Julius Gaidelis is among the foremost Lithuanian musicians in emigration. He started his career in Lithuania several years before the outbreak of the WWII, and spent his mature and productive years in emigration, in the USA. Julius Gaidelis is an exponent of Lithuanian expressionism in music. Like Vytautas Bacevičius and Jeronimas Kačinskas he adopted models of modern European music. Gaidelis output includes works of various genres. Even though he has composed a ballet, four operas, two oratorios, four cantatas and a number of chamber works, symphonic works constitute the most significant part of his output. His early compositions exhibit influence of his teacher Juozas Gruodis, while his later opuses display features of his idiomatic music language: atonality and polytonality, expressive melody often employing elements of Lithuanian melos, contrastive polyphony, and work's general dramaturgy pervaded with main intonations. Aside from instrumental works, Gaidelis wrote romances, solo and choral songs. His vocal music is dominated by elements of Lithuanian romanticism.
Renata Varanavičiūtė
