“I have always associated Vilnius with two things – the birthplace of the legendary Jascha Heifetz, and also a composer named Vytautas Barkauskas, whose best-known work for solo violin, Partita, I have loved since I was a teenager. When the opportunity came for me to give a concert in the Lithuanian capital, I went in search of both.” So said the enterprising violinist Philippe Graffin.

Philippe’s enquiring mind took him on a journey that led to this CD featuring works by Lithuania’s most notable living composer, including the world-premiere recording of the Duo Concertante for violin, viola and orchestra, with leading Japanese violist Nobuko Imai. Barkauskas’ music is bold and atmospheric, a compelling and powerful aural experience. He says, “Music is everything for me: miracle, mysticism, celebration, profession, pleasure, and ultimately – the reason for living!”

Vytautas BARKAUSKUS (b. 1931)
1. – 7. Jeux for violin and orchestra, Op. 117 (2003) dedicated to Philippe Graffin (20:51)
8. – 12. Partita for violin solo, Op. 12 (1967) (5:57)
13. – 14. 2 Monologues for viola solo, Op.71 (1983/2004) dedicated to Nobuko Imai (10:16)
15. – 19. Duo Concertante for violin, viola & orchestra, Op. 122 (2004) dedicated to Chiune and Yukiko Sugihara (28:29)

Onute Grazinyte and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under Modestas Pitrenas play P�rt's music - especially the main work Lamentate - very expressively and communicatively. It is a pure distillate of music that echoes and has an effect long after the last sounds have been heard" wrote pizzicato about the album that was released in September 2020 in honor of Arvo P�rt's 85th birthday and awarded it the "Supersonic." The Gramophone Magazine stated "This is a wondrously thought-provoking anthology of P�rt's work. [...] You cannot buy that kind of innocent beauty but you can, and should, buy this disc." The acclaimed recording of P�rt's "Lamentate" with which Onute Grazinyte marked her recording debut will now be released on vinyl in a limited and numbered 180g edition of 1.000 copies. It will supplemented with Grazinyte's wonderful interpretation of P�rt's piano works "Pari intervallo" and "F�r Anna Maria - Nachdenklich". About her playing, pizzicato added in their review: "The longer you listen to the pianist, the more you feel how well and safely she moves in P�rt's musical universe.

Valentin Silvestrov is Ukraine’s leading composer and one of the most distinctive musical voices of our time. This album brings together the two superlative works of Silvestrov’s early maturity – Postludium for Piano and Orchestra and the Symphony for Violin and Orchestra ‘Widmung’. Recorded in the presence of the composer. The Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by Christopher Lyndon-Gee can also be heard on 8.574123 in Silvestrov’s Symphony No. 7, Ode to a Nightingale and Piano Concertino.

REVIEW:

If you don't know [this] 86-year-old composer's music, a new album by conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee and the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra makes a sonically satisfying place to start. It contains a pair of symphonic works that embody two recurring ideas for Silvestrov: that an end can also be a beginning, and that sweet, nostalgic music can thrive alongside concussive eruptions.

In Postludium for Piano and Orchestra, the composer essentially offers an ending, a "postlude," that becomes something brand new by mixing the avant-garde with old-school romanticism. The piece convulses in orchestral earthquakes of low brass (complete with aftershocks), but eventually gives way to delicate music that yearns for the long-ago beauty of Mozart.

The more expansive work on the album is a 44-minute symphony for violin and orchestra titled Dedication. Who's it dedicated to? Lyndon-Gee, writing in the album's booklet, treats it as an homage to the "life-force" of the human race — which encompasses not only tragedy, but also love and renewal. And yet for Silvestrov, he says, "Everything is a postlude to that which is slipping, inevitably and unceasingly, from between our fingers."

In Dedication, the violin — played with unwavering detail by Janusz Wawrowski — is not battling against the orchestra for domination, as in a typical concerto. Instead, the two protagonists complement each other, breathing as a single organism in Silvestrov's colossal exhalations of sound. Great waves of percussion crest over a spiky violin, a reminder that Silvestrov's early works from the 1960s were considered too avant-garde for Soviet-era officials.

Silvestrov has created his own sound world, charged with turbulence and bittersweet fragments of melody that can seem like quotes from other composers, but aren't. Near the end of Dedication, an elegiac theme, reminiscent of Mahler, emerges in the strings, struggling to rise ever higher through a dark cloud of roiling harmonies.

-- NPR Classical (Tom Huizenga)

Valentin Silvestrov was forced to leave his native Ukraine after the Russian invasion of 2022. His music has a prescient quality that unerringly seems to express the fate of his homeland. The intimate Violin Concerto and the heartfelt, single-span Eighth Symphony are notable for their economy of expression and emphasis on beauty, depth and harmony. This is music that hovers on the edge of silence in an uplifting homage to love and humanity, hope and renewal.

Vytautas Bacevicius Remained Virtually Unknown As a Composer During His Lifetime, in Contrast to the Fortunes of His Sister Graz?Yna Bacewicz, Who Retained Her Polish Nationality. Rendered Stateless By the Outbreak of WWII While on Tour As a Concert Pianist in Argentina, He Eventually Settled in New York Until His Death in 1970, Giving Acclaimed Piano Recitals, Teaching, and Writing Astoundingly Original Orchestral Scores. He Never Lost His Deep Allegiance to and Nostalgia for Lithuania. This Recording Gives An Eloquent Introduction to His Pianistic Virtuosity and Mystical, Scriabinesque Orchestral Vision.

The accordion is an instrument that is deeply rooted in Lithuanian folk music. Today, the accordion is also recognized as a versatile instrument of classical music, a change in perception that has largely been promoted by Martynas Levickis, one of the most internationally sought-after musicians in his field. With its lightness and melancholy, Astor Piazzolla’s music has fascinated the young accordionist from an early age, and so it goes without saying that he is dedicating himself to this exceptional composer in his anniversary year. Together with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra he recorded "Aconcagua" live in concert. For conductor Modestas Pitrenas, Piazzolla's concerto - named posthumously after the highest mountain in the Americas - "conveys the climb to the roof of the earth in all its facets and symbolism: freedom, longing, loneliness, pain, transfiguration, peace." Levickis has a long and close collaboration with the chamber orchestra "Mikroórkestra". Together they present their interpretation of "Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas," Piazzolla's timeless masterpieces of many styles that capture in music the four seasons in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires.

REVIEW:

This CD combines two worlds, that of the accordion rooted in Lithuanian folk music and that of the Argentine Astor Piazzolla. And the fusion of cultures has succeeded, as evidenced by the interpretations with the most prominent Lithuanian accordionist, Martynas Levickis.

The accordionist plays Aconcagua with a spontaneous, pulsating rhythmic sensibility that sometimes sounds improvisatory and provides a lot of tension in the vital outer movements. The slow movement is given real depth and a very personal statement of the communication between Piazzolla and the soloist.

Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas translates well to a chamber orchestra. On the one hand, Levickis plays rhythmically concise, but on the other hand, the sensual is not neglected. A very great interpretation!

– Pizzicato

Listen to the Naxos Podcast to learn more about this release

Emerging from a cultural environment of silent resistance behind the Iron Curtain, Lithuanian composer Onute Narbutaite has become one of the outstanding Baltic artists of recent decades. Her output has developed from distinctive chamber music into the concerto-like symphonic style heard in the works on this recording. Described by conductor Christopher Lyndon-Gee as music that ‘transcends time and place… [and] resists any attempt at stylistic categorization of pigeonholing,’ these works convey powerful forces that flow between symbols and associations while probing direct emotional connections. Narbutaite’s imposing ‘Tres Dei Matris Symphoniae’ can be heard on Naxos as well: “a mind-blowing listening experience.” (American Record Guide).

This release by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Modestas Pitrenas includes the complete surviving symphonic oeuvre of the great Lithuanian composer Mikalojus Konstantinas Ciurlionis (1875–1911) restored into their original versions. Ciurlionis was conceptually ahead of his time and the uniqueness and aesthetic value of his compositions have been fully understood only during the last decades. For the international audience ?iurlionisis particularly known as a painter who gave titles related to music to his paintings, but he wrote an impressive catalogue of at least over 340 music compositions, including10 orchestral works. ?iurlionis studied composition under professor Carl Reinecke in Leipzig. He submerged himself into investigation of orchestrations of Hector Berlioz and especially Richard Strauss. His symphonic poems In the Forest (1900–1901) and The Sea (1903–1907) remain the cornerstones of Lithuanian symphonic repertoire. In the Forest brought Lithuanian professional academic music into existence, while The Sea remains an unsurpassed peak in the history of Lithuanian symphonic literature. Sadly, both works were premiered only after the composer’s death, in 1911 and 1936.Although both works were published, it was only in recent years when they have been cleared of editions by other composers back into their original form finally bringing to the listener the way how the composer envisioned them. The 30-minute symphonic poem The Sea has particularly sad history of editions and ‘improvements’ by other composers, but this recording includes the work in its original form.

Ondine’s releases on Baltic composers continue with a new exciting release featuring recent orchestral compositions by New York-based Lithuanian composer Žibuokle Martinaityte (b. 1973) composed within a span of six years performed by Lithuanian orchestras conducted by the young talented Lithuanian conductor Giedre Slekyte and pianist Gabrielius Alekna as soloist. Martinaityte was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020. Among her output are impressive orchestral compositions with evocative titles and beautiful orchestral textures with precision to detail. The most recent of the works, Saudade (2019) symbolizes the stratum of multiple yearnings: sadness for missing and happiness for experiencing the past. Millefleur (2018) is a work that the composer has described as “acoustic hedonism, a search for acoustic pleasures”. Martinaityte’s Chiaroscuro trilogy (2017) is a 3-movement work for piano and strings, reflecting the very essence of our existence; the various grades of darkness and light. Horizons (2013) was written in New York and Lithuania and was inspired by two movies, Cloud Atlas and The Hours as well as Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a traveler. In this work the listener travels through one story to another.

REVIEWS:

When listening to Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, you might be tempted to assign her to a school. The composer clearly likes extended time scales and slowly mutating materials, so does that make her a Minimalist? Further evidence for such a label includes praise she has received from the composer Ingram Marshall.

The Ondine imprint’s new album-length survey of her orchestral music, “Saudade,” doesn’t radically upend such a classification—though it does complicate the story. While the title track invites comparison to works like John Luther Adams’s calmly roiling “Become Ocean,” other pieces on the album show off Martinaityte’s distinctiveness.

She can create hovering nimbus clouds of harmony with the best of them. Yet she’s not afraid to throw a thunderbolt through her subtle, scenic designs. Midway through the otherwise beatific “Millefleur,” a percussive edge emerges, offering an unexpected martial cast to the work. And on “Horizons,” as played by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, the handoffs between strutting flutes and stark strings also serve notice regarding this composer’s winning unpredictability.

-- New York Times

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) is a Lithuanian composer whose orchestral music has links to the French Spectral school, Minimalism, and the world of Pärt, Silvestrov, and the Eastern European “Spiritual Minimalists.” She is interested in sonority (like the Spectralists), but her sonorities, while they sometimes employ avant-garde playing techniques, are not necessarily dissonant. Martinaitytė has moved beyond shock value: She uses tonal harmonies and, while her textures are highly imaginative, she tends to avoid ugly noise. Nor is her music simply feel-good New Age doodling: she recognizes the symphony orchestra has immense power, which she summons up expertly at climactic moments. The performances are dazzling, and the sound picture captures everything in a satisfying balance. I heartily recommend this program to listeners who think they may not like it.

-- Fanfare

Lithuanian composer Vytautas Bacevicius spent the latter part of his life in exile in the US. The two piano concertos heard here interweave Lithuanian folk songs into the musical fabric, while Symphony No. 3 strikes a positive and optimistic tone. Includes two world premiere recordings. Volume 1, featuring Piano Concertos Nos. 3 and 4, can be heard on 8.573282.

This fourth instalment of the recent symphonic output of Fridrich Bruk (born in Ukraine in 1937 but a Finnish resident since 1974) brings two earlier works – from when Bruk was merely in his late seventies. His Symphonies Nos. 15 and 16 – both predicated on Bruk’s concern for the environment – inhabit the soundworld that has become familiar from his more recent symphonies: almost a stream of consciousness expressed through wildly inventive orchestral writing in a kaleidoscope of colour and counterpoint, sitting somewhere between Villa-Lobos and Pettersson in its profligate abundance.

A journey through passion, vision, and sensuality, this album brings together three luminous works for voice and orchestra. At it's heart is Ernest Chausson's Poeme de l'amour et de la mer, Op. 19-a sweeping, late-Romantic meditation on love and loss, where human emotion dissolves into the vastness of the sea. Benjamin Britten's Les illuminations, Op. 18, follows with electric intensity, setting Rimbaud's vivid, surreal poetry in music that is both incisive and radiant. The program closes with Camille Saint-Saens' rare and intimate Extase, a delicate song of rapture and surrender. Tenor Edgaras Montvidas brings refined lyricism and emotional depth to this richly poetic repertoire, joined by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (for the Chausson), and conductor Modestas Pitrenas. An exploration of love, language, and longing-where music becomes poetry, and poetry sings. Recorded at Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall June 2021

In 2020, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and the Kaunas State Choir, under the direction of Modestas Pitrenas, came together at the National Philharmonic Hall in Vilnius for a remarkable recording of Amilcare Ponchielli's opera I Lituani. This project marks the first professional recording of this work, highlighting Ponchielli's significant contribution to 19th-century Italian opera and connecting deeply with Lithuanian heritage. Drawing inspiration from Adam Mickiewicz's poem Konrad Wallenrod, the opera tells the story of medieval Lithuania's resistance against the Teutonic Knights, exploring themes of freedom, national identity, and sacrifice. Ponchielli's rich orchestration and Ghislanzoni's powerful libretto create a dramatic musical experience that has now been captured with vibrant vocal performances and exquisite orchestration in this new recording. I Lituani, which premiered at La Scala in 1874, has long been recognized for it's beautiful melodies and emotional depth. This recording revives a significant yet often overlooked masterpiece of Italian opera, offering a fresh perspective on Ponchielli's profound musical and dramatic vision. Recorded at Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society Vilnius, September 2020

Now on vinyl! The accordion is an instrument that is deeply rooted in Lithuanian folk music. Today, the accordion is also recognized as a versatile instrument of classical music, a change in perception that has largely been promoted by Martynas Levickis, one of the most internationally sought-after musicians in his field. With its lightness and melancholy, Astor Piazzolla’s music has fascinated the young accordionist from an early age, and so it goes without saying that he is dedicating himself to this exceptional composer in his anniversary year. Together with the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra he recorded "Aconcagua" live in concert. For conductor Modestas Pitrenas, Piazzolla's concerto - named posthumously after the highest mountain in the Americas - "conveys the climb to the roof of the earth in all its facets and symbolism: freedom, longing, loneliness, pain, transfiguration, peace." Levickis has a long and close collaboration with the chamber orchestra "Mikroórkestra". Together they present their interpretation of "Las Cuatro Estaciones Portenas," Piazzolla's timeless masterpieces of many styles that capture in music the four seasons in Argentina's capital Buenos Aires.

CIURLIONIS: COMPLETE WORKS FOR ORCHESTRA