The 20th-century Lithuanian composer’s dialogue between modern forms of expression and folk motifs is well represented in the four works in this recording. There is a sense of playful lightness in the Romantic aesthetic of Gruodis’s work, while Banaitis incorporates national lyricism with personal grief in his Sonata. Composed under the restrictions imposed by Soviet occupation, Vainiunas’s Sonata, Op. 38 is suffused with tragedy and sorrow, while Juzeliunas’s distinctive style had an enormous impact on the future of Lithuanian music. All of these pieces are symbolic of survival and represent being truthful to one’s creative identity while under the harshest of conditions.
