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Toccata Classics Cds Are Also Available in the Shops and Can Be Ordered from Our Distributors Around the World, a List of Whom Can Be Found At Recorded in the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Hall on 8–9 October 2007 and 27–28 March 2009 Recording engineers: Michailas Omeljančukas (Nonet, Chamber Fantasy and String Quartet No. 3) and Vilius Kondrotas (Reflections) Mastering: Michailas Omeljančukas Booklet essay: Danutė Petrauskaitė, translated by Laima Servaitė and Veronika Janatjeva Design and layout: Paul Brooks, Design and Print, Oxford Executive producers: Eglė Grigaliūnaitė (Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre) and Martin Anderson (Toccata Classics) Recording sponsored by The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania TOCC 0169 © 2013, Toccata Classics, London P 2013, Toccata Classics, London Come and explore unknown music with us by joining the Toccata Discovery Club. Membership brings you two free CDs, big discounts on all Toccata Classics recordings and Toccata Press books, early ordering on all Toccata releases and a host of other benefits, for a modest annual fee of £20. You start saving as soon as you join. You can sign up online at the Toccata Classics website at www.toccataclassics.com. Toccata Classics CDs are also available in the shops and can be ordered from our distributors around the world, a list of whom can be found at www.toccataclassics.com. If we have no representation in your country, please contact: Toccata Classics, 16 Dalkeith Court, Vincent Street, London SW1P 4HH, UK Tel: +44/0 207 821 5020 E-mail: [email protected] JERONIMAS KAČINSKAS: The pianist Daumantas Kirilauskas studied piano at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, with Liucija Drąsutienė, and at the A LITHUANIAN RADICAL RECOVERED University Mozarteum Salzburg, with Karl-Heinz Kämmerling. He is renowned for performing a very broad repertoire – from by Danutė Petrauskaitė early music to jazz. He appears as a soloist with orchestras and Jeronimas Kačinskas was one of the most important Lithuanian composers and conductors of the twentieth pursues active career as a recitalist and chamber musician. Since century. He lived and worked in Lithuania until 1944, but after his motherland was occupied by the Soviet 2001 he has taught the piano at the Lithuanian Academy of Union, he moved to the west; there, based in Boston, he continued his activities as organist, conductor and Music and Theatre, and can be often found performing in both composer. During his time in Lithuania he was regarded as one of the country’s most original artists, someone classical and contemporary music festivals. His website is at who defied conventional ways of thinking, for whom a composer should first of all express an individual, not www.daumantaskirilauskas.com. collective, consciousness; he prioritised imagination and intuition, not academic clichés, and thus became Dmitry Matveyev Photo: an icon of Lithuanian modernism in the first half of the twentieth century. Moreover, he always supported Arnoldas Gurinavičius (b. 1954) graduated from the Lithuanian the idea of an open society and attempted both to decentralise Lithuanian musical life and integrate it into Academy of Music and Theatre. From 1975 to 1987 he played with the development of western European art-music. Simultaneously, he was all for creative and flexible relations the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, and today is the principal between individual efforts and folk traditions, he tried to find a proper place for Lithuanian music on the double-bass of the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra. He concert stage, and did his best to encourage progressive innovations in different areas of music. In exile, has performed with such chamber ensembles as Ex Tempore, Saga too, he wanted music to help his compatriots survive the loss of their home country and represent Lithuania Duo and the Vilnius String Quartet. abroad at the highest standard. In Soviet times the names of emigrant artists were removed from the annals of national culture, but the historical memory of Lithuanian musical life continued to pass from generation to The flautist Giedrius Gelgotas completed his BA (2000) and his generation, and the exiled Kačinskas remained a symbol who influenced indirectly composition in Lithuania MA (2003) at the Lithuanian Academy of Music. He also studied for decades afterwards. And in the end he had better luck than many of his compatriots in exile: he lived to at the Royal Academy of Music in London with William Bennett see the rebirth of Lithuania, and to return in triumph and enjoy the performance of his compositions by his in 2002–3 and at the Universität für Musik und darstellende fellow Lithuanians. Kunst in Vienna with Barbara Gisler-Haase. He has a number of Kačinskas was born in Viduklė (in central Lithuania, equidistant between Kaunas and Klaipėda) on international prizes to his name and has appeared as soloist and 17 April 1907 and started learning music at the age of six with his father, a church organist. The outbreak chamber and orchestral musician around the globe, in the United of World War I interrupted his studies, as he and his family were evacuated to Russia; they returned to the States, across Europe, in Egypt and Japan. He was a founder of newly independent Lithuania in 1918. Kačinskas’ curiosity fed his formal training: he used to play all the the Lithuanian Flute Quartet and the St Christopher Woodwind compositions he could find in his father’s library – and he also began to compose. In 1923, he finished at Quintet. Viekšniai secondary school in north-western Lithuania and, on his father’s advice, entered the Klaipėda Music School, then recently founded by Stasys Šimkus1 (it soon became a conservatoire). 1 Šimkus (1887–1943) studied with Lyadov, Steinberg and Vītols in St Petersburg and, in Dresden, with Graener and Karg-Elert and was active as a conductor and administrator as well as a composer. Although his music includes a symphonic poem and some instrumental Pleita Kęstutis Photo: works, it was chiefly as a writer for the voice that he made his mark, particularly through his exploitation of Lithuanian folksong, with an opera, two cantatas, 55 solo songs and 252 choral compositions, 245 of which are harmonisations or elaborations of folk originals. 2 15 Gabrielius Alekna was born in Vilnius and began to study music There he studied piano and, from 1925, viola. He played in the school symphony orchestra and in different at the age of five. After graduation from the M. K. Čiurlionis Arts chamber ensembles, and led the school male-voice choir. He also attended additional composition classes with Gymnasium in his home town, he continued his studies at the Šimkus and, after he had left, with Juozas Žilevičius.2 Even as a student, he stood out for his diligence, erudition, Lithuanian Music Academy and in 1996 was invited to attend rapid progress and original musical thinking, and composed his first works under the influence of impressionism The Juilliard School in New York, where he studied with Jerome and expressionism. Lowenthal, receiving bachelor’s and master’s degrees before In 1929 Kačinskas decided to continue his studies in the Prague Conservatoire: the Klaipėda Music School becoming the first Lithuanian to hold the degree of Doctor of faced an uncertain future and the Czech teachers who worked there encouraged him to look further afield. A set Musical Arts from the Juilliard. Winner of the second prize at of variations for piano impressed the teaching staff at the Prague Conservatoire, but in other subjects Kačinskas’ the International Beethoven Piano Competition in Vienna in knowledge was less commanding. He was therefore enrolled in the final year of the composition class on one 2005, Gabrielius has appeared as a soloist in the Musikverein condition: he had to master the syllabi of all the theoretical subjects in the course of one year – and in due course, with the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra (RSO Wien) in spring 1930, he graduated from Jaroslav Křička’s3 composition class with his First String Quartet, and within a under Bertrand de Billy. He has been a soloist with the Juilliard year obtained a BA in the conducting class. Orchestra and the New Amsterdam Symphony Orchestra in The strongest influence on Kačinskas’ outlook and the formation of his musical language during his time in New York, and with the Belarus State Symphony Orchestra in Prague was Alois Hába,4 who became known for his microtonal and athematic music. Kačinskas was fascinated by Minsk; in his native Lithuania he appears regularly with the the gentle consonances generated by the split semitone and the new modal shades it created, and he was especially major orchestras including the National Symphony, the State taken with the possibilities opened up by athematism – which seemed to allow free self-expression, unfettered by Symphony, the Lithuanian Chamber and the St Christopher traditional canons. Hába could discern thematism – that is, repetition – in nature and in some aspects of human Chamber Orchestras. Recently described by Daniel Barenboim existence, whereas athematism was a manifestation of individualism, of the spiritual qualities of human beings. as ‘a highly gifted pianist and musician’, Gabrielius has garnered Kropis Gedmantas Photo: Kačinskas duly became one of Hába’s favourite students. It didn’t take him long to grasp the laws of quarter-tone more than a dozen top prizes in competitions on both sides of the Atlantic, such as the Hilton Head (United music and master the athematic style, and in 1931, graduating from Hába’s studio, he composed his Second String States), Maria Canals (Spain) and Čiurlionis
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