About

Tonight, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra and conductor Robertas Šervenikas invite you to listen to stirring music by Lithuanian, Finnish and German composers. The soloist of the concert – Stathis Karapanos, a Greek musician of younger generation. He came to the world of the flute when he was just five years old and has played the instrument everywhere and all the time. Among the personalities with whom he has worked and who influenced him are Zubin Mehta and Yutaka Sado. Karapanos has given memorable performances with Christoph Eschenbach around the world. In addition to playing the classical flute, Karapanos is interested in the subtleties of the Japanese shakuhachi flute, as well as enthusiastically collaborates with a wide range of bands, from free jazz to hard rock. Tonight, he will be playing four different flutes.  

The concert will feature two opuses by Algirdas Martinaitis. He composed Nebaigtoji simfonija (Unfinished Symphony) in 1995 and dedicated it to Maestro Juozas Domarkas. Today, Martinaitis says: “I am happy that my Unfinished has remained the same, unchanged and still like me after 30 years. It is just as ‘non-smart’, unpretentious, occasionally daring to put on airs (...). I ‘borrowed’ the symphony’s title and form from Schubert, and there are allusions to the music of Wagner, Mozart and Sibelius: these names were like road signs, slowing me down so that I didn’t drift into my own creative egotism: “Thus Spoke Martinaitis ...” The concert will also include the premiere of Martinaitis’ Gija (Giya) for symphony orchestra. The composer explains that “this ten-minute music is like an ex-libris that fits into an envelope and is sent to the now troubled Georgia on behalf of Giya Kancheli. It is carried by the Angel of Sorrow (the title of one of Kancheli’s works), because the carrier pigeon has already been shot somewhere in Ukraine.”

The programme includes one of the most distinctive works by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara – the Concerto for flute and orchestra Dances with the Winds, composed in 1974 and performed on four flutes! Rautavaara wrote extraordinarily beautiful music – there is not a trace of banality or superficiality. He was a mystic, believing that his opuses already existed in ‘another reality’, and his job was to bring the work safely into this world. “I firmly believe that works have a will of their own, even though some people find this idea ridiculous,” the composer said.

Richard Strauss’ symphonic poem Also Sprach Zarathustra (Thus Spoke Zarathustra, 1896) is one of the rare occasions in the history of music when Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophical work has been the subject of musical interpretation. Strauss was attracted by the originality and novelty of the idea and by the mood of the German intelligentsia of the time. At the zenith of his creative maturity, the composer brought a number of remarkable discoveries to the work and demonstrated impressive innovations in orchestration.