This concert is a richly layered artistic dialogue between France and Lithuania, Claude Debussy and Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, piano and voice, sound and color, the early 20th century and the present day.
At the heart of the evening is a world premiere: Reflections (Refleksijos), a new work for choir and piano four-hands by composer Nijolė Sinkevičiūtė, based on texts by Oscar Milosz.
An indirect artistic conversation between Debussy and Čiurlionis began in 1903, when both composers—unaware of each other’s work—started creating symphonic compositions inspired by the sea. That year, French impressionist Claude Debussy began work on what would become his most iconic orchestral masterpiece, La mer: trois esquisses symphoniques pour orchestre (“The Sea: Three Symphonic Sketches for Orchestra”), while Lithuanian symbolist Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis began his own epic symphonic poem The Sea, which he titled Marės in the Dzūkian dialect.
Although they came from different cultural and aesthetic backgrounds, both composers were drawn to the same elemental force—the sea. Through sound, they portrayed the sunlit shimmer of water, the dance and fury of waves, the power of the wind, and the ever-changing expanse of the ocean. In their own ways, they each told an eternal, poetic story of the sea.
The two works met very different fates. Debussy’s La mer, championed early on by conductor Arturo Toscanini, quickly became one of the most influential and frequently performed orchestral pieces of the 20th century. Čiurlionis’ The Sea, in contrast, was first performed only in 1936 in Kaunas, twenty-five years after his death. That performance omitted the organ part envisioned by the composer and featured a substantially altered orchestration. The piece underwent further revision in 1956, when composer Eduardas Balsys shortened its climax and modified the instrumentation. It was only after Lithuania regained its independence in the 1990s that efforts began to restore Čiurlionis’ original version.
For decades, these two “Seas” were never performed together. Only recently, through the efforts of pianists Sonata and Rokas Zubovas, has this dialogue between Debussy and Čiurlionis been brought to the concert stage. Their transcriptions for piano four-hands have since been performed internationally, from South Korea to the United States, allowing audiences to experience the creative kinship between these two visionary composers.
This evening’s program has been prepared by Ensemble Antiphona, a choral ensemble from the Toulouse region led by Prof. Rolandas Muleika, in collaboration with the piano duo Sonata and Rokas Zubovas.
Performers:
Ensemble Antiphona (France)
Artistic Director and Conductor: Rolandas Muleika
Duo Zubovas – Sonata Deveikytė-Zubovienė and Rokas Zubovas (piano four-hands)
Organized by: M. K. Čiurlionis House
In partnership with: Vilnius Town Hall
