Music of Lithuania
Music of Lithuania refers to all forms of music associated with Lithuania, which has a long history of the folk, popular and classical musical development. Music was an important part of polytheistic, pre-Christian Lithuania – rituals were accompanied by music instruments and singing, deeds of the heroes and those who didn't return from the war were celebrated in songs.
History
Music was very important part of ancient Lithuanian polytheistic belief. It is known that, at the start of the 2nd millennium, Baltic tribes had special funeral traditions in which the deeds of the dead were narrated using recitation, and ritual songs about war campaigns, heroes and rulers also existed.First professional music was introduced to Lithuania with travelling monks in the 11th century. After the christianization of Lithuania in 1387, religious music started to spread, Gregorian chant was introduced. Travelling musicians arranged concerts in the manors and castles of the Lithuanian nobleman, local cappellas were founded.
It is known, that Anna, Grand Duchess of Lithuania, wife of Vytautas the Great which had diplomatic relationships with the Teutonic Knights, who sent her expensive gifts, including clavichord and portative organ in 1408. Daughter of Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, Aldona, when married to Casimir III of Poland, 1325 took her palace orchestra to Cracow. It had musicians which played lute, zither and lyre.
The first opera in Lithuania was staged in the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania in 1636. Marco Scacchi and Virgilio Puccitelli were the opera's impresarios. The appearance of the opera in Lithuania is quite early, especially considering the fact that Italian opera phenomena was formed at about 1600 and first opera staged in Paris was just before 1650.
In the 17th century in Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania, three Italian operas were staged – all by palace composer Marco Scacchi, to librettos by Virgilio Puccitelli - Il ratto d’Elena , L'Andromeda , Circe Delusa . The scenography and stage machinery was made by Italian architects and engineers Agostino Locci, Bartolomeo Bolzoni and Giovanni Battista Gisleni. The cultural life of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania was especially intense during the reign of Sigismund II Augustus. The Vilnius residence was a place to host many chamber concerts, music and dance festivities and carnivals, and music has become an integral part of the public life of the Palace. Musicians from other countries, especially from Italy, were invited to Vilnius. Among the most notable was Hungarian composer and lutenist Bálint Bakfark, who came to Vilnius from Rome, Italian composer Diomedes Cato. Composer and lutenist Michelagnolo Galilei, brother of Galileo Galilei was playing in the court of Radvila in Vilnius in the 17th century. Approximately 100 musicians worked in Vilnius at the court of Mikalojus Radvila Juodasis, the Protestant Grand Chancellor of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Palatine of Vilnius.
First printed Lithuanian book Catechismusa Prasty Szadei in 1547 contained 11 religious hymns in Lithuanian with sheet music. Lithuanian jesuit Žygimantas Liauksminas published the first music handbook in Lithuania - Ars et praxis musica in 1667. It was a first book of the trilogy, devoted to Gregorian chant - other books include Graduale pro exercitatione studentium and Antifonale ad psalmos, iuxta ritum S. Romanae Ecclesiae, decantandos, necessarium. The books were published at the University of Vilnius - S.R.M. Academicis Societatis Jesu.
Recent findings - The Sapieha Album and the Kražiai Organbook demonstrated that the big part of the Lithuanian church music of the 17th century was directly influenced by the most prominent composers of Italy of that time - Girolamo Frescobaldi; Italian organ tablature notation prevailed, basso continuo was studied.
Lithuania and its turbulent history was a subject of operas long before the appearance of the national opera in Lithuania. Everardo II, re di Lituania, music by João de Sousa Carvalho, libretto by Gaetano Martinelli was written in 1782 to celebrate the birth of Pedro III, King of Portugal. I Lituani - is an opera consisting by Amilcare Ponchielli to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni, based on the historical poem Konrad Wallenrod written by Adam Mickiewicz. It premiered at La Scala in Milan on 7 March 1874.
One of the first professional Lithuanian musicians was Juozas Kalvaitis. He composed a four-voiced Mass in the Lithuanian language in Tilžė. In 1877, an oratorio The Creation by Joseph Haydn was translated to Lithuanian and performed in Vilnius.
The first national opera Birutė by composer Mikas Petrauskas, libretto - Gabrielius Landsbergis-Žemkalnis was staged in 1906.
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis is considered the greatest Lithuanian composer of his generation, and probably of all time.
Folk music
Lithuanian folk music belongs to Baltic music branch which is connected with Neolithic corded ware culture. In Lithuanian territory meets two musical cultures: stringed and wind instrument cultures. These instrumental cultures probably formed vocal traditions.Lithuanian folk music is archaic, mostly used for ritual purposes, containing elements of paganism faith.
Vocal music
There are three ancient styles of singing in Lithuania connected with ethnographical regions: monophony, multi-voiced homophony, heterophony and polyphony. Monophony mostly occurs in southern, southwest and eastern parts of Lithuania. Multi-voiced homophony, widespread in entire Lithuania, is the most archaic in Samogitia. Traditional vocal music is held in high esteem on a world scale: Lithuanian song fests and sutartinės multipart songs are on the UNESCO's representative list of the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity.Sutartinės (multipart songs)
Sutartinės are highly unique examples of folk music. They are an ancient form of two and three voiced polyphony, based on the oldest principles of multivoiced vocal music: heterophony, parallelism, canon and free imitation. Most of the sutartinės' repertoire was recorded in the 19th and 20th centuries, but sources from the 16th century on show that they were significant along with monophonic songs. At present the sutartinės have almost become extinct as a genre among the population, but they are fostered by many Lithuanian folklore ensembles.The topics and functions of sutartinės encompass all major Lithuanian folk song genres. Melodies of sutartinės are not complex, containing two to five pitches. The melodies are symmetrical, consisting of two equal-length parts; rhythms are typically syncopated, and the distinctly articulated refrains give them a driving quality.
Sutartinės can be classed into three groups according to performance practices and function:
- Dvejinės are sung by two singers or two groups of singers.
- Trejinės are performed by three singers in strict canon.
- Keturinės are sung by two pairs of singers.
Wedding songs
Different vocal and instrumental forms developed, such as lyrical, satirical, drinking and banqueting songs, musical dialogues, wedding laments, games, dances and marches.War-historical time songs
Chronicles and historical documents of the 13th through 16th centuries contain the first sources about songs relating the heroics of those fallen in battle against the Teutonic Knights. Later songs mention the Swedes, there are frequent references to Riga and Battle of Kircholm; songs collected in the early 19th century mention battles with the Tatars. Songs from uprisings and revolutions, as well as songs of Lithuanian anti-Soviet guerrilla resistance in 1945-1952 and songs of the deportees are also classified as wartime historical songs.Calendar cycle and ritual songs
They were sung at prescribed times of the year while performing the appropriate rituals. There are songs of Shrovetide and Lent, Easter swinging songs, and Easter songs called lalavimai. The Advent songs reflect the mood of staidness and reflection. Christmas songs contain vocables such as kalėda, lėliu kalėda; oi kalėda kalėdzieka, while Advent songs contain vocables such as leliumoj, aleliuma, aleliuma rūta, aleliuma loda and others. There are several typical melodic characteristics associated with Christmas ritual songs, such as a narrow range, three-measure phrases, dance rhythms, a controlled slow tempo, and a tonal structure based on phrygian, mixolydian or aeolian tetrachords. Polyphonic St. John's Feast songs are commonly called kupolinės, which include refrains and vocables such as kupolėle kupolio, kupolio kupolėlio, or kupole rože.Work songs
Work songs vary greatly in function and age. There are some very old examples, which have retained their direct relation with the rhythm and process of the work to be done. Later work songs sing more of a person's feelings, experiences and aspirations. The older work songs more accurately relate the various stages of the work to be done. They are categorized according to their purpose on the farm, in the home, and so on.- Herding songs. Shepherd songs are sung by children, while nightherding songs are sung by adults. The shepherding songs reflect the actual tending of animals, the social situation of children, as well as references to ancient beliefs. The raliavimai or warbles are also recitative type melodies, distinguished by the vocable ralio, which is meant to calm the animals. The raliavimai have no set poetic or musical form being free recitatives, unified by the refrains. Some warbles end in a prolonged ululation, based on a major or minor third.
- Haymaking songs. Refrains are common in haymaking songs. The most common vocable used is valio, hence — valiavimas, the term for the singing of haymaking songs. The vocable is sung slowly and broadly, evoking the spacious fields and the mood of the haymaking season. The melodies of earlier origin are similar to other early work songs while more modern haymaking songs have a wider modal range and are structurally more complex. Most are in major and are homophonic.
- Rye harvesting songs. The harvesting of rye is the central stage in the agricultural cycle. The mood is doleful and sad, love and marriage are the prevailing topics in them. Family relationships between parents and children are often discussed, with special emphasis on the hard lot of the daughter-in law in a patriarchal family. Rye harvesting songs have rhythmic and tonal structures in common, which attests to their antiquity. Their unique melodic style is determined by close connection to ritual and the function of the work. The modal-tonal structure of some of these songs revolves around a minor third, while others are built on a major tetrachord.
- Oat harvesting, flax and buckwheat pulling and hemp gathering songs. Oat harvesting songs sing of the lad and the maid, of love and marriage as well as the work process: sowing, harrowing, cultivating, reaping, binding, stacking, transporting, threshing, milling, and even eating. In addition to the monophonic oat harvesting songs of Dzūkija, there are quite a few sutartinės from northern Aukštaitija, which are directly related to the job of growing oats.
- Milling songs. The genre can be identified by characteristic refrains and vocables, such as zizui malui, or malu malu. They suggest the hum of the millstones as well as the rhythm of the milling. Milling was done by women, and the lyrics are about women's life and family relationships, as well as the work itself. Milling songs are slow tempo, composed, the melodic rhythm varies little.
- Spinning and weaving songs. In spinning songs the main topic is the spinning itself, the spinner, and the spinning wheel while weaving songs mention the weaving process, the weaver, the loom, the delicate linens. Some spinning songs are cheerful and humorous, while others resemble the milling songs which bemoan the woman's hard lot and longing for their homes and parents. The texts describe the work process, while the refrains mimic the whirring of the spinning wheel. There are also highly unique spinning sutartinės, typified by clear and strict rhythms.
- Laundering songs. Sometimes the refrain imitates the sounds of the beetle and mangle — the laundering tools. The songs often hyperbolyze images of the mother-in-law's outlandish demands, such as using the sea instead of a beetle, and the sky in place of a mangle, and the treetops for drying.
- Fishing and hunting songs. Fishing songs are about the sea, the bay, the fisherman, his boat, the net, and they often mention seaside place names, such as Klaipėda or Rusnė. The emotions of young people in love are often portrayed in ways that are unique only to fishing songs. The monophonic melodies are typical of singing traditions of the seaside regions of Lithuania. Hunting motifs are very clearly expressed in hunting songs.
- Berry picking and mushroom gathering songs. These are singular songs. Berry picking songs describe young girls picking berries, meeting boys and their conversations. Mushroom gathering songs can be humorous, making light of the process of gathering and cooking the mushrooms, describing the "war" of the mushrooms or their "weddings."