Historical Context in the Latest Lithuanian Music: Contemporary Tensions

The historical context opens its unresolved issues inside contemporary cultural consciousness. It gives the language of music a specific dimension of dramatic tensions. Here, composers’ propositions acquire a coded imagery close to the aesthetics of modernist catastrophe. The musical text becomes highly contextual and filled with the knowledge arisen from history. It is like an encrypted message about the current transformation of history. The texture of the work becomes an expression of the signs incorporating also non-musical sounds or visual space. Semantics play a crucial role in soundscapes. In this sense, we can talk about the war and post-war semantics, which is making its comeback into Lithuanian music. Here, the aesthetic poles of tension or the dramaturgy of conflict arise and are realised through the spectra of hum or expression of identities. In this context, two recent works by Lithuanian composers should be mentioned: they accurately respond to the tensions and wounds of the Second World War that continue to bleed inside the identity consciousness of the Lithuanian nation. These wounds are the Holocaust and the post-war partisan struggle against the Soviet occupation. The topic of ‘war after war’ acquires its musical task in Vytautas Germanavičius’s (b.1969) work Red Trees (2018) for flute, cello, and organ dedicated to the partisan commander Adolfas Ramanauskas-Vanagas. It is important to stress that Vanagas has been recognised as a de facto leader of the state and, thanks to sustained efforts of historians and archaeologists, his remains, which were discovered in the Vilnius Orphans’ Cemetery, were reburied in the Pantheon of State Leaders. All this forms an exceptional historical dimension, which finds an original reflection in Germanavičius’s work. Meanwhile, the Holocaust theme connects vividly with the 80th anniversary (late in 2020), of the deed of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who saved over 6,000 Jews in 1940. Algirdas Martinaitis (b.1950) work Visa for Life (2020) for two flutes, oboe, and organ is dedicated to Chiune Sugihara. Here, the composer combines, in a unique way, the worlds of the Japanese, the European tradition and Jewish music. His musical expression is based on the dramaturgy of transformation (the constant running of the toccata). In this way, each composer voices the context of the past: its tension transforms the language of music. It should be noted that both works bring back the catastrophe of the Second World War and the post-war period, which is a painful drama of the history of the Baltic States and not yet sufficiently understood in the world. As a result, the former meditative face of Baltic music identity changes accordingly.

THE PROBLEM OF SPIRITUAL CREATION IN M. BAZHAN’S «NIGHT CONCERTS»

The article analyzes the content of the concept of «spiritual creation» and its constituent elements «spirit», «creation»; the means of verbal representation of the studied concept in revealing the content of texts and images of characters in the poetic cycle «Night concerts» are analyzed; the specific in the process of revealing the role of musicians and their works in the life of society, the influence of music on the listener, on the formation of personality are determined; the peculiarity of the poet’s «translation» of the language of music into words are defined. It is emphasized that music is not just a melody for M. Bazhan, it is the truth of feelings, that is why the artist translated it into the language of visible images. A careful reading of the content of M. Bazhan’s «Night concerts» allows us to single out the semantic load of the concept «Spirit»: Spirit of artist; Spirit of music; Spirit of the word (voice); Spirit of the city; Spirit of victory; Spirit-Soul; Spirit of love, and «creation» – as creativity that goes beyond human existence. In each poem that makes up the cycle «Night concerts», we see a personality of the Composer-Creator: E. Villa-Lobos, M. Leontovych, L. Hrabovskyi, Ya. Sibelius, F. Schubert, D. Shostakovych and singer Edith Piaf, who is also a creative person. As composers, whose personalities and destinies are revealed in the works of the artist, the Poet himself becomes a kind of a translator of the sounds of music into the sounds of poetry. M. Bazhan pays special attention to the character of Edith Piaf, whose songs became a symbol of Paris, its freedom, and the singer’s talent raised her above the crowd, even above the city roofs, in the poet’s vision she is a «midnight soothsayer», «pure prophetess» in whose character Virgin Mother is visible. In «Night concerts» the artist is not limited to the sound aspect of the musicians’ work. He attaches great importance to the features of the performer and composer. Because it is their inner strength, their Spirit is embodied in the works. Reading the poems that make up this cycle of poetry acquaints us not only with creativity, but also with the fate of composers and performers.

Two-Way Time Travel

This chapter considers the new relations of past and present to future that have emerged in the wake of scientific discoveries in genetics and other medical technologies. The first section links Australian novelist Gerald Murnane with established English writer Ian McEwan, suggesting how for both writers the representation of memory, cultural as well as personal, has been mediated by developments in science. The second section, ‘The American Systems Novel’, extends this analysis by considering how genetics shape the plot of Jeffrey Eugenides’s Middlesex and how 9/11 scrambles understandings of temporal sequence in Jonathan Safran Foer’s Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. It concludes by discussing how the historical context of postmodernist science inflects representations of temporal sequence in the novels of Richard Powers, which address issues of computer technology, ecology, and environmentalism, while also representing the aesthetics of temporality in relation to the abstract language of music.

Latviešu komponistu adaptācijas varianti pēckara Eiropā

Keywords: classical music, style, national romanticism, transformation of creative works, modernism, avant-garde This article discusses the stylistic and aesthetic transformation of the work of the most prominent Latvian composers, who, as refugees of the Second World War, arrived in Western Europe in 1944 and encountered a different, innovative musical environment there. For those whose creative work in Latvia had been focused on traditional national romanticism, the encounter with musical expressionism and the avant-garde caused a certain shock. The stark differences in style were not only a matter of compositional technique; they also revealed the contradiction between a positivistic worldview and a more adequate musical reflection of the common man during the era. Longīns Apkalns learned from the ideas and style of expressionism most radically, but Alberts Jērums was much more moderate in this respect—he had already approached expressionism during his studies at the Latvian Conservatory. In his studies at the Paris Conservatory (1945-1950), Tālivaldis Ķeniņš studied the traditions of French neoclassicism and constructivism. Volfgangs Dārziņš adapted neoclassical trends in combination with Béla Bartók’s interpretation of folklore. Jānis Mediņš radicalized his traditional language of music, but did not abandon the paradigm of the music of romanticism. Similarly, Jānis Kalniņš’ music, even in the pre-war period, was not unfamiliar with the border between romanticism and expressionism. The composers who, with their creative work, chose to serve only Latvian society in exile continued in the romantic style.

Musical discourse in the theory of musical semiotics

Music is an abstract language that is constantly evolving, and in this connection, one of the possible approaches to the interpretation of music as a discourse concerns the issues of the relatedness of music and speech, that is, the language of music and language of speech. In this way, the relationship between musical discourse and the musical thought of the composer and speech as a product arising from the opinions of the speaker is established. In this paper, through the examination of discourses on music as a product of human activity, which are recognized in different cultures in different ways, one considers the way in which individual works, the phenomenon of music and the forms of human behaviour caused by music can be interpreted. The aim of the paper is to emphasize the importance of a generative approach to the understanding of tonality through a critical consideration of the semiological approach for understanding the language of music, and to provide an insight into the similarities between music and language.

FEATURES OF INTERSEMIOTIC TEXT TRANSLATION: CHANGING THE VERBAL CODE TO THE MUSICAL ONE

This article deals with the features of intersemiotic translation from verbal language into musical language. Authors’ attention is paid to the difference between verbal and non-verbal semiotic systems in the aspect of coding and transmission of information. The aim of the work is to provide the ability to translate any meaning into the language of music, as well as its adaptation. The work uses textual and comparative methods. The authors selectively compare the terms of linguistics and musicology, analyze the formal characteristics of works and the characteristic features of verbal and non-verbal semiotic systems. The features of the behavior of musical and literary texts are considered in the article. The absence of fixed nominations in the musical language leads to the ambiguous interpretation of the text.

Cultural Determinants of Creative Activity: The Problem of Freedom and Determinacy

Рассмотрена культурная определенность творческой деятельности в аспекте отношения между творчеством как созданием чего-то принципиально нового и воспроизводством культуры, основанным на экспликации заложенных в нее смыслов. Материалами послужили результаты исследований философов и культурологов, изучавших проблемы социокультурной обусловленности творчества. Проводится аналитическое рассмотрение основных концепций, связанных с трактовкой творчества, изучены подходы к определению творческого статуса отдельных продуктов культуры, затронуты проблемы соотношения содержания и формы в творческой деятельности, охарактеризованы современные условия ее осуществления. Выделены варианты творческой деятельности по критерию характера выражаемых смыслов. Сделан вывод, что в настоящее время присутствуют социальные и технологические предпосылки как для множественной проработки уже известных мейнстримовых направлений, так и для формирования уникальных по форме и содержанию смысловых конструкций. The main problem of the study is to identify the relationship between the individual and culturally predetermined aspects of creative activity with the subsequent extension of the findings to the modern sociocultural situation. The sources were materials and research results of philosophers and culturologists studying the problem of the sociocultural conditioning of creativity. The authors proceed from a methodological premise that implies that, in the creative sphere, there are mechanisms for the “elaboration” of individual ideas, similar in their principles to the development of paradigms in the meaning that Thomas Kuhn attached to this term. The authors ask themselves the question of what the status of creativity is in modern research thought and determine the general points that are characteristic of almost all philosophical systems when considering creativity. The contradictions inherent in the problem of the cultural conditioning of creativity are analyzed. On the one hand, creativity is conditioned by the influence of culture and its development; on the other, it is the product of the free activity of an individual. The authors argue that a simple explication of culture is impossible, but one cannot reject the presence of direct objective factors that, to one degree or another, affect the creative process. Trying to determine the degree of conditionality of the creative process, the authors turn to the analysis of musical notation as a universal language of music. The conclusion is made about the limited (albeit calculated in huge numbers) options for expressing sound combinations. At the same time, this limitation acts simultaneously as determinacy, the so-called “field for maneuver”. Abstracting from this observation, the authors argue that the novelty of creative activity is not absolute: when faced with its product, we observe “the unknown in the known”. It is this aspect that determines the connection between creative individuals when they are forming cultural heritage. Four variants of creative activity are distinguished according to the criterion of the nature of the meanings expressed and the means used for this. The authors argue that the degree of variability of creative activity largely depends on how much society considers it permissible to introduce something new into the existing. They conclude that at present there are social and technological prerequisites both for the multiple elaboration of already known, mainstream areas and for the formation of semantic structures that are unique in their form and content.

Learner autonomy in music performance practices

The language of music shares a number of basic processing mechanisms with natural languages, yet studies of learner autonomy in music education are rare. This study aims to assess the effectiveness of fostering music students’ learner autonomy in performance practice through a series of curriculum changes. A mixed-methods approach, including a questionnaire survey and semi-structured interviews, was used to investigate two cohorts of music education students (N = 74) from Hong Kong. The analysis reveals the students’ autonomous learner characteristics, including the ability to formulate their own learning strategies, identify both musical and non-musical weaknesses and take appropriate steps to improve their performance skills.

Ralph L. Baldwin: His Influence on American Music Education through Teaching, Publication, and Service

Ralph L. Baldwin (1872–1943) was a prominent music educator who, in addition to his role as a teacher, was an author, composer, and leader of various professional music organizations. Baldwin later became known through his many publications and as the administrator of the Sterrie Weaver Summer School after Weaver’s untimely death. This narrative study was intended to describe the teaching philosophy developed by Baldwin. In addition, the visibility and recognition brought to Baldwin through his books in the “Music Education Series,” published by Ginn and Company, were detailed. Baldwin advocated teaching sight reading or the “language” of music to balance out the rote singing methods being used. He blended the rote and note philosophies much like his predecessor Sterrie Weaver. While Baldwin’s methods and publications are not necessarily used in American classrooms today, it is important to recognize the quality ideas and resources that he offered to music educators of that time. Baldwin’s publications are a good example of an effective instructional method, including materials, that directly preceded the adoption of current methods and approaches to music education.