The aim of the article is to highlight the creative work of the outstanding 20th- century Latvian conductor and pedagogue Leonīds Vīgners in the field of composition. The facts are based on the materials of Leonīds Vīgners’s archives found in the Museum of Literature and Music, which allows tracing the entire, versatile activities of the musician.
Leonīds’s understanding of music, much like that of his sisters Beatrise, Meta, and prematurely deceased brother Vitālis, developed early in childhood, when they became the examples of the success of the new practical method of absolute musical hearing championed by their father Vīgneru Ernests.
Later, the talented musician received a comprehensive musical education at the Latvian Conservatory. In addition to conducting the orchestra, playing the organ and percussion instruments, he also graduated from the composition class of Jāzeps Vītols.
In the 1920s and 1930s, Leonīds Vīgners composed a range of instrumental works, from simple minuets to an extensive form of a piano sonata. In total, the museum’s collection contains 16 manuscripts of his instrumental works. The largest part of Leonīds Vīgners’s work consists of his solo and choir songs composed or reworked in different periods of time. He has mentioned that he has composed about 80 solo and 300 choir songs, but some of them perished during the war.
Examining the manuscripts of Leonīds Vīgners’s songs, as well as many drafts that have been included in the collection of the Museum of Literature and Music, it can be concluded that he attached great importance to the words that evoked his musical ideas.
Leonīds Vīgners always remained himself, with his own views on music and Latvian nationalism. However, behind his seemingly harsh exterior, there was a sensitive and fragile soul, which is truly revealed in his compositions with the plastic, bittersweet sense of melody characteristic to the Romantics and at times the impressionistic freshness and subtlety of his harmonies.
Two-Part Transition or Two-Part Subordinate Theme?
