Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973)
Aletheia (2022)
Chant des Voyelles (2018)
Ululations (2023)
The Blue of Distance (2010)
Latvian Radio Choir/Sigvards Kļava
rec. 2023, St. John’s Church, Riga, Latvia
Ondine ODE 1447-2 [59]

This is yet another Ondine release of Žibuoklė Martinaitytė’s music. The predecessors were warmly welcomed here (review ~ review ~ review ~ review). This disc deals with another facet of her music-making: works for unaccompanied chorus. I have much admired her orchestral music, so I was intrigued and curious.

Martinaitytė began Aletheia just as Russian troops crossed into Ukraine in February 2022. The invasion deeply moved the composer, whose own country was once part of the Soviet Union. It must be stressed right away, however, that the historical background is not bluntly reflected in the music. The piece opens almost unheard and unfolds slowly with minimal but real variations, creating a hazy background full of ambiguity. The music slowly builds up to a big agitated climax – probably the only part that may allude to the dramatic events in Ukraine. After a short pause, the music slowly unfolds backwards, so to speak, although near the end there emerges a consoling whiff of melody as a tiny ray of hope. Then the music retreats into absolute silence.

Ululations may also allude to the tragic events in Ukraine. “Ululation” implies sorrow and desolation, and may be compared to keening. To quote the composer: “the idea of ululations as an audible, almost ritualistic expression of mourning became essential to the piece and seemed to be quite relevant to the historical times we live in. I imagined the mourning women whose men of the family are at war fighting and dying or who have lost their loved ones.” The piece is developed from the “ululating” gesture first given to the women’s voices in multiple formations. It later appears in inverted version as “an uprising gesture of strength” sung by the men’s voices. The two versions combine to reach the final climax of the piece.

The somewhat earlier Chant des Voyelles had a different genesis. The title is the name of an abstract sculpture by the Lithuanian-born French-American cubist artist Jacques Lipchitz, which exists in different realisations. (One of them is to be found in the Netherlands.) Lipchitz titled the sculpture, originally conceived in 1931, after an ancient Egyptian prayer preserved on a papyrus that consists only of vowels. That is what motivated Martinaitytė to create a choral work with only vowels in the text. “I worked with vowels, dedicating an entire section to one single vowel and then also mixing them up in various densities.”

This is far more than an intellectual exercise, as Frank J. Oteri rightly remarks in his excellent notes. As in Aletheia and Ululations, the composer worked with what she aptly describes as subtly shifting, sometimes barely audible clouds of overtones resulting from the sustaining of certain vowels in multiple voices. The effect – as in the other pieces – is just mesmerising.

The Blue of Distance is Martinaitytė’s still earlier choral work, again without setting any existing text. She recalls that at first, she did not know what to do with the commission: she could not find any suitable text likely to orient her in a desired direction. She then thought of a book by Rebecca Solnit that had intrigued her, A Field Guide to Getting Lost. “There are chapters in the book which Solnit titled ‘The Blue of Distance’ in which she describes how things that are very far away look blue even though they aren’t and that, as a result, we perceive blue as the colour of distance itself.” All right then, although I am not sure what this may mean. What is perfectly clear in this piece is that the composer found her way into choral music, and sowed the seeds of what became the substance of the other pieces recorded here.

Sigvards Kļava has built his Latvian Radio Choir into a formidable ensemble. It is characterised by untiring commitment, remarkable assurance and perfect intonation. The four pieces recorded here, undoubtedly exacting, require utmost clarity and precision – which they get in full here. I believe that these performances must have made the composer most happy. This release is warmly and unreservedly recommended.

Hubert Culot

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