Musical life in
the three Baltic states Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania is indeed
active. They have a herd of creative and adventurous composers,
and musicians all operating on a very high level, both collectively
and individually. As a producer of mainly chamber music concerts
for more than ten years I have had the good fortune to cooperate
with several superb groups from this area. This has also given
me opportunities to hear some of the new music from these countries.
Estonians Arvo Pärt and Veljo Törmis are well-known and appreciated
also in the West, while Lepo Sumera and, maybe the hottest name
today, Erkki-Sven Tüür, crave to be heard. In Latvia Peteris
Vasks is coming more and more to the forefront and now from
Lithuania comes Osvaldas Balakauskas with a large production,
of which his Requiem has already been released by the
ever-adventurous Naxos.
Balakauskas, who
also was Lithuania’s first ambassador to France, Spain and Portugal
between 1992 and 1994, has developed his own mathematically
based compositional principles, and he also invents his own
scales. The two fairly new symphonies, presented here, are eventful
and, I would think, not too difficult to assimilate for listeners
with some experience of contemporary music. He mixes various
building stones, jazz being one of the influences. The music
may not be melodic in a traditional romantic manner – there
are no tunes that you walk away humming – but every so often
there are small fragments of melodies, sometimes growing to
phrases or even blocks of longer melodic lines, lushly orchestrated.
Several rhythmic and/or thematic elements are often developed
simultaneously, creating a dense orchestral facture. The instrumentation
is mostly rather transparent and makes it easy to follow the
proceedings.
Symphony No.
4 is in three movements, entitled Octa, Hendeca and
Deca, corresponding to the scales Balakauskas invented
for the purpose, consisting respectively of eight, eleven and
ten tones. It is hardly necessary to know these scales, nor
to be aware of the mathematical principles along which he works,
just as it is possible to enjoy Alban Berg’s Wozzeck
without realizing the compositional principles. The first movement
starts very romantically with harp and low strings against a
double bass drone. At 3:52 it changes direction, becoming livelier,
timpani is heard, there are higher strings and some woodwind.
At 5:32 the brass enters, the rhythms become more jagged, nervous,
leading to a first climax at 6:20 with a snare drum whipping
up the tension. At 7:08 high strings weave a plangent carpet
of sounds, vaguely reminiscent of Allan Pettersson (his seventh
symphony) but with more rhythmic intensity. Then the music gradually
dies away. The second is more outward with heavily syncopated
rhythms that permeate the whole movement, which is dominated
by the brass, later also woodwind, creating a sound that brings
to mind Gil Evans’ writing for Miles Davis on the legendary
“Miles Ahead”. The harp and the bass drone returns for the final
movement, static music with instrumental solos petering out
and then disappearing. Melodic fragments come and go, some of
them of great beauty. Towards the end the intensity increases,
only to more or less evaporate during the last couple of minutes.
The harp says a reticent “farewell” and the rest is silence.
Symphony No.
5, composed to a commission from the Vilnius Festival, is
much more extrovert. It is in the traditional four movements
but these are just entitled I, II, III and IV. The first starts
with powerful outbreaks, interspersed with more reflective passages,
but there is an eager nervousness constantly present and the
whole movement is filled with vitality. The second movement
is more elegiac to begin with but soon a diversity of voices
is heard, like an unorganized meeting. Jazzy rhythms creep in,
we hear a solo trumpet and then it all dies away. The third
movement has a pastoral feeling with a solo oboe playing a central
part. The short final movement is a rhythmically swinging affair,
reaching orgiastic heights and bringing the symphony to a jubilant,
no-nonsense end. This movement would be a riveting encore for
any symphony concert and it would surely bring the house down.
Further acquaintance
with these fascinating works will eventually reveal their long-term
potential. Having played them now a couple of times and returned
to the finale of No. 5 an extra time, I feel confident that
Balakauskas is a very distinctive voice in today’s symphonic
world. I would urge readers as yet unfamiliar with his music
to lend this disc an ear. The playing of the Lithuanian National
Symphony Orchestra is first class, having no doubt played the
music more than once. I suspect that the composer has had a
say in the matter of interpretation. Sonically the issue can’t
be faulted and with insightful liner notes by Linas Paulauskis
and Sarunas Nakas this is a high quality product retailing at
super-budget price.
Göran Forsling
see also Review
by Rob Barnett
Lithuanian National
Symphony Orchestra/Juozas Domarkas
