The term "folkloristic romanticism" would perhaps be the most appropriate definition of Vaclovas Paketūras' (b. 1928) musical idiom. His oeuvre numbers roughly 170 solo and choral songs, nearly half of them are elaborations of Lithuanian folk songs. As a rule, he harmonizes the originally monophonic folk tunes by adding functional or modal harmonies which combine to form a whole made of symmetric musical units, and based on a well-considered, predictable logic of formal development. The latter is most often modelled on the classical examples: such genres as song, sonata, rondo-sonata, variations and the like. The standard choice of instruments - Lithuanian folk instruments
birbynė (one-reed or double-reed wind instrument),
skudučiai (panpipes) and
kanklės (box zither) - attests to his all-embracing proclivity to folk music. He wrote conventional concert music for these instruments as well (for example, Concerto for kanklės and folk orchestra).
