Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė writes multilayered music that she hopes will grant listeners the liberty to enter an altered way of thinking.
Laura Bianchi/Courtesy of the Bogliasco Basis
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Laura Bianchi/Courtesy of the Bogliasco Basis
The Lithuanian composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė thinks way more deeply about music than most of us. She respects it, even fears it. It possesses a mysterious gravitational power, she says, pulling you into its orbit, but additionally gives freedom to push away from your self, to jettison no matter occupies your thoughts. Music is “the essence of life,” as she places it. It is an act of transformation.
Martinaitytė, now 52, is slowly gaining visibility outdoors her homeland. Starting in 2019, a collection of well-received recordings has showcased her imaginative strategies in orchestrating ensembles massive and small, with final yr’s Aletheia that includes 4 compelling choral works in magnificent performances by the Latvian Radio Choir. She received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2020, permitting her to compose the hour-long Hadal Zone, a cinematic deep dive to the underside of the ocean. In 2022, the New York Philharmonic gave the U.S. premiere of Saudade, her orchestral ode to nostalgia.
Not like most composers, who stay for the day they’ll hear their music come alive off the web page, there was a interval early on when Martinaitytė did not need her music carried out. As an alternative, she first took time to totally perceive herself, her relationship to what she was composing and what impact it may need on an viewers. Listening to the composer’s slow-moving scores, with their intricately woven layers, your thoughts can play tips on you — and that is simply how she needs it. Time winds right down to a glacial tempo, harmonies flash out and in of focus, scraps of melody float amid oases of shimmering mild or sink in darkish shadows. Now, with extra recordings, performances and commissions underway — together with an upcoming opera made in collaboration with the late Robert Wilson — Martinaitytė is lastly poised to grow to be a significant determine in her discipline.
From her generations-old household dwelling and studio within the again nation of Northwest Lithuania — the place she spends every summer time composing, away from her dwelling base in New York — Martinaitytė joined a video chat to speak in regards to the function of music in our lives, the worth of silence in composition and why she likes the time period “statically dynamic” to explain her personal work.
This interview has been edited for size and readability.
Tom Huizenga: I would like to start with a quote about your music from the late composer Ingram Marshall: “If this music transports you right into a haunting, mysterious dream world, don’t fret about it — it is solely doing its job.” I am curious what you consider that description.
Žibuoklė Martinaitytė: Ingram Marshall wrote this quote, along with this system notes, for my CD known as In Search of Misplaced Magnificence. It is a piano trio with electronics, and the electronics have pre-recorded the identical devices because the stay devices. If you combine these palettes of actual and barely much less actual, you get this sort of subtle notion, which tips your mind — I feel that was a part of what he meant. However one other half is the form of altered way of thinking the listener enters, the place all of the constraints of our actuality, of how time flows, is being erased with the assistance of music.
Why would you like your listeners to be transported in that approach?
The older I get, each time I take heed to some piece, what issues to me is whether or not it takes me someplace, whether or not it takes me out of myself. I do not need to be in myself. I need to overlook about time. I need to be elsewhere, and revel in that. And I feel we deserve that freedom of exploration of locations unknown to us. In our each day life, we’re very restricted beings — there are bodily limitations, psychological limitations, all types of limitations. However artwork, and particularly music being such an ephemeral artwork, can take you thru a lifetime in a single hour, no downside.
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I do get a sense just like Marshall’s description when experiencing your music — not solely in In Search of Misplaced Magnificence, however in Hadal Zone, Saudade and the whole Ex tenebris lux album. It is a singular feeling the place you do not know what’s coming subsequent, but you are feeling you might be in a principally protected house, like when a ebook or film pulls you deep into its world.
I feel you perceive my intentions behind the music. I rigorously craft the emotional sequences of how I, because the composer, really feel by the method, but additionally what the listener’s journey can be. It has its personal logic and its personal transcendence, and generally it goes to darkish locations. Typically you need to descend into the darkness of your personal existential depth as a result of it is a part of being human.
What the listener’s thoughts is experiencing is what they’ve inside themselves. All people involves a live performance with a unique way of thinking. Some persons are open to going to locations of internal expertise. Others resist, so it takes time for them to get in. I wish to imagine my music helps the listener to enter that house. However what occurs with them? It actually relies upon upon them, not upon me.
Marshall stated that the music is “solely doing its job.” What do you assume is music’s job?
There is no good reply for that, proper? Music has a lot which means and capabilities ascribed to it by historical past. For me, music encompasses the whole lot. It is the essence of life, the essence of our human thoughts, the essence of freedom. And freedom is an important idea for me, as a result of I grew up in Soviet instances when there was no freedom.
Music, for me, shouldn’t be utilitarian. It isn’t one thing that fills house in order that we really feel extra snug. Music is an act of transformation, and an act of transcendence. We return from it higher human beings. We get purified inside, and when the music is over, we really feel lighter, like we have gained extra internal house. Even our gaze widens somewhat bit — we get that peripheral imaginative and prescient. It expands us in all dimensions.
Martinaitytė at her studio in Lithuania in 2016. The composer says she prefers concentrated durations of composing in the summertime, when the writing flows simpler.
Lina Aiduke
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Lina Aiduke
Let’s discuss a bit about your early years. You had been born in St. Petersburg, then known as Leningrad, within the Soviet period. However your dad and mom, I take it, had been native Lithuanians who moved again to Lithuania?
Sure, once I was 5 years previous, as a result of I wanted to go to high school — and my dad and mom had been involved that I’d begin talking Russian as an alternative of Lithuanian.
What sort of music did you hear round the home? What captured your curiosity?
My mom used to sing me lullabies, however she’s not a really musical individual. Each time she sang, the lullabies would sound completely different, as if she was composing melodies — and since she did not have a great ear, she was singing nearly Schoenberg-like melodies. I cherished the standard of her voice as an instrument, and I may observe that instrument anyplace she went, all these meanderings. That is what I cherished probably the most in my childhood. I all the time requested her to sing for me in order that I may relive the expertise.
Had been your dad and mom keen on classical music?
My father was a giant admirer; he positively had musical talents. He may truly learn scores and even carried out a navy choir, and he additionally performed accordion.
Then the whole lot modified once I went to high school. It was a faculty for musically gifted youngsters; I used to be surrounded by music on a regular basis. You heard it within the corridors — all the time Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Chopin. You can hear all of it day lengthy.
The piano was, and is, your instrument, however was there some extent at which you knew you needed to grow to be a composer?
I keep in mind that second very vividly. I used to be 13 years previous and there was, I suppose, a whole lot of hormonal fluctuations taking place at the moment. I used to be experiencing moods that had been too sturdy for me to deal with. In the future I used to be extraordinarily sad with myself and did not know learn how to channel it, and abruptly I noticed a chunk of paper and was like, “That is it. I’ll write it out.”
I used to be stunned the thought got here to me, as a result of I did not even know that dwelling composers existed at the moment. We weren’t uncovered to any up to date music. I wrote that first piece for the piano, and afterward I felt so relieved and remodeled. I regarded into the mirror and noticed a unique individual utterly. And I understood that that is going to be my life — not as a performer, however as a composer.
Quickly after that have, a composition trainer got here to our college. He was a really younger composer who simply graduated from the music academy. After the primary few classes, once I began composing increasingly more, he stated very clearly, “You’re a composer. That is your future.” I used to be like, “You may’t know that.” He stated, “I do know it. I see it. You can not idiot your self.”
I do know there is a vibrant historical past of classical music in Lithuania, however these composers are nonetheless just about unknown right here. Why is that?
Lithuania is a small nation, so it may be identified solely to a sure diploma. The unfold of a tradition may be very usually related to the political energy — how a rustic represents itself, the place the funding goes. Except a small nation has some form of genius, the nation simply does not have the construction and political assist to grow to be extra broadly identified. We had one, Mikalojus Čiurlionis, who was a composer and painter. However in the present day, it is simpler as a result of we’ve a whole lot of opera singers who’ve grow to be well-known on the earth — Asmik Grigorian, as an example. And now we’ve a whole lot of feminine conductors coming from Lithuania, like Mirga Gražinytė-Tyla. There’s an entire technology of younger conductors who’re making Lithuania well-known.
And now you’re making Lithuania well-known — as a composer, you are the face of Lithuanian classical music worldwide. No strain, proper?
(Laughs) In fact there’s strain! Earlier than I got here to the US, which occurred nearly 20 years in the past, I by no means considered my identification — whether or not I’m Lithuanian or a European composer. It simply did not matter. After which once I got here to the U.S., I spotted that, in actual fact, I carry with me some identification, whether or not I needed it or not, and I’ve to be liable for that identification. I can’t ignore it and say, “No, I am by myself.” As a result of we’re a part of our personal cultural context; we aren’t showing out of nowhere. We come from some roots, and people roots are essential.
Martinaitytė at her studio in Lithuania in 2023.
Liudas Masys
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Liudas Masys
As we converse, you might be in an previous household dwelling within the again nation of Lithuania, within the midst of nature. Can we hear Lithuania in your music?
I feel you do. The way it comes about is thru intonations of the native language. When you find yourself born, the primary publicity of your native tongue kinds some form of understanding of what the music of the language is, and due to this fact we’re drawn to these specific intonations. The Lithuanian language has a whole lot of downward intonations and minor intervals, so that’s mirrored within the folks music and in all of the composers’ harmonic selections. Whether or not you need it or not, you might be interested in a sure sound, harmonically talking. And the identical applies to the rhythmic group, as a result of the language additionally carries some inherent rhythmic patterns in the best way it punctuates time. I feel that additionally impacts our understanding of music, and why we select to take heed to one thing that does the identical factor as our language.
Talking of language, I’ve usually returned to Aletheia, your album of choral works. You may hear the advanced layering of excessive Renaissance choral music, but additionally distinctly fashionable harmonies that remind me of Ligeti. Oddly, it is a choral album with out phrases.
The Lithuanian language has a whole lot of vowels, even double vowels. In my choral works, I take advantage of a whole lot of vowels, and you’ll hear the reference to the language — however as soon as once more, I’m aiming for final freedom of expression. I do not need to be restricted by the textual content, as a result of any textual content would outline the which means and due to this fact make it extra slim. If you do not have textual content, the internal expertise could be way more assorted, and other people have extra freedom to listen to how the voices are combining, how the time flows and what occurs harmonically.
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On March 11, 1990, Lithuania declared independence from a soon-to-collapse Soviet authorities. Your first compositions date from about 1990. Having grown up underneath Soviet rule, what had been your ideas if you began composing? Was music a protected house for you then?
I used to be actually fortunate — my inventive path coincided with the nation’s liberation and freedom. That was the engaging half about being in music, as a result of music did not have to say something, it could possibly be simply itself. As a young person, I used to be staying up late at evening, composing when everyone was asleep, and I felt so free. Music was a promise of freedom for me, all the time.
Is music nonetheless a protected house for you in the present day?
I’d say so, sure. It is also a refuge from all of the troubles and complexities of the world, as a result of it does not matter what occurs round you. In fact, we’ve to react and reply and course of the whole lot that seems in our surroundings. However when you go into that musical inventive house, you’ll be able to let go of all these issues and simply be with sounds. And sounds do not must signify a message, essentially. They could be a very highly effective instrument, however they do not must be.
I am guessing you will need to have felt a unique form of freedom if you moved to the U.S.?
In 2006, we moved to San Francisco as a result of my husband is from the Bay Space, and in 2009 we moved to New York. I needed to be in a bigger context, as a result of coming from a smaller nation, you all the time need to increase, and the inventive group is a lot bigger in New York than anyplace else.
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I think about not too many individuals in New York had been conscious of your music again then.
Sure, it took some years to get heard. But it surely was an incredible expertise, as a result of no one knew who I used to be — I may create something, and no one cared. That was an fascinating internal check. It actually matured me as an artist, as a result of I quietly determined it does not matter whether or not anyone needs my music. I relaxed and began composing, and music was flowing freely with none preoccupations.
Are you able to level to a breakthrough piece for you when it comes to your visibility, one thing that helped increase your profession?
There have been a whole lot of small breakthroughs, in 2004 and 2006, however I wasn’t proud of these. The one which mattered most to me was In Search of Misplaced Magnificence, that I began in 2015. That was an actual turning level for me.
That is the piece I used to be desirous about, too. Had been you, certainly, seeking misplaced magnificence on the time?
I used to be seeking misplaced time, like Proust was, as a result of I would had an accident. With out going into particulars, I used to be dwelling in Paris and I wasn’t functioning correctly as a result of I had a concussion, so the whole lot was slowed down for me. I began being attentive to the smallest particulars of the on a regular basis, and I observed how lovely the whole lot is when you begin being attentive to it. I spotted that it is our consideration that creates the wonder — that issues are usually not lovely in themselves, however as soon as we flip our gaze to them, they abruptly grow to be one thing extraordinary.
That transformation of notion, from abnormal actuality into extraordinary actuality, that is what I skilled by my therapeutic after the concussion. After which I believed, in music, I may do the identical factor — take the smallest particles of sound, the smallest gestures, and by inserting additional consideration onto them, I may create that sense of what I known as magnificence.
A distinct form of turning level got here for you earlier, in 2006, when your father handed away. You’ve got stated that your music turned extra direct, extra emotionally uncooked and extra accessible.
Earlier than he died, I used to be on the peak of my existence, my happiest time. I used to be a newlywed and I used to be simply on the top of my energy in each respect. After which when he handed, I wasn’t prepared for it. I had so many emotional layers that opened up inside me. It was just like the Grand Canyon — you see all these layers of time. I used to be like, “How do I take care of it now?” After which I understood that different human beings are experiencing the identical factor after they encounter the lack of their family members. I believed to myself, “The music positively can’t be simply sounds; it needs to be a instrument to assist unravel these emotional states.” It’s a must to have some form of protected surroundings to face these new guidelines inside your self, to lastly acknowledge them and possibly someway remodel them.
I bear in mind an previous gentleman got here to me crying after my piece Saudade was carried out on the New York Philharmonic in 2022. He stated, “You may’t think about what I skilled by your piece. Every part got here again, all my recollections that I by no means needed to consider, all my painful issues I used to be avoiding, all of the traumas of my life I used to be efficiently coping with. I do not know whether or not to thanks or what.” I am very grateful to have had this expertise, as a result of I did not understand it was doable.
That is the immense energy of music. Maybe you’ll be able to consider your musical breakthrough as your father’s last reward to you.
I feel so. In some way his departure helped this immersion and opening into the music. He was very instrumental in my growth. After I was a toddler, I did not have a metronome, so he was sitting subsequent to me on the piano, being my metronome.
Oh, that’s candy.
He got here to each live performance of my music. Even at his funeral, I observed one thing protruding from the pocket of his swimsuit. I believed, “What’s this?” And it was a ticket to 1 my live shows.
After his dying, I used to be writing the piece Utterly Embraced by the Lovely Vacancy. At each web page I used to be writing, I used to be seeing his face — it was as if, with the notes, I used to be creating the contours of his face. As a result of the emotional panorama was so sturdy, I did not query my technique of expression. I used to be simply going for what I felt in these moments, and it was as uncooked as it will possibly get. I cried and cried by the method of writing that piece, however when it was over, I felt that I may proceed to stay someway.
Martinaitytė consults throughout a recording session for her album Saudade, on the Lithuanian Nationwide Philharmonic Corridor in Vilnius in 2020.
D. Matvejev
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D. Matvejev
I would like to speak in regards to the means of writing music. It may be vastly completely different for composers. Some deal with it very very similar to a 9 to five job, going to the studio. Others have a extra versatile relationship with course of. I’ve heard you describe composing as “mysterious.”
Sure, it’s a mysterious course of since you can’t assure the result. It does not matter what number of hours you set in — it will possibly occur, however on the identical time, it may not occur. I compose day by day in a technique or one other. Even when I do not write notes, I nonetheless compose in my head.
How does that work, composing in your head?
I hear music, I develop music, after which I take notes within the voice memos on my telephone — generally singing a melody, normally extra simply describing the method or a construction or a gesture of some kind. It is all the time taking place on some degree. After which, in fact, there are desires that additionally come into the image. I hear music fairly often in desires.
Then I spend a whole lot of time simply doing the work, going through the clean web page and all that. I’ve observed that, for instance you may have two or three weeks the place you compose day by day, then the movement is far simpler — the whole lot is extra natural. I do favor staying put, particularly within the summertime once I come to Lithuania. I have a tendency to enter this sort of deep-focus section; it lasts two months or so, and I simply compose day by day. There aren’t any breaks, nothing else however music. Typically I do not even have any outer life, simply composing.
One necessary inspiration for you, it appears, is the pure world. You are not alone — historical past is full of composers impressed by nature, from Vivaldi’s summertime thunderstorms in The 4 Seasons to John Luther Adams’ Grow to be Ocean. What do you get from the outside?
Initially, silence — which, in fact, is stuffed with sounds, however remains to be silence in comparison with the noise of our city environments. Inside that silence, there are such a lot of subtleties of sounds, so many simultaneous new layers, an unbelievable polyphony of microscopic gestures taking place. I feel I am listening to nature as I’d take heed to music; my ears are all the time attuned to one thing, and I make up constructions from what I hear.
Martinaitytė rehearsing Hadal Zone with members of the ensemble Synaesthesis on the Church of St. Catherine in Vilnius, Lithuania, in 2023.
Arūnas Baltėnas
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Arūnas Baltėnas
One piece of yours, impressed by nature, that I discover endlessly fascinating is Hadal Zone, a journey down by the deepest depths of the ocean. It is scored for low devices — bass clarinet, tuba, contrabass, piano and electronics.
Within the trajectories of the journeys in my items, the directionality is twofold — it is both going in direction of the sunshine or going in direction of darkness, so it is both ascending or descending in numerous proportions, in numerous eventualities.
In Hadal Zone you begin lighter, after which go darker.
I do. Regardless that it is known as Hadal Zone, which is the title of the deepest zone within the ocean, the whole piece is about all of the ocean zones traversed from the floor to the depths.
I got here up with the thought from studying a ebook about archaeological excavations deep into the earth. I got here throughout an outline of ocean zones and thought that was good for a chunk, and I wrote it out as a mission proposal for my Guggenheim fellowship. I believed, if they offer me the Guggenheim I’ll do the piece — as a result of it is simply an excessive amount of to tackle on my own. After which I not solely bought the award, but additionally the pandemic began. So it was inside these darkish instances after we all descended to our depths that this piece was taking place.
It is a piece that advantages from listening from starting to finish and letting the music wash over and thru you. I really feel there’s an rising curiosity, within the final 10 years or so, in what we would loosely name ambient music — instrumental music that is gradual and fosters introspection and serenity. A few of your music has these qualities — Hadal Zone and the items on Ex tenebris lux as an example. Are these meditative qualities one thing you are actively attempting to placed on show in your music?
I feel it is extra a mirrored image of the actual time when these items had been created. As a result of the items you point out had been from the result of the pandemic — this sort of gradual, suspended time with not a lot taking place.
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I’d say there’s quite a bit occurring in these items, truly.
That is the factor — although these traits you described are becoming for ambient music, on the identical time there’s a lot taking place. Even with Hadal Zone, in some unspecified time in the future there is a climax, which has nothing to do with calming down or an ambient ambiance. There’s all the time some form of restlessness; nevertheless a lot I attempt to go for these extra meditative states, in some unspecified time in the future I nonetheless want power.
I prefer to name my music “statically dynamic.” In some methods it is very static, however there is a dynamism inside it. I prefer to have this sort of ambiguity of each, as a result of that is additionally the duality of our human existence. Now we have physique and thoughts, proper? And we’re by no means with out this duality. We will go for a very long time on this static mode, however in some unspecified time in the future it simply has to interrupt by.
We started this dialog with a quote from anyone else about your music. I would like to finish with a quote of your personal: “With music, I all the time really feel like I am touching one thing a lot bigger than myself, like a giant power or an power discipline. And if you come nearer, it pulls you in like gravity.” To me, that sounds each amazingly inspirational and a bit scary on the identical time.
(Laughs) It’s each. Frightful, as a result of it is the unknown and unreliable nature of that power. That is what creativity is inside ourselves — we’ve this immense energy to create one thing out of nothing, and after we expertise it in its most acute state, it is just like the universe is increasing inside us. However in actual fact, you might be solely a participant in that massive power. It is the identical as our relationship to the whole universe; it is large and we’re so small. That inventive energy or power, it is nothing particular person. It isn’t one thing we will attribute to ourselves and say, “I’m a creator.” No, we aren’t the creators. We’re merely individuals in that greater factor that’s taking place, and you’ll see that it comes and goes in waves, and has its personal logic in how sure items of music or sure items of artwork are showing at sure instances as they’re wanted by us. Proper now I am composing an opera, which is a large endeavor — however two years in the past, earlier than even beginning to compose it, I already heard all of it in my thoughts, in my desires. So it looks as if it already exists someplace, and now I simply must make it occur.
