Gintaras Sodeika

MUSIC BORN OUT OF NOSTALGIA

Acoustic music might seem somewhat marginal in Gintaras Sodeika‘s work; he is better known as a composer of music for theatre, the founder and organiser of Anykščiai Happenings Seminars (1988-1990), and the head of Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center in Vilnius. However, his second CD attracts attention: not because one can see a certain „qualitative progression“ in its instrumental enrichment (compared to Tremors for piano, his first CD published in 2015), but because in this never-discon- tinued, just presently intensifying, creative field, Sodeika emerges as a unique and already recognisable composer.

In the 1990s, he, as an „art-music composer, „found it more important to speak not through „a string quartet, or a clarinet, or an orchestra,“ but through „a film, a video, or improvisational noises and smells composed by an analog synthesizer“. Upon coming full circle, Sodeika is back to instrumental compositions, probably depending on through which instruments he wants to speak at the moment. Art music composing, which in his green years seemed „too limited“ for the articu- lation of avant-garde ideas, has now acquired meaning and space: not physical, but acoustic.

Composer Gintaras Sodeika, for whom the freedom of expres- sion was one of the most important creative impulses and intentions in the period of the Happenings Seminars, remains true to his principles also on the plane of art music. It transforms previous discoveries of libe- ration-from-tradition and transposes them into the sound space. One- off actions, performances, and happenings, constructed as hybridisati- on of heterogeneous elements that highlighted a particular Idea, faced the boundaries of multiplication of such connections. At some point, the materialisation of an artistic idea had to return to the shapes of the object being performed on stage, bought and sold, and to acquire the consistency of a recorded and reproducible work. With acoustic compo- sitions, Sodeika gives meaning to this particular turn, without rejecting his previously accumulated experience, but rather providing it with new quality and new sound.

If we agree with the statement that, in the era of postmoder- nism or post-postmodernism, the most important thing is not what is connected, but the individuality of connections, we should listen to these compositions specifically through this prism. Collage, fragmentation, layering, and improvisation have become universal creative tools, and therefore exclusivity is born only out of the subjectivity of selection.

What is the sound of Gintaras Sodeika? It boasts the supports which are an inextricable part of all contemporary Lithuanian music – the basis of repetitive minimalism, which, however, has lost its radica- lism. Let‘s face it, getting rid of repetitive sound is very hard. It enchants with its permanence, imprisons in its mantric energy, and plunges into the euphoria of barely perceptible changes. Combining, juxtaposing, and layering the rhythm of „machinist“ music with the swing of jazz, with the energy of rock as well as (!) with the Impressionist-style (Debussy) tim- bral strokes and with the indeterminate bruitism of „musique concrète instrumentale“ (Helmut Lachenmann) is both complex and bold. Howe- ver, it is in this liberation from repetitive suggestion that the style is born.

The dynamics of intensity is one of the more important struc- tural elements here. It is developed not so much in terms of harmony as of rhythm, reaching the boundaries of paroxysm of the anti-deve- lopment. This is a tribute not only to the generation of Lithuanian „ma- chinist“ music composers, but also to the urban („asphalt“) music of Alexander Mosolov and Arthur Honegger. Reminiscences turn into „art techno“ (Gintaras Sodeika). It is no coincidence that Tettigonia perdida is dedicated to the centenary of the DADA Manifesto publication. Sodei- ka leads a dialogue with influences over distance and time, and already over a certain critical distance. He probably also debates Bronius Kuta- vičius’ Anno cum tettigonia (for string quartet and recording, 1980), in which the scheme of dynamics of material intensification has already become a tradition of Lithuanian music. The schemes of concentering and decentering sound energy produce not just an agogic effect. It is a sphere of suggestiveness, in which the composer‘s passion for sound itself, for the possibilities of its power, is revealed. The social aspect of happenings was also, after all, a hidden reflection of the author on the issue of (political) power, and liberation from it.

In the manner by which the discovered and borrowed sound objects are combined, one can discern Sodeika‘s taste and his percep- tion of sound as well as the compositional techniques close to his heart. In his compositions, Gintaras Sodeika reveals what he, as an „art-mu- sic composer“, treasures in the 20th century avant-garde. Therefore, references to the latter tend to sound not so much as his search for individual stylistics, but rather as a hedonistic relationship in which one immerses oneself in, and concentrates on, different sonic states, observing the timbral and rhythmic combinations of intercommunicating historical references.

Like happenings of the 90ties that once invited their partici- pants, performers, and audiences to take part in the creative process, an open composition (Petardos [Firecrackers]) now leaves to the interpreter (Petras Geniušas) the freedom to create together and, most importantly, to listen carefully together to what is born during the creation–perfor- mance process. The pianist‘s relationship with the instrument begins and ends with a tactile movement. This composition, like Steve Reich‘s Six Pianos, would be more suitable for a percussionist, and therefore Geniušas-the pianist speaks here as a percussionist. Sodeika-Geniušas explore sound from within, as if squeezing out of each chord everything it can reveal: the musical scenes – „pictures at an exhibition „ –, instead of telling stories, reveal the emotional states of the co-authors and the stages of their individual experiences.

Through retaining similar creative principles, Gintaras Sodeika transfers the freedom discovered in his performance era to the score „written with a pencil“. The interpreters are infected with the same se- arch for sound; they focus not on the exact directions of the composer, but on the sound itself and on their own relationship with it. The audience is enchanted by the live act of creation, because „one of the most im- portant goals of this composition is to communicate with the audience during its performance. That, as is well known, is difficult to capture in the score, but as a theatre person, I know the ways that help to achieve the result by rehearsing“ (DRU KA JA MU DI).

Sodeika, an author of happenings, who composed music for Oskaras Koršunovas‘ theatre and also inspired it, upon returning to art music, brings the courage for mixtures. The work as a whole sounds like a colorful palette in which textures and contrasts are not aleatoric. „Free improvisation at the equipment later became the basis of quite a few of Sodeika‘s compositions and his music for theatre, a creative method,“ said Tomas Juzeliūnas during the time of happenings.

What is that modus operandi that combines Sodeika‘s perfor- mances and his art music? That is probably a constant desire to break out; to break out of tradition, of history, of the present, and of certain frames through combining personal experiences, influences, and reflec- tions in the virtual sound space and through turning that gesture-of-li- beration into a musical process. In the language of post-modernism, re- miniscence is not a reference but an element of syntax, while nostalgia is probably the strongest impulse for the creator, turned into the content. It seems that Gintaras Sodeika‘s happenings were born out of nostalgia for art music; his music for theatre, out of nostalgia for happenings; while art music composed for the concert stage, out of all the other past, pre- sent, and future nostalgias ...

Vita Gruodytė

THE GRAND PIANOS OF GINTARAS SODEIKA

According to American musicologist Richard Leppert, a concert grand piano has the values of being professional, male, and public. Certainly, this kind of sentiment pertains more to the times of the “great romantic warhorses”, as 19th century monumental concerts for grand piano have been dubbed recently by a witty critic in The Guardian. But it also relates to the work of 21st century Lithuanian composer Gintaras Sodeika, and connects to the common denominator of the piano. 

In the eyes of the public, Gintaras Sodeika (b. 1961) is probably most distinctly associated with non-traditional works; happenings, sound installations and music for theatre productions. However, a considerable part of his output is pure music. Only it seems that until recently this side of his work has been in the shadow of his theatrical offerings, made under the pseudonym Fluxus. 

Several years ago, on the eve of the premiere of his Concert for piano and orchestra, the composer revealed a new focus for his artistic expression: 

The spiral of time has come round. Once I organised festivals of happenings and made actions – I was swimming against the current trying to prove that art can be very diverse, even devoid of traditional features. […] Today I am concerned with other things – I want to have a polemic with the Sodeika of that time. (Lrytas.lt, 2014-06-02)

And yet, even “the Sodeika of that time” composed music for the “traditional” piano: Taliensi 747 for piano and recorded sound (1997), Sound Ontology No. 2 for piano duo (1998), Tremors for large ensemble and piano (1999), Iodio for three pianos (2002), and Sutapo for two pianos (2010). Clearly “the Sodeika of that time” was evolving into the creative manifestation we can call “today’s Sodeika,” illustrated in his Concert for piano and orchestra (2014). On the other hand, it could be said that it is an obsession or fascination with the piano, with its sound, timbre and the possibilities of expression it contains, that is far more fundamental to the composer’s creative thinking than any aesthetic, artistic or ideological preferences.

The six piano works mentioned above all appear on this album, which is Sodeika’s first. It would be easy to explain their inclusion as an effort to compile a consistent and integral programme for the album – these opuses were selected from among his 44 works (the earliest of which dates back 1983). 

However, it is clear that the crux of the matter lies much deeper, and that Sodeika’s thinking with regards to the piano is related to the composer’s early musical experiences. 

It was not until I was in the 8th grade that I started studying music, having suddenly felt an irresistible urge to become a composer. I found myself a piano teacher and used to play ten hours a day until I entered the Vilnius Conservatoire and the choir conducting class. After my graduation I joined the composition class at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Today it would be difficult to imagine this kind of outburst. [...]But still, I never separate from the piano – I love to play, to improvise or simply to listen to its sound. (www.lrytas.lt)

This passion should not come as a surprise, given that the composer counts top quality Lithuanian pianists of various generations among his creative colleagues. Many of them feature on this album: Petras Geniušas, Rūta Rikterė and Zbignevas Ibelhauptas, Gryta Tatorytė and, finally, the composer’s son Joris Sodeika.

So, what kind of music is recorded on the album? Clearly, writing a lot about works that can be listened to right here it makes little sense. Yet, on the other hand, something that has a history can provoke a closer look or evoke a different feeling. Thus, let’s return for a moment to Leppert’s insights on piano. He called the piano the favourite musical instrument of the 19th century’s ruling classes, reflecting and evoking sonic and visual associations of pleasure, desire, and hate. 

What associations does Sodeika’s piano evoke in the 20th and 21st century? They can probably be best described using the concept of ‘academic techno’ that was introduced by the composer himself and has been in circulation for quite a long time. True, the aesthetics of ‘academic techno’ were hardly related with “the ruling classes” at the time of the premiere of Sodeika’s Sound Ontology No. 2 in 1998. This piece established the name of the trend and is today considered a crucial work. ‘Academic techno’, which “converted” the laws of electronic and computer-generated music into the acoustic format and enriched the musical discourse with pop culture features, ran contrary to established ideas about what serious academic music should be at that time. On the other hand, it was also a conscious choice to relate to those trends of 20thcentury music that, in the words of musicologist Rūta Stanevičiūtė, formed an anti-romantic image of piano music in Sound Ontology No. 2. 

In fact Sodeika did not become a romantic of the piano, a move which would have contradicted his exuberant aesthetic nature which aims to avoid the banality of “sincere outpourings”. Yet, his cool lyricism, permeated with Cage-like introspection, manifests itself in an improvisational character which is close to jazz. 

The earliest work on this album, Taliensi 747 for piano and recorded sound composed in 1997, sounds like a free improvisation. Clearly, pianist Petras Geniušas’s interpretation also contributes to the feeling of a wide inner space, as this performer is capable of playing the written notes as if they were his own. He listens to them closely, giving them a unique breath and subtly creating different moods. Paradoxically enough, given that  it was created when the composer was still fresh from his ‘Fluxus’ happenings and exhibitions of the “Green Leaf” group, Taliensi 747 is probably the most lyrical composition on the album. 

Another work from this period is Tremors, a composition for instrumental ensemble and piano which throbs with rhythmic, emotional shivers. In 1999, the year of the piece’s composition, Sodeika became one of the co-founders of the Oskaras Koršunovas’s theatre company. Yet in Tremors, the links with the concert music scene are more prominent. The work was inspired by the eponymous poem by Scottish poet Stewart Conn about the hardly perceptible soul vibrations aroused by the ominous beat of the industrial world. According to musicologist Linas Paulauskis, the title Tremors reflects both the poetic programme of the work and the sound of the music itself: a kind of “film for the ears” is created, and a rather static minimalist texture is diversified with elements of jazz. An extended ensemble – a wind quintet, percussion, double bass and piano – allows the piece to achieve a concert sound with flashes of the different timbres and colours of the instruments.  

By contrast, Iodio for three pianos (2002) is undoubtedly an opus of the “theatrical” Sodeika. On the one hand, here we can recognise traces of Sodeika’s score for Oskaras Koršunovas’s production, Roberto Zucco (which was awarded the Kristoforas prize), which is reminiscent of stylised rave music. On the other hand, the piece has an inclination towards overlapping rhythmical formulas and techno beats, treating the piano as a percussive instrument in the mould of, let’s say, Steve Reich. Although Sodeika, as a representative of urban aesthetics par excellence, has never been identified with classical Lithuanian minimalists and their relation to the semantic field of longing, American repetitiveness was undoubtedly instrumental in forming Sodeika’s creative style. So to was his more general non-elitist – hence, non-European – approach to the art of music, which does not shun elements of pop culture. 

Contemporary young pianists Joris Sodeika, Paulius Pancekauskas and Neringa Valuntonytė prepared a new rendition of Iodio for this album. Although Valuntonytė and Pancekauskas are still studying at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, all three have won international competitions. Joris Sodeika holds a diploma from the 7th Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis International Piano Competition (2015).

The titles of Sodeika’s opuses can be called a separate field of his creative work. Let’s take the piece Sutapo for two pianos (2010), for example. Sutapo means coincided in Lithuanian, posing the intriguing question as to what exactly has coincided, and creating  a wide space for the listener’s imagination. In fact, it is an acronym for Sound Universe Technology Avatar Partnership Organisation.

It is probably not by accident that a composition about the partnership of sound and the universe is dedicated to two long-time performers of Sodeika’s music, the piano duo of Rūta Rikterė and Zbignevas Ibelhauptas. On this album the pianists perform Sound Ontology No. 2 and Sutapo. It is clear that the long-term collaboration between the composer and the piano duo is founded on a similar understanding of new concert music as a compelling sound language for communicating with the listeners. Of course, the pianists’ prowess is also necessary in order to perform Sodeika’s technically demanding opuses. As Eglė Gudžinskaitė wrote after the premiere of Sutapo, Rikterė and Ibelhauptas “felt in their element – it’s their kind of music” (Lietuvos muzikos antena, 2010-10-28). 

The work consists of two conventional parts – an array of frozen harmonies at the beginning is followed by a deconstruction of extended chords, which crumble into fluid lines of perpetuum mobile in the second part. 

Sodeika’s Concert for piano and symphony orchestra (2014) won him an award “For a Fresh Interpretation of Tradition” from the Lithuanian Composers’ Union. In this case, Leppert’s insights about the grand piano as a certain sign of power or recognition in the field of culture seem to be totally true. The premiere of the Concert took place at the prestigious Vilnius Festival in the Philharmonic Society concert hall, where the up-and-coming pianist Gryta Tatorytė was accompanied by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by star of the classical stage Modestas Pitrėnas. 

It is mildly paradoxical – or perhaps simply a feature of postmodern times? – that in climbing the Philharmonic Olympus, and in a certain sense guaranteeing himself recognition from the “academics” of culture, Sodeika brought along with him his anti-establishment ‘academic techno’. Indeed, when composing the Concert, he did not try especially to adapt to the imaginary requirements or image of the elite stage. In his own words, long before he received the festival’s proposal, he had begun to compose a work for his pianist son, “fantasising that he could perform this work during his graduation exams at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre”. 

Concert for piano and symphony orchestra exudes an air of freedom. A concentrated three-movement piece is performed without breaks and alludes to the impressive concert works of early 20th century Modernism, spanning the tradition from Maurice Ravel to Vytautas Bacevičius. 

In his own annotation of the work, Sodeika points to his favourite context of urban culture that evokes the industrial pathos of these modernists: I composed the Concert by deconstructing and synthesising the sounds that surround us, actualising the contexts of culture and subculture, and seeking to establish a close link with the listeners. 

Concert for piano and symphony orchestra is a kind of synthesis or compendium of Sodeika’s earlier piano works. For example, more casual, jazzy flashes are heard in between the incessant motor movement of perpetuum mobile both in the piano part, and in the play with the colours of the orchestra (like the excellent duo between the vivacious piano and a muted trumpet the second movement).  

Have you ever heard a “sad” work by Sodeika? Probably, we never will. The lyrical moments in Concert for piano and symphony orchestra are also more related to a state of introspection, while the finale drives nails of positivity into the shell of our depressive time. 

Beata Baublinskienė

------------------- 

1. Petardos / Firecrackers (2016)          

for piano

 Petras Geniušas (piano)

2. Tettigonia perdida (The Lost Grasshopper), DADA concerto grosso (2016)       

for piano, cello, four string quartets & double bass

Joris Sodeika (piano), Povilas Jacunskas (cello), Čiurlionis String Quartet, Chordos String Quartet, ArtVio String Quartet, Mettis String Quartet & Donatas Bagurskas (double bass)

3. Dru Ka Ja Mu Di (2016)          

for eight acoustic instruments, two live electronics modules and conductor

“Synaesthesis” 

Recording producers: Aleksandra Kerienė and Vilius Keras

MUSIC BORN OUT OF NOSTALGIA

Acoustic music might seem somewhat marginal in Gintaras Sodeika‘s work; he is better known as a composer of music for theatre, the founder and organiser of Anykščiai Happenings Seminars (1988-1990), and the head of Jonas Mekas Visual Arts Center in Vilnius. However, his second CD attracts attention: not because one can see a certain „qualitative progression“ in its instrumental enrichment (compared to Tremors for piano, his first CD published in 2015), but because in this never-discon- tinued, just presently intensifying, creative field, Sodeika emerges as a unique and already recognisable composer.

In the 1990s, he, as an „art-music composer, „found it more important to speak not through „a string quartet, or a clarinet, or an orchestra,“ but through „a film, a video, or improvisational noises and smells composed by an analog synthesizer“. Upon coming full circle, Sodeika is back to instrumental compositions, probably depending on through which instruments he wants to speak at the moment. Art music composing, which in his green years seemed „too limited“ for the articu- lation of avant-garde ideas, has now acquired meaning and space: not physical, but acoustic.

Composer Gintaras Sodeika, for whom the freedom of expres- sion was one of the most important creative impulses and intentions in the period of the Happenings Seminars, remains true to his principles also on the plane of art music. It transforms previous discoveries of libe- ration-from-tradition and transposes them into the sound space. One- off actions, performances, and happenings, constructed as hybridisati- on of heterogeneous elements that highlighted a particular Idea, faced the boundaries of multiplication of such connections. At some point, the materialisation of an artistic idea had to return to the shapes of the object being performed on stage, bought and sold, and to acquire the consistency of a recorded and reproducible work. With acoustic compo- sitions, Sodeika gives meaning to this particular turn, without rejecting his previously accumulated experience, but rather providing it with new quality and new sound.

If we agree with the statement that, in the era of postmoder- nism or post-postmodernism, the most important thing is not what is connected, but the individuality of connections, we should listen to these compositions specifically through this prism. Collage, fragmentation, layering, and improvisation have become universal creative tools, and therefore exclusivity is born only out of the subjectivity of selection.

What is the sound of Gintaras Sodeika? It boasts the supports which are an inextricable part of all contemporary Lithuanian music – the basis of repetitive minimalism, which, however, has lost its radica- lism. Let‘s face it, getting rid of repetitive sound is very hard. It enchants with its permanence, imprisons in its mantric energy, and plunges into the euphoria of barely perceptible changes. Combining, juxtaposing, and layering the rhythm of „machinist“ music with the swing of jazz, with the energy of rock as well as (!) with the Impressionist-style (Debussy) tim- bral strokes and with the indeterminate bruitism of „musique concrète instrumentale“ (Helmut Lachenmann) is both complex and bold. Howe- ver, it is in this liberation from repetitive suggestion that the style is born.

The dynamics of intensity is one of the more important struc- tural elements here. It is developed not so much in terms of harmony as of rhythm, reaching the boundaries of paroxysm of the anti-deve- lopment. This is a tribute not only to the generation of Lithuanian „ma- chinist“ music composers, but also to the urban („asphalt“) music of Alexander Mosolov and Arthur Honegger. Reminiscences turn into „art techno“ (Gintaras Sodeika). It is no coincidence that Tettigonia perdida is dedicated to the centenary of the DADA Manifesto publication. Sodei- ka leads a dialogue with influences over distance and time, and already over a certain critical distance. He probably also debates Bronius Kuta- vičius’ Anno cum tettigonia (for string quartet and recording, 1980), in which the scheme of dynamics of material intensification has already become a tradition of Lithuanian music. The schemes of concentering and decentering sound energy produce not just an agogic effect. It is a sphere of suggestiveness, in which the composer‘s passion for sound itself, for the possibilities of its power, is revealed. The social aspect of happenings was also, after all, a hidden reflection of the author on the issue of (political) power, and liberation from it.

In the manner by which the discovered and borrowed sound objects are combined, one can discern Sodeika‘s taste and his percep- tion of sound as well as the compositional techniques close to his heart. In his compositions, Gintaras Sodeika reveals what he, as an „art-mu- sic composer“, treasures in the 20th century avant-garde. Therefore, references to the latter tend to sound not so much as his search for individual stylistics, but rather as a hedonistic relationship in which one immerses oneself in, and concentrates on, different sonic states, observing the timbral and rhythmic combinations of intercommunicating historical references.

Like happenings of the 90ties that once invited their partici- pants, performers, and audiences to take part in the creative process, an open composition (Petardos [Firecrackers]) now leaves to the interpreter (Petras Geniušas) the freedom to create together and, most importantly, to listen carefully together to what is born during the creation–perfor- mance process. The pianist‘s relationship with the instrument begins and ends with a tactile movement. This composition, like Steve Reich‘s Six Pianos, would be more suitable for a percussionist, and therefore Geniušas-the pianist speaks here as a percussionist. Sodeika-Geniušas explore sound from within, as if squeezing out of each chord everything it can reveal: the musical scenes – „pictures at an exhibition „ –, instead of telling stories, reveal the emotional states of the co-authors and the stages of their individual experiences.

Through retaining similar creative principles, Gintaras Sodeika transfers the freedom discovered in his performance era to the score „written with a pencil“. The interpreters are infected with the same se- arch for sound; they focus not on the exact directions of the composer, but on the sound itself and on their own relationship with it. The audience is enchanted by the live act of creation, because „one of the most im- portant goals of this composition is to communicate with the audience during its performance. That, as is well known, is difficult to capture in the score, but as a theatre person, I know the ways that help to achieve the result by rehearsing“ (DRU KA JA MU DI).

Sodeika, an author of happenings, who composed music for Oskaras Koršunovas‘ theatre and also inspired it, upon returning to art music, brings the courage for mixtures. The work as a whole sounds like a colorful palette in which textures and contrasts are not aleatoric. „Free improvisation at the equipment later became the basis of quite a few of Sodeika‘s compositions and his music for theatre, a creative method,“ said Tomas Juzeliūnas during the time of happenings.

What is that modus operandi that combines Sodeika‘s perfor- mances and his art music? That is probably a constant desire to break out; to break out of tradition, of history, of the present, and of certain frames through combining personal experiences, influences, and reflec- tions in the virtual sound space and through turning that gesture-of-li- beration into a musical process. In the language of post-modernism, re- miniscence is not a reference but an element of syntax, while nostalgia is probably the strongest impulse for the creator, turned into the content. It seems that Gintaras Sodeika‘s happenings were born out of nostalgia for art music; his music for theatre, out of nostalgia for happenings; while art music composed for the concert stage, out of all the other past, pre- sent, and future nostalgias ...

Vita Gruodytė

 1. Tone Ontology No. 2 (1998)       

for two pianos

Rūta & Zbignevas Ibelhauptas (piano duo)

2. Taliensi 747 (1997)                            

for piano and recording

Petras Geniušas (piano)

3. Tremors (1999)                                  

for piano and 9 instruments

Petras Geniušas (piano), Domas Memėnas (trumpet), Skirmantas Sasnauskas (trombone), Saulius Astrauskas (percussion), Arnoldas Gurinavičius (double bass), Vilnius Woodwind Quintet: Mindaugas Juozapavičius (flute), Linas Šalna (oboe), Romualdas Taločka (clarinet), Zigmantas Augaitis (horn), Šarūnas Kačionas (bassoon). 

Conductor Julius Geniušas 

4. Iodio (2002)                                      

for three pianos 

Joris Sodeika (piano), Neringa Valuntonytė (piano), Paulius Pancekauskas (piano)

5. SUTAPO (2010)                               

for two pianos

Rūta Rikterė ir Zbignevas Ibelhauptas (piano duo)

6. Concerto for Piano and Symphony Orchestra (2014)               

Gryta Tatorytė (piano), Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra, conductor Modestas Pitrėnas

Recording producers: Aleksandra Kerienė and Vilius Keras

Baltic Mobile Recordings

THE GRAND PIANOS OF GINTARAS SODEIKA

According to American musicologist Richard Leppert, a concert grand piano has the values of being professional, male, and public. Certainly, this kind of sentiment pertains more to the times of the “great romantic warhorses”, as 19th century monumental concerts for grand piano have been dubbed recently by a witty critic in The Guardian. But it also relates to the work of 21st century Lithuanian composer Gintaras Sodeika, and connects to the common denominator of the piano. 

In the eyes of the public, Gintaras Sodeika (b. 1961) is probably most distinctly associated with non-traditional works; happenings, sound installations and music for theatre productions. However, a considerable part of his output is pure music. Only it seems that until recently this side of his work has been in the shadow of his theatrical offerings, made under the pseudonym Fluxus. 

Several years ago, on the eve of the premiere of his Concert for piano and orchestra, the composer revealed a new focus for his artistic expression: 

The spiral of time has come round. Once I organised festivals of happenings and made actions – I was swimming against the current trying to prove that art can be very diverse, even devoid of traditional features. […] Today I am concerned with other things – I want to have a polemic with the Sodeika of that time. (Lrytas.lt, 2014-06-02)

And yet, even “the Sodeika of that time” composed music for the “traditional” piano: Taliensi 747 for piano and recorded sound (1997), Sound Ontology No. 2 for piano duo (1998), Tremors for large ensemble and piano (1999), Iodio for three pianos (2002), and Sutapo for two pianos (2010). Clearly “the Sodeika of that time” was evolving into the creative manifestation we can call “today’s Sodeika,” illustrated in his Concert for piano and orchestra (2014). On the other hand, it could be said that it is an obsession or fascination with the piano, with its sound, timbre and the possibilities of expression it contains, that is far more fundamental to the composer’s creative thinking than any aesthetic, artistic or ideological preferences.

The six piano works mentioned above all appear on this album, which is Sodeika’s first. It would be easy to explain their inclusion as an effort to compile a consistent and integral programme for the album – these opuses were selected from among his 44 works (the earliest of which dates back 1983). 

However, it is clear that the crux of the matter lies much deeper, and that Sodeika’s thinking with regards to the piano is related to the composer’s early musical experiences. 

It was not until I was in the 8th grade that I started studying music, having suddenly felt an irresistible urge to become a composer. I found myself a piano teacher and used to play ten hours a day until I entered the Vilnius Conservatoire and the choir conducting class. After my graduation I joined the composition class at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Today it would be difficult to imagine this kind of outburst. [...]But still, I never separate from the piano – I love to play, to improvise or simply to listen to its sound. (www.lrytas.lt)

This passion should not come as a surprise, given that the composer counts top quality Lithuanian pianists of various generations among his creative colleagues. Many of them feature on this album: Petras Geniušas, Rūta Rikterė and Zbignevas Ibelhauptas, Gryta Tatorytė and, finally, the composer’s son Joris Sodeika.

So, what kind of music is recorded on the album? Clearly, writing a lot about works that can be listened to right here it makes little sense. Yet, on the other hand, something that has a history can provoke a closer look or evoke a different feeling. Thus, let’s return for a moment to Leppert’s insights on piano. He called the piano the favourite musical instrument of the 19th century’s ruling classes, reflecting and evoking sonic and visual associations of pleasure, desire, and hate. 

What associations does Sodeika’s piano evoke in the 20th and 21st century? They can probably be best described using the concept of ‘academic techno’ that was introduced by the composer himself and has been in circulation for quite a long time. True, the aesthetics of ‘academic techno’ were hardly related with “the ruling classes” at the time of the premiere of Sodeika’s Sound Ontology No. 2 in 1998. This piece established the name of the trend and is today considered a crucial work. ‘Academic techno’, which “converted” the laws of electronic and computer-generated music into the acoustic format and enriched the musical discourse with pop culture features, ran contrary to established ideas about what serious academic music should be at that time. On the other hand, it was also a conscious choice to relate to those trends of 20thcentury music that, in the words of musicologist Rūta Stanevičiūtė, formed an anti-romantic image of piano music in Sound Ontology No. 2. 

In fact Sodeika did not become a romantic of the piano, a move which would have contradicted his exuberant aesthetic nature which aims to avoid the banality of “sincere outpourings”. Yet, his cool lyricism, permeated with Cage-like introspection, manifests itself in an improvisational character which is close to jazz. 

The earliest work on this album, Taliensi 747 for piano and recorded sound composed in 1997, sounds like a free improvisation. Clearly, pianist Petras Geniušas’s interpretation also contributes to the feeling of a wide inner space, as this performer is capable of playing the written notes as if they were his own. He listens to them closely, giving them a unique breath and subtly creating different moods. Paradoxically enough, given that  it was created when the composer was still fresh from his ‘Fluxus’ happenings and exhibitions of the “Green Leaf” group, Taliensi 747 is probably the most lyrical composition on the album. 

Another work from this period is Tremors, a composition for instrumental ensemble and piano which throbs with rhythmic, emotional shivers. In 1999, the year of the piece’s composition, Sodeika became one of the co-founders of the Oskaras Koršunovas’s theatre company. Yet in Tremors, the links with the concert music scene are more prominent. The work was inspired by the eponymous poem by Scottish poet Stewart Conn about the hardly perceptible soul vibrations aroused by the ominous beat of the industrial world. According to musicologist Linas Paulauskis, the title Tremors reflects both the poetic programme of the work and the sound of the music itself: a kind of “film for the ears” is created, and a rather static minimalist texture is diversified with elements of jazz. An extended ensemble – a wind quintet, percussion, double bass and piano – allows the piece to achieve a concert sound with flashes of the different timbres and colours of the instruments.  

By contrast, Iodio for three pianos (2002) is undoubtedly an opus of the “theatrical” Sodeika. On the one hand, here we can recognise traces of Sodeika’s score for Oskaras Koršunovas’s production, Roberto Zucco (which was awarded the Kristoforas prize), which is reminiscent of stylised rave music. On the other hand, the piece has an inclination towards overlapping rhythmical formulas and techno beats, treating the piano as a percussive instrument in the mould of, let’s say, Steve Reich. Although Sodeika, as a representative of urban aesthetics par excellence, has never been identified with classical Lithuanian minimalists and their relation to the semantic field of longing, American repetitiveness was undoubtedly instrumental in forming Sodeika’s creative style. So to was his more general non-elitist – hence, non-European – approach to the art of music, which does not shun elements of pop culture. 

Contemporary young pianists Joris Sodeika, Paulius Pancekauskas and Neringa Valuntonytė prepared a new rendition of Iodio for this album. Although Valuntonytė and Pancekauskas are still studying at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, all three have won international competitions. Joris Sodeika holds a diploma from the 7th Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis International Piano Competition (2015).

The titles of Sodeika’s opuses can be called a separate field of his creative work. Let’s take the piece Sutapo for two pianos (2010), for example. Sutapo means coincided in Lithuanian, posing the intriguing question as to what exactly has coincided, and creating  a wide space for the listener’s imagination. In fact, it is an acronym for Sound Universe Technology Avatar Partnership Organisation.

It is probably not by accident that a composition about the partnership of sound and the universe is dedicated to two long-time performers of Sodeika’s music, the piano duo of Rūta Rikterė and Zbignevas Ibelhauptas. On this album the pianists perform Sound Ontology No. 2 and Sutapo. It is clear that the long-term collaboration between the composer and the piano duo is founded on a similar understanding of new concert music as a compelling sound language for communicating with the listeners. Of course, the pianists’ prowess is also necessary in order to perform Sodeika’s technically demanding opuses. As Eglė Gudžinskaitė wrote after the premiere of Sutapo, Rikterė and Ibelhauptas “felt in their element – it’s their kind of music” (Lietuvos muzikos antena, 2010-10-28). 

The work consists of two conventional parts – an array of frozen harmonies at the beginning is followed by a deconstruction of extended chords, which crumble into fluid lines of perpetuum mobile in the second part. 

Sodeika’s Concert for piano and symphony orchestra (2014) won him an award “For a Fresh Interpretation of Tradition” from the Lithuanian Composers’ Union. In this case, Leppert’s insights about the grand piano as a certain sign of power or recognition in the field of culture seem to be totally true. The premiere of the Concert took place at the prestigious Vilnius Festival in the Philharmonic Society concert hall, where the up-and-coming pianist Gryta Tatorytė was accompanied by the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra conducted by star of the classical stage Modestas Pitrėnas. 

It is mildly paradoxical – or perhaps simply a feature of postmodern times? – that in climbing the Philharmonic Olympus, and in a certain sense guaranteeing himself recognition from the “academics” of culture, Sodeika brought along with him his anti-establishment ‘academic techno’. Indeed, when composing the Concert, he did not try especially to adapt to the imaginary requirements or image of the elite stage. In his own words, long before he received the festival’s proposal, he had begun to compose a work for his pianist son, “fantasising that he could perform this work during his graduation exams at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre”. 

Concert for piano and symphony orchestra exudes an air of freedom. A concentrated three-movement piece is performed without breaks and alludes to the impressive concert works of early 20th century Modernism, spanning the tradition from Maurice Ravel to Vytautas Bacevičius. 

In his own annotation of the work, Sodeika points to his favourite context of urban culture that evokes the industrial pathos of these modernists: I composed the Concert by deconstructing and synthesising the sounds that surround us, actualising the contexts of culture and subculture, and seeking to establish a close link with the listeners. 

Concert for piano and symphony orchestra is a kind of synthesis or compendium of Sodeika’s earlier piano works. For example, more casual, jazzy flashes are heard in between the incessant motor movement of perpetuum mobile both in the piano part, and in the play with the colours of the orchestra (like the excellent duo between the vivacious piano and a muted trumpet the second movement).  

Have you ever heard a “sad” work by Sodeika? Probably, we never will. The lyrical moments in Concert for piano and symphony orchestra are also more related to a state of introspection, while the finale drives nails of positivity into the shell of our depressive time. 

Beata Baublinskienė