Jeronimas Kačinskas: Chamber and Instrumental Music
The Lithuanian composer Jeronimas Kačinskas (1907-2005) is one of the lost radicals of twentieth-century music. He abandoned traditional syntax in favour of an atonal athematicism, whereby the music is in constant evolution, with freely pulsing rhythms and melodic lines that branch forward like tendrils. His lyrical but tightly woven Nonet was well received in the 1930s, but when Kačinskas fled Lithuania from the approaching Russians in 1944 he had to abandon almost all his scores. Only with the collapse of the Soviet empire could the work be reconstructed — and the composer return home in triumph.
Giedrius Gelgotas, flute
Arnoldas Gurinavičius, double-bass
Vilnius String Quartet, string quartet
St Christopher Quintet, wind quintet
Gabrielius Alekna, piano
Daumantas Kirilauskas, piano
Listen To This Recording:
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Nonet for woodwinds and strings (1932–36)
- I Largo maestoso
- II Allegro moderato
- III Allegro con fuoco
- IV Andante
- I Andante grazioso
- II Allegretto
- III Adagio
- IV Allegro con fuoco
- Chamber Fantasy for flute, string quartet and piano (1981)
- I Andante quasi adagio
- II Intermezzo: Adagio
- III Finale (Fantazija): Allegro
Reflections for piano (1957)
String Quartet No. 3 (1993)
MusicWeb International :
‘…The Nonet is the most immediately arresting and notable of the pieces. …The first performers of the work were the members of the Czech Nonet, then and now amongst the greatest such ensembles; …[Reflections] The tenor of the music has retreated from his pre-war involvement in quarter-tones and reveals instead an enthusiasm for well-couched impressionism and for highly congenial, appropriately scaled writing. …I hope we hear more of Kačinskas, a voice well worth hearing.’
—Jonathan Woolf, MusicWeb International
American Record Review :
‘this is the gentlest, most accessible atonality I’ve heard. […] The musicians all play with depth of feeling. […] people interested in atonality (or what it could have been like) or in the by-ways of 20th Century music will be well served.’
—American Record Review, February 2014