Mūza Rubackytė, the pianist on this recording, made her professional debut at age seven with the Lithuanian National Chamber Orchestra and later won First Prize in the country's National Young Artists' Competition.
Compositional Technique
The piano pieces by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis range from 19th-century romanticism to more modern idioms, including expressionism, serialism, or neoclassicism.
Album & Artwork
The cover painting for this album, 'Wrath I', is from a cycle of three paintings created in 1904 by the composer M.K. Čiurlionis himself.
Composer Biography
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, a distinguished figure in Lithuanian arts, was born in 1875 and studied piano and composition at the Warsaw Music Institute, followed by the Leipzig Conservatory.
Composer Biography
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis pursued parallel careers as a painter and musician, directing choirs and exhibiting his paintings in Warsaw, Vilnius, and St Petersburg.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, the composer, believed that all arts stem from the same source, leading him to create paintings based on musical structures and pictorial music.
Performer Biography
Mūza Rubackytė, a native of Lithuania, was denied many opportunities during the Soviet era but was allowed to enter and win the Grand Prix at the Budapest International Piano Competition (Liszt/Bartók).
