JERONIMAS KACINSKAS (1907-2005): Nonet for Wind Quintet and String Quartet, Reflections for Piano, Chamber Fantasy for Flute, String Quartet and Piano, String Quartet No. 3.

Description: A prominent figure in Lithuanian music at various times in his life, much buffeted by the winds of 20th century history and forced into various forms of exile, in common with many Lithuanians, Kacinskas emerges as an original composer, innovative and technically daring in his time, but thoroughly approachable. A favorite student of Alois Hába, Kacinskas became a crusader for microtonal and 'athematic' music, without consistent acceptance or a widespread following. Although spoken of as an unrepentantly atonal and athematic composer, Kacinskas' brand of 'atonality' is more a highly chromatic approach to linear part-writing - in his case, invested with a strikingly rich vein of melodiousness - and the ambiguous but warmly satisfying, not strictly functional but within self-contained gestural juxtapositions (since we mustn't call them 'themes') harmony that resulted therefrom, with clear if short-lived tonal centers; the kind of thing that Ziehn and Busoni prophesied decades earlier. The Nonet, from the 1930s, is simply gorgeous, with a compelling sense of forward motion and a kind of spirited expressionism. The other works were written after the composer settled in the U.S.: the piano cycle is a study in the impressionistic play of light, color and shadow, in clear, translucent textures and a minimum of dissonance despite the absence of traditional tonal relationships. The Chamber Fantasy of 1981 is lively and approachable, making a virtue of its lack of conventional themes by maintaining tension through a non-repeating succession of evolving ideas - 'maximalism' in miniature. The 1993 quartet is a cogently argued work, developing a sense of linear architecture through the juxtaposition of associated ideas, in somewhat wistful, introverted mood, with a stronger sense of tonality than the earlier pieces and a distinct flavor of Shostakovich in the central adagio. Vilnius String Quartet, St. Christopher Wind Quintet, Arnoldas Gurinavicius (double bass), Gabrielius Alekna (piano), Daumantas Kirilauskas (piano - Chamber Fantasy), Giedrius Gelgotas (flute).