| Year of Composition: | 2009 |
| Duration: | 15 |
| Instrumentation: | satb-2vn-va-vc-pf-tape |
| Text (language): | Sigitas Geda (Lithuanian) |
| Samples: |  Audio |
for mixed choir, piano quintet and tape
Commissioned by the Gaida Festival 2009
Movements:
1. Awakening
2. Resignation
3. Twilight
4. Akslebanto brilijanto
5. Time to leave
Released recordings:
CD Zoom in 8, Vilnius: Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre, LMIPCCD 059, 2010 (perf. “Jauna muzika” Vilnius Municipal Choir, Vilnius Quartet: Audronė Vainiūnaitė, Artūras Šilalė (violins), Girdutis Jakaitis (viola), Augustinas Vasiliauskas (cello), Albina Šikšniūtė (piano); conductor Vaclovas Augustinas)
Programme note:
I composed Sigitas' Five Miniatures in memory of my dear late friend, poet Sigitas Geda. I always felt affinity towards his poetry; I wrote a number of works to his verses, e.g. oratorios Magic Circle of Sanskrit, The Tree of the World, Last Pagan Rites, Pantheistic Oratorio, works for choir, and music for children.
For this particular composition I chose five poems by Sigitas Geda, which I felt reflected his inner state of being, his fatal presentiment. The composition if thus written in five movements: Awakening; Resignation; Twilight; Akslebanto brilijanto; and Time to Leave.
In the fourth movement I also included a recording of the poet's voice, reading his own lines from "Sigitas' Prayer to the Virgin Mary, Mother of God, through St Bernard," taped at the 1991 Poetry Spring Festival in St Johns' Church in Vilnius.
Intonation and rhythm of Geda's voice are further used as a source of musical material for these miniatures.
Bronius Kutavičius
Sung text:
I. AWAKENING
To escape the abysses of horror,
Hallelujah! –
He is born, Christ.
To break out of the darkness of hell,
Hallelujah! –
He is born, Christ.
To forsake and renounce theft and murder,
Hallelujah! –
He is born, Christ.
To fall over from teardrops of joy,
Hallelujah! –
Raise up with Christ.
To get courage to live and create,
Hallelujah! –
Move on with Christ.
Translated by Linas Paulauskis
II. RESIGNATION
I feel it all so dry and bitter
Some force dismembers me
And never puts me back together...
I’m going round in circles
Hey, who will heal the dead, and when?
So gloomy here I am
Those icy waters, an ever growing guilt
But I have never sold or killed
Not even alien silver fly...
Oh Lord, inject your elixir in me
Give me some glass of water, gust of air
Just give me strength to cross the sands
And take my sable soul to rest
Translated by Linas Paulauskis
III. TWILIGHT
An autumnal dull daffodil
still
nods its bloom.
Soon I’ll die,
let me have a good look
into visions of twilight.
What does a man think
when awakened
at daybreak?
His woman is gone,
and the world
is so alien and empty.
Deeper and deeper I sink
into visions
of twilight.
Nothing exists in the world
except snow,
only snow.
All the flowers
are stars
woken up out of earth.
The old calami swish
like old god’s
crooked swords.
This much I saw
in myself,
in the village at twilight.
Translated by Lionginas Pažūsis
IV. AKSLEBANTO BRILIJANTO
Vorsmi Sutra sar Sokolo
maskaskan gailyto vėlo
ūsanosta pirran dėlo
novitrynė susuprata
hogioto, džio ir canto
akslebanto brilijanto
ta rė moto koto
Sve ir Svan (čigono) note
Aržuol an Gagen Amozo
ūko ūto žydro balto
kaltu akmeny iškalto
(Untranslatable)
V. TIME TO LEAVE
The birch remains.
Never harm
It.
Its blossoms
Are bigger
Than in childhood.
The dream remains
And the field
With the stone.
Against which
You stubbed
Your foot.
God also
Walked through
That field.
Everything remains,
What remembers, sleeps,
Dreams.
The wind remains
And the radio’s
Static.
Everything remains,
Only I
Do not.
That is not
Why
I had come.
Translated by Jonas Zdanys
