cult status. A quiet man, who is regularly found walking up and down the corridors of the academy, from my own encounters coffee is one of the main motivations for Mazulis's wanderings up around the academy.

Rytis Mazulis (1961*) when he was a student studied with Bronius Kutavicius in the M.K. Ciurlionis School of Arts, then went on to study with Julius Juzeliunas in the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Mazulis is often described as a 'machinist' composer (not to be misread as 'masochist' composer), for those unfamiliar with the title; 'machinism' supposedly music which ultimately is very mechanic. Ultimately this is kind of true, but tells you nothing about what the music sounds like. I also dislike the title because of its use as an extension of minimalism. This is something that also misses the mark, a significant amount of Mazulis's music is canonic, ultimately a never ending canon, or a perpetually circling canon which is positively medieval, not minimalism.

Rytis Mazulis also often incorporates microintervallic gestures into his music, which is often used to blur the landscape or to simply distort the canon, but always producing hypnotic results. I remember just over a year ago Rytis told me about how when Horatiu Radulescu was in Vilnius, Radulescu kept telling Mazulis off for using microtones in the 'wrong' way.

 I digress, another element of Mazulis's music is the form. Ultimately in Mazulis's works, the form is in one direction, going from start to 'finish'. Inside the music, will be small evolutions and distortions, but never recapitulating in any sort of 'classical' sense. This combined with the hypnotic sounds is one of the many things that drew me to Mazulis's works, they hold you and simply are, there isn't any real extra nonsense on top of it. Any listener can hear the results.

The piece I wanted to show is 'Canon Mensurabilis' written in 2000 for the ensemble 'Ensemble Court-Circuit'. Like the medieval canon, the work is focused on a canon with different voices moving at different speeds. But on top of this Mazulis has some fun fluctuations and distortions running at the same time. Firstly the beat patterns change in patterns of:

(12-6) (10-5) (8-4) (6-3) (4-2) (3-6) (4-8) (5-10) (12-6) (10-5) (8-4) (6-3) (4-2)

This irregular pulsing ultimately distorts all sensation of rhythm as the predictability is constantly distorted. The semi-quaver pulse in the piano feels unrelenting and constant. On top of this the use of microintervals also distorts the soundscape. The piano from C3-B4 are tuned a quarter down. C4-C5 are unchanged, and C#5-C#6 are tuned a quarter up. On top of this the violin and flute (who are with C#5-C#6) play a quarter tone, the clarinet and viola do not play microintervals. The cello (who is within C3-B4) plays a quarter tone up. This combination of microintervals produces 'out of tune' semitonal clashes, which resolve. But always circling. The result is hypnotic and mind boggling, if 60s hippie bands had access to this instead of the sitar they would have had their brains fried.

But enough chit-chat here is the piece:

 Until next time. 

Anna Veismane: Wings

With the past few posts being consistently full of Lithuanian composers, you would be forgiven to think I am only going to discuss Lithuanians. Now GAIDA has finished, I thought this would be a great opportunity to discuss a recent Latvian gem I have uncovered.

The composer in question is Anna Veismane (1976*) a composer who I am surprised it took me so long to discover her. A pupil of Peteris Vasks and Romualds Kalsons, to name just two of her teachers. Her music and herself don't need too much of an introduction, due mostly to the wonderful clarity in her work. But to show her off a bit, she has worked with ensembles and musicians all over the world like the North/South Chamber Orchestra (USA), Latvian Radio Choir, William Schimmel, and The Concorde Contemporary Music Ensemble, to name but a few. I have never really been fond of just quoting someone's biography, but for me it simply highlights how many composers who are pretty busy writing for ensembles worldwide go under the radar, especially in the sheltered musical environment of Britain.

But I digress, today's post is merely an introduction to one piece for cello and accordion called Wings. The work was written and performed by TWOgether duo, at the Latvian Music Days 2014. The second work by Veismane with the title, the first being a piece for solo flute. The duo is pretty captivating, starting with timid flashes and flutters of sound. Hearing the gestures pass from cello to accordion and vice versa is always fascinating, due to the quite dynamic separating the two instruments becomes almost impossible. Then suddenly a strong gesture from the cello bursts from the music into a beautiful frenzy, with small circling motifs combined with clusters in the accordion. The energy is slowly released, and the duo shimmer and die away into nothing.

The work isn't overtly grand or revolutionary, but it is just a nice fresh piece of music. Every gesture and idea is refreshing to listen to and is something I have been listening to on loop for a fair while now. Its also always nice to just come across a gripping miniature. Sometimes the most gripping pieces of music are tiny, just look at Farben from Schoenberg's Five Pieces for Orchestra, or Webern's symphony. 

Enjoy the piece here, but I also recommend people check out her website here. Some recordings of her works are present and they are definitely pieces I will want to discuss in future posts. Until next time! 

GAIDA Festival: Finale and a quick look back at the highlights.

Last night saw the conclusion of the GAIDA Festival, with a performance by the Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra. The concert featured Louis Andriessen's The Hague Hacking for two pianos and orchestra, two new works by Mykolas Natalevicius and Gediminas Gelgotas, and Ogni gesto d'amore by Francesco Filidei for cello and orchestra. The festival finished with Squarepusher, but the combination of running on little sleep, unpredictable buses, and hunger steered me away from it.

I have always had a soft spot for Louis Andriessen, and it was nice to see him featured in the festival. The Hague Hacking is a fun work, but doesn't have the same grit and oomph that you can find in his earlier works. It was nicely performed by the soloists Ruta Riktere and Zbignevas Ibelhauptas.

Mykolas Natalevicius is a composer who has been on the periphery of my viewing in Lithuania, so it was nice to have the chance to finally hear him. Karachay for orchestra and electronics depicts a lake in Chelbyabinsk, which due to the pollution from the Soviet era is the most polluted place in the world. This kind of dystopian imagery goes hand in hand with electronics and orchestra with all the twisted colours and sheer magnitude that can be achieved by an orchestra, let alone when combined with electronics. Sadly the piece didn't quite live up to this. The violent gestures in the brass and percussion were ultimately naive, I am a bit sceptical of composer's using brass only to depict violence anyways, but when the sheer potential of the instruments aren't exploited it feels even more childish. The electronics were either under used or didn't balance with the orchestra, and the harmonic dissonances are sounds we have heard since when Varese was learning to walk. The potential is there in Natalevicius, but he has a long way to go.

The next composer Gediminas Gelgotas has been a name I have heard uttered under peoples breath like characters in Harry Potter trying not to mention 'he who shall not be named'. I have a kind of soft spot for infamous characters, because some of the best composers throughout history were surrounded by a dash of infamy. The work by Gelgotas Mountains.Waters.(Freedom) upon reading the programme note left me in a bit of a critical mood:

...use of music material creates the posture of composition that reminds one of today and rethinks the concepts of repetition and minimalism... - Gelgotas.

This kind of claim coming from a composer always gives the impression that the author has a half baked view of the musical world around them. Especially when you think La Monte Young, Terry Riley, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, and Bronius Kutavicius are considered minimalists but beyond repetition have little in common. But for the sake of being a well balanced critic, I forgot my predispositions and listened. Listening through the piece I was just bored by it. Simplicity when done well can be truly profound, look at Part, Howard Skempton, and Henryk Gorecki. But Gelgotas just had no impetus behind his music, beyond fifths being a mountain.

Francesco Filidei's music in the festival has been wonderful throughout and Ogni gesto d'amore was no exception. The wonderous cellist Francesco Dillon bought out all the musicality of every gesture, even the moment of tuning the lowest string down. The faint whistles and ripples of colour were hypnotic and the moments of clarity were truly touching. It has been a delight having so much of his music featured in the festival.

The GAIDA Festival has been a wonderful event this year, with such a wide variety of music featured. For me having Francesco Filidei as a featured composer was a stroke of genius from the organisers of the festival, from speaking to students who witnessed his works; Francesco has left his imprint on musical life here in Vilnius, it is only a matter of time till Lithuania produces composers of that ilk. This also highlights the importance of the festival, not only is it a great platform for Lithuanian composers, but has been a great door opener to the rest of the world. The wide selection of music, and avoiding a 'festival sound' is something many other festival should learn, it has given the festival its freshness and offers something to all listeners.

My other highlights have been witnessing the premieres of works by Ricardas Kabelis, Tomas Kutavicius, and Juste Janulyte. As well as performances of Vykintas Baltakas and Justina Repeckaite. If I were to pick a favourite concert it would be the Jauna Muzika concert featuring the works of Arvo Part and Juste Janulyte, it has still left me stunned. I definitely look forward to next year's festival, but for the mean time II need to catch up on sleep.

GAIDA Festival: Three Concerts in Two Days

The past few days of GAIDA Festival have been intensive, a real tour de force of Baltic music. With premieres and performances of works by Tomas Kutavicius, Jurgis Juozopaitis, Justina Repeckaite, Albertas Navickas, Vykintas Baltakas, Ignas Krunglevicius, Arvo Part, and Juste Janulyte. I was asked by the GAIDA Festival to write a review of the concerts given by the Lietuvos Ansambliu Tinklas and New Era Orchestra, a full review of these concerts can be seen here.

This blog today will cover only Baltic composers, particularly the highlights for me. The first highlight I want to discuss is the work Mano seegantis langas by Tomas Kutavicius. The work was a premiere and performed by the New Era Orchestra. It was a profound work, starting with a circling passacaglia-like material, which was hypnotic and beautiful. The second half of the piece was far more energetic and rhythmical and really brought out highlights from the string orchestra. For me the real joy was seeing Tomas Kutavicius was not in the shadow of his father. The music was completely Tomas and had a wonderful almost whimsical nature to it. I sincerely hope the work is performed again in the near future and I get to hear more performances of his works.

The next highlight for me was the inclusion of Justina Repeckaite. She is quite a remarkable composer, and for me reviewing the concert was a bit of a daunting task, due mostly to the fact the young composer quoted me in her biography! The two works featured with Tapisserie and Rapid Eye Movements, both written for chamber ensembles and both highly focused pieces. Even though the performances weren't immaculate, the whole musicality of the pieces shone through. I highly recommend people check out her recordings here on her personal soundcloud, Tapisserie  is included on the page.

For regular follows of this blog, Vykintas Baltakas is a composer I have a lot of time for. It was wonderful to hear his music in a concert setting, and not just relying on the stash of recordings I have gathered. His ensemble, Lietuvos Ansambliu Tinklas, performed two pieces of his Redditio and Redditio 2. As I mentioned in the previous post about him, Baltakas is an intriguing composer in the way he reflects on his own music. Always pulling previous ideas apart, to reconstruct them into whole new works. These two works really highlighted this skill. Redditio is for mixed ensemble laid spatially around the hall, here as Redditio 2 is a wonderful work for wind quintet, with the same bursts of energy and colour. 

Last night was for me the highlight of the festival so far. A concert featuring only two composers Arvo Part and Juste Janulyte. I have featured both these composers before on this blog here and here. I already loved their music so much, I knew I was in for a treat when they were performed alongside each other. The pieces of Arvo Part that were performed were Da Pacem Domine, Summa, Magnificat, The woman with the Alabaster box, and Ode to Caesar. All wonderful pieces for choir, and performed beautifully by the Jauna Muzika ensemble. My only complaints were that Summa wasn't quite quick enough for my own liking and Magnificat was a bit too quick. Two wonderful pieces performed fantastically. To date, this is probably my favourite rendition of Part's Magnificat:

Last night's concert concluded with a new work by Juste Janulyte, Radiance. The new work was for choir and electronics, which were wonderfully manned by Michele Tadini and Antonello Raggi. The piece was reflection on two contrasting interpretation of radiance. The first focused on the radiance and brilliance of the sun, the other was radiating. The work was written as a commemoration to the 70th anniversary since the horrific acts in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The piece for me was as powerful and reflective as Morton Feldman's Rothko Chapel where the reflection and sheer stillness of sound mesmerises you. But the climax of this work was one of the most powerful things I think I have ever witnessed. To be in a trance for so long, to lose connection to the world around you and to forget time itself was astounding. Then sounds like bombs dropped, and gunfire surrounded the audience, to be awoken so violently from a trance left me speechless. This has to be a magnum opus of sorts for Juste, it was wonderful to see a composer not only really refine their art, but to make it reach new heights previously unimaginable. It would be one of the biggest mistakes ever for this work not to be performed again. 

Tomorrow night is the finale of GAIDA with performances of works by Louis Andriessen, Francesco Filidei, Mykolas Natalevicius, and Gedminas Gelgotas. Then I can get some hard earned sleep. Till next time!