Mikolajus Ciurlionis - Complete Music for String Quartet

Mikolajus Konstantinas ČIURLIONIS (1875-1911)

Complete Music for String Quartet

String Quartet in C minor

Theme and Variations in B minor

Two Canons

Two Fugues

Vilnius String Quartet

Recorded in 2008 at the Concert Hall of the Lithuanian National Philharmonic, Vilnius

More Info about M.K. Čiurlionis HERE

Lithuanian composer Mikolajus Ciurlionis, equally well known as an artist in his native country, wrote some daring and experimental works before his early death from pneumonia in 1911, at the age of 35. He wrote music with bold tonal disconnections and even some that seems to anticipate Schoenberg's tone row technique, well in advance of the Austrian composer. Both his artworks and his music suggest synaesthetic tendencies. This release of string quartet music, however, consists of student works composed by Ciurlionis in and around the time he attended the Leipzig Conservatory, and it doesn't give a good idea of his style. The Two Canons and Two Fugues at the end of the program certainly reveal a promising composer who manages to infuse these purely academic exercises with a good deal of lyricism. The second movement of the String Quartet in C minor (1902) also shows a melodic gift, but this work has come down to posterity missing its fugal finale, and it's a bit unsatisfying as it stands. The Theme and Variations in B minor is an even earlier work, written while Ciurlionis was a student at the Warsaw Conservatory; it's pretty standard-issue Romantic stuff. You do get one of Ciurlionis' fascinating art nouveau paintings on the cover, and the Vilnius String Quartet gives enthusiastic performances, but mostly this is of interest to students of the composer's style; for an introduction to his work, try the symphonic poem Jüra (The Sea).

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The Vilnius String Quartet version of Mikalous Ciurlionis' complete work for quartet is not as good as the version produced in Lithuania by the M.K. Ciurlionis String Quartet several years ago. However, it is extremely difficult to find the other outside of Lithuania. With that in mind I highly recommend obtaining this CD.

Ciurlionis composed these works in 1901 and 1902 mostly while studying under Salomon Jadassohn at the Leipzig Conservatory. The canons and fugues move from serious and contemplative to bursting with joy. These are my personal favorites of his musical compositions. I never tire listening to them.

The composer is better known musically for his moody and moving symphonic poems, "The Forest", "The Sea" and others. In much the same way as his art, they reflect a soul in conflict seeking his way out of darkness into light and very much express the heart and spirit of his Lithuanian homeland.