Two comparatively recent
symphonies from one of Lithuania’s leading
living practitioners of the symphony.
His symphonies are
as follows:-
- Symphony No. 1 - 3333-4331-4perc-cel-org-hrp-str
[30.12.10.8] 1973 24' Leningrad: Muzyka,
1979 PWM, 1994 LP Melodiya C10-10699
- Symphony No. 2 - 3333-4331-4perc-cel-hrp-org(synth)-elec
vc-str [30.12.10.8] 1979 17' Leningrad:
Sovetskij kompozitor, 1984 PWM, 1994
LP Melodiya C10-13003 CD 33 Records
33CD003, 1995
- Ostrobothnian Symphony str [11.4.3.2]
1989 20' PWM, 1993 CD Finlandia Records
4509-97892-2, 1995 CD Finlandia Records
3984-26810-2, 2000
- Symphony No. 4 3333-4331-pf-4perc-str
1998 32' CD Lithuanian Music Information
and Publishing Centre LMIPCCD020,
2003 CD National Philharmonic Society
of Lithuania LNF 003, 2005
- Symphony No. 5 orch 2001 pf solo-orch
2004 29'
The Fourth Symphony
is in three movements: Octa,
Hendeca and Deca. The
outer ones are slowly evolving meditations.
Octa opens plangently with warm
undulating music from the strings and
a prominently recorded trembling figuration
from the harp. The spectral-idyllic
ambience recalls the Fifth Symphony
of his Ukrainian teacher Valentin Silvestrov.
At various times other composers including
Delius, Roy Harris, Bernstein and Janáček
are passingly referenced. Hendeca
is more tense and insistently searching
although ultimately rather cold. Deca
returns to quasi luxuriant-warmth
of Octa. The music weaves an
intense spell with its long lines and
insistent little rhythmic cells redolent
of Tippett.
The Fifth Symphony
is in four movements. A steadily
paced rhapsodic tissue of sound is punctuated
with protests for full orchestra. The
honeyed Silvestrov style writing of
the Fourth Symphony is here less in
evidence. The second movement has many
ballsy and bluesy outbursts with a prominent
role for Igor Kramarev’s trumpet. In
the third movement the solo voice is
that of Romualdas Staškus’s oboe. The
music is generally dreamy by contrast
with the urgency of the finale with
its bells, big band assaults and growling
Rite of Spring upheavals.
This disc follows the
Naxos recording (8.557604) of this composer’s
understated Requiem (1995):-
reviewed by Rob
Barnett and Hubert
Culot
Two intriguing recent
symphonies: one largely meditative;
the other jazzy, declamatory and urgent.
The irresistibly hypnotic Kiev-Silvestrov
style is much to the fore in the Fourth.
Rob Barnett
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Romualdas Staškus (oboe) 
