10 MICL Sheet Music Publishing Ventures: from the Classroom to the Stage
- Dec. 22, 2015
Music Information Centre Lithuania (MICL) has been publishing the sheet music of work by Lithuanian composers since 1998 and over the period from then has released more than 120 sheet music publications. After the Vilnius publishing company Muzika closed in 1994, MICL for many years was probably the only organisation in the country that published the sheet music of work by Lithuanian composers consistently and without interruption, with the aim of creating at least a basic offering of national contemporary compositional music for those who are determined to strive to work beyond the Western classical canon or for those who are determined to look at the musical cultural territory of other countries.
Over recent years publishing initiatives by other institutions or non-governmental organisations have also increased, strengthening the belief that such activity is important. After all, the publication of sheet music is a part of utilitarian concert activity, the educational process, and the general sociocultural development of society. In other words, if this part were to be turned off, the axis around which the institutional ‘globe’ of Lithuania’s musical culture revolves would certainly not stop but in turning it on, the above-mentioned rotation would speed up, gain a wider angle of vision, and become more hospitable and more practical.
At the 2015 Vilnius Book Fair visitors to the MICL stand would most often enquire about three types of sheet music: publications for children, sheet music for piano and vocal compositions. With a favourable alignment of circumstances and partial funding from the Lithuanian Council for Culture, MICL was able not only to implement plans for the publication of the three above-mentioned types of sheet music of Lithuanian contemporary compositional music, based on actual demand, but to do much more. Taking account of the context of the here and now, the recommendations of creative professionals and teachers, concert repertoire, the motives of performers of the younger generation, requests from foreign performers and various practical considerations, MICL released 10 sheet music publications this year.Besides the educational selections of music by Lithuanian composers A Little Music I and A Little Music II for early grade pupils, the following sheet music publications for students and professionals were released: sheet music for accordion of compositions by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė, Bronius Kutavičius and Vidmantas Bartulis; sheet music for piano of compositions by Justė Janulytė ir Raminta Šerkšnytė; scores for chamber ensembles of compositions by Rita Mačiliūnaitė ir Zita Bružaitė; and a collection of solo songs by Julius Juzeliūnas. MICL had not published so much since 2008 when the first symptoms of the economic crisis began to appear.
More than one of the newest MICL publications came into being as a result of the initiative of performers. It was its most active performers who recommended that the scores of chamber music by Zita Bružaitė ir Rita Mačiliūnaitė be included in MICL’s publication plans. The violinist Rūta Lipinaitytė and the pianist Indrė Baikštytė, who had presented Zita Bružaitė’s Miniatures of Four Modes (2001) at various venues, edited their own instrumental parts for the published score. Miniatures of Four Modes brings together four pieces composed at different times (‘Lydian’, ‘Dorian’, ‘Phrygian’, and ‘Mixolydian’) and which can be performed as a cycle or as independent compositions. The pieces were inspired by the ancient Greek modes but the sound of the pieces remind one more of a coming together of mediaeval music and Lithuanian folk songs, woven together to a jazz aesthetic.Rita Mačiliūnaitė‘s Kōan (2012) for clarinet, viola and piano is a composition inspired by Eastern philosophy, based on the aim to create a musical kōan. Kōans are one of the fundamental concepts of Zen Buddhism and traditional wisdom. They are stories or questions going against logic meant to be meditated on until the brain ‘jumps over’ the boundaries of logic and ‘jumps into’ a higher level of understanding. One of the best-known kōans is the sound of one hand clapping. Striving to avoid any kind of ambivalence, the composer has created here a single musical motif, employing different features and performance techniques, but preserving the motif’s primeval quality. The publication was edited by the members of the Claviola trio: the clarinettist Vytautas Giedraitis, the violist Jurgis Juozapaitis and the pianist Ugnė Antanavičiūtė.
The accordionist Raimondas Sviackevičius is also one of those performers who has played a very active part in the (re)interpretation of contemporary Lithuanian compositional music. He is not only the editor of three publications of sheet music but also arranged a couple of the pieces for accordion. The original version of Bronius Kutavičius’s Rhythmus-Arhythmus was composed for cello and piano (commissioned by David Geringas). The duet of Raimondas Sviackevičius and Mindaugas Bačkus prepared a version together with the composer for accordion and cello and have performed it dozens of times at international festivals and in concert series. Rain from Golden Clouds, the most repetitive of Vidmantas Bartulis’s compositions, is a reworking of the original version for piano. In 1984 the composition was created as a technically demanding, virtuosic piece for its first performer Gintautas Kėvišas who was at the time preparing to take part in a piano competition. In 2008 The Rain from Golden Clouds became a no less demanding piece for accordion in which the composer’s declared ‘vision of all-destroying beauty’ is still to be felt. Whereas Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s Ambiguities (2008) is a composition brimming over with energy, full of antitheses, aimed at performers with a ‘hyperactive brain’. A collection of solo songs by Julius Juzeliūnas (1916-2001), an important figure in 20th century Lithuanian music, was published on the eve of the centenary of his birth. It was prepared by the musicologist Algirdas Ambrazas, who has done research into the composer’s work. More than half of the compositions were published for the first time. Ambrazas writes that in preparing this collection reliance was placed mainly on the manuscripts of the songs that had survived in Juzeliūnas’s home archive. The collection consists of seven original and two adapted folk songs composed between 1945 and 1964, as well as Eight Lithuanian folk sutartinės for voice and piano written by the composer in 1969 and published in the same year by the Vaga publishing company. Even though a number of the compositions had not been previously published, they have been performed by famous soloists such as Valentinas Adamkevičius, Beatričė Grincevičiūtė, and Regina Maciūtė. The piano part was edited by Rūta Rikterė.MICL has complemented its sheet music catalogue of contemporary Lithuanian compositional music with works by Justė Janulytė and Raminta Šerkšnytė. One of the earliest compositions by Justė Janulytė The Silence of Falling Snow for two pianos (2003) was written to a commission by the Friends’ Fund of the Warsaw Autumn festival. The falling snow metaphor is connected here with the ‘metamorphosis of the touching of a piano’ or a ‘study of touches’, which, according to the author, should create a vibration of the pianos and turn them into objects sounding and resonating for a long time. The editors of the sheet music for this piece are Rūta Rikterė ir Zbignevas Ibelhauptas. Raminta Šerkšnytė’s Fantasia (1997) was published together with a CD on which the work is played by the composer herself (Raminta Šerkšnytė’s specialisation was piano) and Ieva Jokūbavičiūtė whose interpretation the composer holds in high regard. Fantasia is written in a neo-impressionistic manner, so a pianist is allowed a good amount of freedom in performing it. Here the music permeates through various emotional states, emerging out of melancholic ‘inaccessible distances’, invading active zones and falling again ‘back into a dream’. The editors of Fantasia are Raminta Šerkšnytė and Rūta Rikterė.
All of the above-mentioned sheet music publications are available for purchase at Music Information Centre Lithuania.
Translated from the Lithuanian by Romas Kinka
Information from LMIC