Kristina Ivanauskaite-Juciene - Giedrius Alkauskas: Into the Dream

The CD 'Into the dream and magic-sphere...' features Art Songs (Lieder) of the contemporary Lithuanian composer Giedrius Alkauskas. The composer has an idiosyncratic style, but these songs are also very influenced by art songs of N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov, M.P. Mussorgsky, S.V. Rachmaninov, music of R. Wagner and B. Bartok, and they also reveal many other musical aspects: usage and stylization of medieval and oriental dances, influences of minimalism, folk music, impressionism are felt. While vocal part follows the aesthetics of late romantic style, the piano part, which is given a very important and even a leading role, is much more modern and shows sensitive attitude towards static chords, mostly dissonant and unexpected, or consonant chords from remote tonalities and modes, and their juxtaposition. Also an individual and characteristic flavour of the composer is felt in the usage of abrupt chord progressions. The CD features two vocal cycles for bass singer and the piano. The first cycle, 'Walpurgis night' (2009), is written to the verses of J.W. Goethe from the drama 'Faust' and is devoted to mythology. The second cycle 'While there is still a road...' (2006) is written to the poems of famous Lithuanian poet J. Erlickas and deals with the questions of loneliness, hope, longing, sadness. The CD also features the Lied 'The haunted palace' to the verses of E.A. Poe and a solo piano piece 'The dance of good spirits', a music that illustrates N.V. Gogol's short story. All Lieder are sung in Lithuanian, and the accompanying booklet contains German and English translations.