Julius Juzeliūnas - Symphony No. 5 "Lygumų giesmės"/"Songs of the Plains" (Score Video)

00:00 1. Sėdauto
14:20 2. Kalnuti

Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra conducted by Saulius Sondeckis
Liepaitės Girls' Choir conducted by Liucija Palinauskaitė and Petras Vailionis

This recording is from a 1987 Melodiya LP. Many thanks to Ben Lunn for the score and to the YouTube channel "Obscure Little Beasties" for the original audio (   • Julius Juzeliūnas - Lygumų giesmės (S...  ).

Julius Juzeliūnas (1916-2001) was a Lithuanian composer and teacher, one of the most influential in his country during the 20th century. In the 1960s, Juzeliūnas adapted his style from national romanticism to a more modernist idiom rooted in Lithuanian folk music with elements of minimalism. Many of his most important works, including "Lygumų giesmės" - composed in 1982 - date from this later period.

"It was Miroslav Buček, Professor at the Department of Music of Brno University, a choirmaster and organist, who proposed an idea to write a composition for girls’ choir and chamber orchestra. First of all I was drawn by the combination of performers he had proposed. Then I had an aural image of the whole timbral palette, a ‘universe of colours’ for my future composition, according to which I selected the onomatopoeic words from the ancient Lithuanian folk songs [sutartinės].

What I particularly admired during my stay in Czechoslovakia was the scenic alpine landscape. I am from the plains of Northern Lithuania, so why can’t I think about plains while looking at the mountains? I tried to evoke that ‘plain-like’ image in music, without any conspicuous tidal waves and dramatic climaxes. When writing this composition I felt spiritual affinity to the nature and history of my homeland."

-Julius Juzeliūnas (quote courtesy of Lithuanian Music Information Centre)