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- This CD is a first attempt at unfolding the wide variety of approaches to sutartinės, demonstrating the transformations and interpretations that are possible today. Clearly one CD cannot contain examples of every traditional style of performing sutartinės, or the wide variety of contemporary interpretations. Becent unique music video and music dance projects are not incorporated. Also not included are the works of renovvned Lithuanian composers Bronius Kutavičius, Feliksas Bajoras, and Algirdas Martinanitis, as well as distinctive chorai works by Vaclovas Augustinas, Jūrate Baltramiejūnaitė, and others.
The words of Father Adolfas Sabaliauskas, (credited with "discovering" sutartinės), vvritten more than a century ago in 1904 sound prophetic: "We can merely write down as many melodies as possible. Sutartinės will be a limitless source of tonai material for works that will shake the depths of the Lithuanian soul and preserve a Lithuanian citizen's immortal nature. They will flood not only the souls of Lithuanians, but also those of foreigners who have a sense for real beauty." Likewise, in the beginning of the 20* century Lithuanian composer Kazimieras Viktoras Banaitis stated that, "Those sutartinės, harmonized in seconds, often in harsh dissonance - are truly a treasure chest of our folk music! You might say that Lithuanian village singers became sophisticated, emancipated dissonance a long time ago, and are centuries ahead of the music of European modernists." However, the most insightful reflections come from Edvvin Geist, a composer from the first half of the 20" century: "Since one of the laws of the theory of cosmogenesis maintains that nothing that existed ever vanishes, we should try to view the disappearance of sutartinės as an alleged wilting. The mystical bridge from sutartinės to the musicai phenomena of our day is proof that this archaic Lithuanian song type has not disappeared."
- CD
- Vilnius, Lithuania
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