Eduardas BALSYS (1919-1984)
Violin Concerto No 1 (1954) [34:46]
Reflections of the Sea (1981) [11:47]
Dramatic Frescoes (1965) [28:13]
Džeraldas Bidva (violin)
Indrė Baikštytė (piano)
Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra/Modestas Pitrėnas
rec. October 2020, The Grand Hall of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic Society, Vilnius
ONDINE ODE1358-2 [66:15]
Eduardas Balsys was born in the Ukraine in 1919 but his Lithuanian family returned home two years later. From military school he worked as a schoolteacher before graduating at the age of 31 from the Lithuanian State Conservatoire. He then spent three years as a postgraduate student at the Leningrad Conservatoire.
Despite his later eminence in his country’s musical culture, this briefest of chronologies shows that the
Violin Concerto No 1, though the work of a 35-year-old, was also the work of a composer one year out of his postgraduate studies and it represents the earliest phase of his development, marked by romantic depth of expression. The opening gestures, both dramatic and brooding, speak of a composer making his mark and as he allows his soloist to sweep in with nonchalant romantic esprit it’s clear that Balsys is siting his concerto in the romantic-folkloric tradition. There are some hints of Khachaturian – though without his blockbuster bravura - and the notes speak of Tchaikovsky’s shadow influence but it’s assuredly not a Technicolor piece like the Vladigerov concertos. The slow movement sings lightly, the winds forwardly projected, the music’s beauty enhanced by its songful ascent up the scale. Clearly neither Shostakovich nor Prokofiev were models and in fact there’s even a post-Rimsky opulence to the themes and orchestration. With a quicksilver and lithe finale, wittily orchestrated, and earlier themes revisited, the finale projects lashings of confidence, made all the more communicative by Džeraldas Bidva’s nimble, dextrous soloing and the splendid clarification of the orchestral choirs by conductor Modestas Pitrėnas.
Chronologically the next work of the three in this representative programme is Dramatic Frescoes of 1965. This is cast for orchestra with roles for violin (Bidva again, who is concertmaster of the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra and Kremerata Baltica) and piano, played here by the composer’s granddaughter, Indrė Baikštytė, an admired soloist, chamber player and teacher. There are five Frescoes – the title having shades of Martinů, though there’s no influence from the Czech composer – and the music is much tougher than the decade-earlier Violin Concerto. He absorbed elements of expressionism and twelve-tone
technique at around this time and the urgently lyric violin line and the percussive use of the piano attest to a steelier approach to material. He gives the percussion a workout and ensures incremental build-up of material accompanied by varied and plentiful sonic colour. Nothing is easily won though and even the final fresco, superficially heading toward confident resolution, is assailed by fraught intensity, the piano’s dynamism edging close to brooding whilst the violin’s pursuance of its melancholy trajectory – how far this is from the carefree lyricism of the Concerto – means a decidedly ambiguous close.
To a great extent both these works reflect not only Balsys’ change of direction but the forces operating on the entire Lithuanian musical landscape during these years. By the time he came to compose Reflections of the Sea in 1981, three years before his death, the expressionist element was still part of his musical arsenal but absorbed creatively into an expressive and poetic approach perfectly reflected in this relatively brief, twelve-minute poem for string orchestra. Arresting colours and sonorities irradiate the shimmering of the waves, sunlight glinting, and the tonal palette is rich. The music graduates to a toccata of gripping intensity that then slows powerfully. In its compression and incident, it packs a rich punch, sea painting of a complex but arresting kind.
In their own hall, and excellently recorded, the players of the Lithuanian National Symphony respond to all the music’s demands with maximum responsiveness and discipline, Pitrėnas showing once again cast-iron familiarity with, and command of, the music.
Jonathan Woolf
