Musikzeitschriften im Portrait: Vivavoce

Attention! High Tension!

von Jūratė Katinaitė, aus: VivaVoce Nr. 80

Appearing among the circle of the young generation, composer Žibuoklė Martinaitytė has in recent years distinctly and steadily emerged into the panorama of the Lithuanian New Music scene. Virtuosity and a convincingly alluring rhetoric in her music are synthesized with intuitivism and existential pathos. As this fresh and unusual blend of characteristics is rarely found in the arts, it is no surprise that Martinaitytė’s music is rapidly captivating the attention of audiences. Her work is currently being performed throughout Europe, Russia, Canada and the USA.

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė came into Lithuanian music along with the generation of composers Raminta Šerkšnytė, Diana Čemerytė, Vytautas V. Jurgutis and Ramūnas Motiekaitis. She at once stood out among her active, dynamic peers and maybe even estranged herself as a loner or a cosmopolitan with a clearly felt inner tension, which later, in 2001, exploded like a public confession in the painful, screaming, wild composition “Attention! High Tension!” for tuba and piano. This tension became the driving force behind her personality and creation.

Žibuoklė Martinaitytė is positive that music has special powers. “In each work, I want to ask an existential question and answer it. A work is a state that changes, transforms both its author and its listeners,” the artist says. Martinaitytė’s aesthetics reject the idea of creation as play. Even though her works may at first appear colourful and extravagant, in reality they are full of existential pathos. The composer states “It is difficult to speak about sounds, instead of just listening to them or playing with them in the compositional process. Though I’ve never considered music merely as a game – I was always looking for the hidden meaning in sounds. For the meaning that is vibrating in every atom of the universe, but often unseen.” Her acoustic and electro-acoustic compositions do not overindulge in technological tricks, they take one on a journey to the paths of being, sometimes clear and hopeful, sometimes a little ironic, sometimes extreme, sliding down the very blades of emotions. Like an illusionist, the composer crafts an inner space filled with high tension controlled by her alone. Then one becomes the prisoner of the author, sometimes forced to float in that inner space between reality and transcendental states. This is exemplified in one of her best known compositions called “Between” (2000), performed by the Nouvel Ensemble Moderne de Montreal.

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