In Search of a Canon: (Lithuanian) Pianists and Their Cultural Memories
“What does represent certain culture to itself and to the others? Such representative emblems that usually have a concrete, easily tangible and visualized character, they exist not in history but in collective memory: some building that can exist only in that very culture […], a political figure […] that could have been born only in that culture; a bodily posture […]” (Kavolis, 1995: 238).
The aim of this paper is to discuss the notion and existence of ‘local’ musical canons as embedded in a regional collective memory and disseminated through the current performance practices. Where could we place, in a globally oriented cultural context, a performer’s wish to emphasize their cultural and/or national belonging, their personal background, and are there traces of such a practice in the present musical culture? While there may be other possibilities to do so, one of the commonly used ways, especially in the case of ‘smaller’ cultures, is the repertoire choice: the wish to present their ‘native’ music to broader audience, whenever possible. In an era marked by globalization and technological advancement, the preservation (and dissemination) of local musical repertoires holds critical importance for one’s cultural identity.
The aspects of nostalgia and tradition play a significant role in this process, an underlying question being the formation of local musical canons. Those canons reach us through the pedagogical repertoire (hence, they are something we may have played as children), through musical competitions (in Lithuania, the case-study of this paper, three main piano competitions bear the names of Lithuanian composers Balys Dvarionas, Stasys Vainiūnas and Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis and largely feature their music within their repertoire requirements), and through a multitude of cultural symbols recognizable only via regular exposure thereof. Local repertoires are not static entities but rather living constructs that evolve through the influences of social interaction, cultural exchange, and individual creativity.
Situating Lithuanian 20th-century piano music within global repertoires of contemporary pianists as well as referring to other diverse geographical/cultural locations, this paper shall reflect on the dynamics of how a local musical tradition is formed, transformed, and preserved within contemporary performance contexts. To that aim, the study of archival documents and partly the author’s own experience as pianist and music critic shall be employed.
This paper/abstract is part of the project “Interpretations of the Lithuanian Piano Canon”, No. S-MIP-24-136, funded by the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT).
Keywords: piano canons, Lithuanian 20th-century music, competition repertoires, pedagogical repertoires
Biography
Lina Navickaitė-Martinelli is Professor and Senior Researcher at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. Author of the books A Suite of Conversations: 32 Interviews and Essays on the Art of Music Performance (2010) and Piano Performance in a Semiotic Key: Society, Musical Canon and Novel Discourses (2014). She is the founder and co-ordinator of the LMTA Hub of Artistic Research and Performance Studies (HARPS). Her research deals with various phenomena within the art of music performance, with a specific focus on semiotic and sociological aspects as well as practice-led research. More information at linamartinelli.wordpress.com.
Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Lithuania
lina.martinelli@lmta.lt