ŽIBUOKLĖ MARTINAITYTĖ (b.1973): Nunc fluens. Nunc stans. for Percussion and String Orchestra, Ex Tenebris Lux for String Orchestra, Sielunmaisema for Cello and String Orchestra.

Description: Martinaitytė's totally immersive, resonant soundscapes must be among the most vividly evocative examples of what might be described as "Baltic spiritual minimalism" (see also 02W078). She conjures her powerful imagery using what superficially appear to be the simplest means - a tonal, often predominantly diatonic, vocabulary, slow tempi, and gradually transforming fluid planes of timbre and texture by way of development. What makes her works so effective is the exquisitely detailed, painterly application of these materials. Nunc fluent. Nunc stans. takes its title from an aphorism of Severinus Boethius (c. 477-524): “Nunc fluens facit tempus. Nunc stans facit aeternitatum.” (“the flowing present creates time; the present that remains still creates eternity.”). The work clearly falls into two parts; the first, with its fluid string textures and resonating percussion chimes, represents the slow passage of time. A sepulchral gong-stroke and a sudden harshly gleaming bowed cymbal introduce the depiction of temporal stasis, the strings now sustaining almost unchanging harmonics, tremolandi, and long bowed notes, accompanied by strange, detached, tolling percussion sounds on the verge of silence. “Light out of Darkness" is equally vivid in its depiction of its subject matter; so much so that the title is almost superfluous. Beginning in appropriately sunless gloom, the work consists almost entirely of sections of diatonic scales, at first indistinct shapes in the shadows. With the appearance of ominously ticking slap pizzicati the darkness becomes even more oppressive, but then the texture starts to change, with the emergence of increasingly radiant tremolandi in the higher registers. Finally, incandescent massed chords flood the music with light, and a few melodic fragments ascend into the shimmering haze. Sielunmaisema, a "Soul Landscape" depicts the seasons, in four substantial movements. The first is winter, unmistakably drawn in static, glacial harmonics, the sinister dry rattling of ice in col legno bowing on the strings, and the eerie sounds of wind blowing over desolate snowfields. Spring follows, a riot of burgeoning life, in ascending fast tremolandi, exuberantly reaching upward into the light, while the solo cello winds aloft like green shoots bursting from the soil. Finally all is an exultant profusion of new life. This leads to the drowsy somnolence of summer heat, heavy with the drone of insects and with a pentatonic melody like a slowed-down Indian rāg, almost too enervated by the oppressive heat to move. Finally autumn, its warm russet harmonies masking the encroaching dissonance of a return to colder, harsher weather, while the cello intones a nostalgic lament for the departure of the year. Pavel Gunter (percussion), Rojas Vaitkevičius (cello), Lithuanian Chamber orchestra; Karolis Variakojis.