Gintaras Sodeika

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