Martinaitytė: Ex Tenebris Lux

This second Ondine recording of music by Žibuoklė Martinaitytė (b. 1973) is devoted exclusively to works scored for string orchestra, all of which were composed in the last three years. These works are performed by the Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, one of the most internationally well-known orchestras from Lithuania, conducted by Karolis Variakojis.

Based in New York City, Martinaitytė has begun to be recognized in the United States as well as throughout Europe; recently her orchestral work Saudade was performed on a subscription concert by the New York Philharmonic. Martinaitytė continues to refine her carefully crafted musical compositions which are equally inspired by the external natural world and internal psychological realms, but which are all filtered through her desire to create music that, first and foremost, is beautiful.

The title of Nunc fluens. Nunc stans. (2020) originates from a quote from The Consolation of Philosophy, a treatise written in the Sixth Century C.E. by the Medieval Roman thinker Severinus Boethius (c. 477-524): "Nunc fluens facit tempus. Nunc stans facit aeternitatum." ("The now that passes creates time; the now that remains creates eternity."). Martinaitytė composed this very slowly unfolding music during the early months of the global pandemic as a direct artistic response to the precarious and uncertain times in which we are still living. "Suddenly we all found ourselves having just a present moment," Martinaitytė has written. "The future was uncertain and therefore irrelevant; it was absurd to even think of it. The past vanished, becoming more and more like a dream. We had only Now, which seemingly lost its flow and stood still for a while. Days were passing and weeks, and there was no change. Only the Now remained..."

Ex Tenebris Lux (2021) is the most recent piece featured herein. It is scored for a total of 18 stringed instruments (eight violins, four violas, four cellos, and two doublebasses) and each player has a unique part. The work, whose Latin title means "from darkness comes light," is also a musical response to the current world health crisis. The resultant nearly 25-minute continuous sonic arc that Martinaitytė fashioned in response charts a journey from a very contained low and morose yet serene dirge to an expansive soundscape spanning the entire range of the string orchestra that is ecstatic and radiant.