MIKALOJUS KONSTANTINAS ČIURLIONIS (1875-1911)
The Sea – Symphonic Poem (1907)
State Symphony Orchestra of the Russian Federation
EVGENY SVETLANOV, conductor
Live 13 February 1993
The Great Hall of the Moskow Conservatory

The Lithuanian painter, composer and writer Mikaloju Konstantinas Čiurlionis passed, April 10, 1911, i.e. 38 days before Gustav Mahler did.
Čiurlionis was a worthy representative of the typical “fin de siècle” artistical mood.
Both his paintings and musical works are deeply shaped within the artistical trends of abstractionism and symbolism.

The Symphonic Poem “THE SEA” clearly embraces features of the Late Romanticism and many echoes of Wagner and Richard Strauss’style may easily be detected.
However the work displays a class and a uniqueness of its own.
It masterly depicts the Sea by focusing on its “static nature” and its “continual motion” at the same time.
As quickly pointed out by a friend of mine, the originality of the work lies in its narrative and the different temporality generated by a special use of repetition.
Actually the structure of the work even seems to reveal in advance some distinguishable features of the Minimalist trends, and I cannot help but thinking about Philip Glass use of repetitions .. conveyed within a typically Late Romantic technical and aesthetical framework.
All up a very evocative work.

Evgeny Svetlanov and the Russian Federation Symphony Orchestra deliver an outstanding performance of the work. The relentless struggle between static and motion, the eternal flowing of the wawes, the wind’s power and the nocturnal sea landscape are returned with superlative detailing and authenticity.

May be this is a work requiring repeated hearings in order to be fully understood, but – believe me – this an absolutely magic exeperience.

PS: I incorporated in the video one of the most significant and emblematic Čiurlionis’s painting: “TRANQUILLITY” (1907)

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