Biography
M. K. Ciurlionis (1875-1911), composer and
painter, born in Varena, southern Lithuania, where his father was
organist. Three years later his father moved to Druskininkai, a health
resort on the Nemunas, to take up the post of organist. It was here that
Ciurlionis grew up and was to spend his holidays frequently. He was more
than usually fond of the delicate and dreamlike quality of the natural
surroundings of Druskininkai. Their influence can be felt in both his
music and his painting. Taught by this father, he could read music without
any difficulty at the age of seven. He continued his musical education at
Prince Oginski’s orchestra school in Plunge. Here from 1882-1893 he
learn to play the flute and several other instruments and attempted to
compose music. Some of his compositions were played on the occasion of the
Prince’s name day. He was directed to the Warsaw Conservatory of Music
by the Prince, who gave the talented young man his support.
He was in Warsaw from 1893-1899. At first he studied piano and later
composition. During his free time he studied the natural sciences, the
history of culture, and literature. The grandeur of the universe
and its astonishing harmony deeply interested him. He attempted to
understand cosmogonic problems from the popularly and poetically written
works of C. Flammarion and from the hypotheses of Kant and Laplace.
While studying at the Warsaw Conservatory he composed the cantata De
profundis (for choir and symphony orchestra), two sonatas, variations for
string quartet, choral and instrumental fugues, and many short pieces for
piano.
When he graduated from the Conservatory, he was offered the position of
director of the Lublin School of Music, but declined and earned a living
by giving private lessons.
In 1901 he completed the symphonic poem In the Forest, which won first
prize in the competition organised by Zamoyski.
He again received the support of Prince M. Oginski, as well as that of
some of his own friends, and was able to go to the Leipzig Conservatory of
Music, where in 1901-1902 he studied composition under K. Reinecke and
counterpoint under S. Jadassohn.
While studying in Leipzig, he composed the overture Kestutis, a fugue for
string orchestra, and a four-part string quartet. This was his diploma
work on finishing the Leipzig Conservatory.
When he returned to Warsaw in the autumn of 1902, he was offered a
teaching post at the Conservatory, but continued to give private lessons
in rich and cultured families.
In Plunge he sketched details of the Prince’s mansion and park, in
Druskininkai he drew landscapes. When he returned to Warsaw from Leipzig,
he at first attended Kauzik’s drawing school, and then from 1904-1906 he
studied at the Academy of Art under I. Tichy, K. Krzyzanowski and F.
Ruszczyc. Although he was anxious to get to know the principles of
painting, he nevertheless took to free composition more willingly. It
satisfied the development of his imagination, which was enriched with new
visions from the Bible, the ancient Hindu religion, the works of Tagore,
Ruskin, Wilde, Kipling, Merezhkovsky, and others. His paintings were
almost always awarded a prize at the competitions held by the Academy. The
Academy acquired the cycle of six paintings called The Storm, in which
man'’ spiritual struggle between evil and good was depicted.
More freedom in the field of culture came to Lithuania after the
revolution of 1905, and Ciurlionis made up his mind “to dedicate all his
past and future work to Lithuania” (in a letter of Jan. 7, 1906 to his
brother Paulius).
Ciurlionis’ works were put on display at the first Lithuanian art
exhibition held from Dec. 27, 1906 to Feb. 15, 1907 in Vilnius.
In Vilnius he was an active member of the Lithuanian Art Society,
organised the music section, conducted the Ruta Society Choir, and wrote
on music and art in the Lithuanian press.
He put about sixty of his works on show at the second art exhibition,
which was opened on March 12, 1908.
In the autumn of 1908 he went to St. Petersburg, hoping to find better
living conditions there than in Vilnius.
His firsts works were put on show in 1906 at the exhibition held at the
St. Petersburg Academy of Art, and were well received by Russian critics.
Several of his better works were put on show a second time (in 1908) at an
exhibition organised by the art journal Apollon (edited by S. Makovsky).
However, he was badly off materially, not always having enough to buy
paints. He was, besides, in poor health, and became mentally ill through
overworking in 1909. He was taken to a sanatorium near Warsaw and showed
signs of improving but caught a cold and died unexpectedly on April 10,
1911.
Musical
works
In his short life Ciurlionis made his mark
primarily as a composer with exceptional talent and good professional
training. He is the first to have written Lithuanian chamber and symphonic
music. In all he wrote more than 250 compositions for piano, string
instruments, orchestra, and choir.
He was most prolific in writing for the piano (over 150 compositions). The
most outstanding of these is the three-part cycle The Sea; others consist
of short preludes, fugues, canons, etudes, and variations. Their themes
are short, condensed, of clear and finished form, melodious and emotional.
Some of them are serene and optimistic; others are imbued with an
indefinable unease and tragic pessimism. Sometimes contrasting moods of
tempestuous rage and quiet resignation alternate in the same composition.
The composer achieves this through the masterful use of polyphonic
technique, which he had grown fond of. The most striking example of this
technique is the Fugue in B flat for four parts of wide compass (1909).
In his most important piano composition The Sea (1908), the third and last
part of the cycle (Finale) is written on the monothematic principle,
characteristic of Ciurlionis’ last musical compositions.
He wrote the overture Kestutis (only the piano-score remains), the
symphonic poems In the Forest and The Sea for orchestra, and the cantata
De profundis for orchestra and mixed chorus. The cantata is in three
parts, its text being based on the well-known psalm of David.
There is more individuality in the symphonic poem In the Forest (1901).
This is the first of his poems and the first of its kind in Lithuanian
music, was written on the free form of the sonata for a symphony orchestra
(with harp) three times its normal constitution but without percussion
instruments. Its melody is lyrical, and serene; the harmony and rhythm are
not complicated; the instrumentation is colourful. The composer re-creates
the idyllic landscape of his wooded native land by means of his poem.
His second symphonic poem The Sea (1907), written by an already mature
composer, is more complex and pithy in all of its compositional structure.
This is Ciurlionis greatest and most original musical work. It is also
written in sonata form, and is for a large orchestra with three times the
usual number of woodwind instruments, six French horns, four trumpets, two
harps, and organ. The poem The Sea is strong in dramatic expression with
rays of calm subsidence. It was the composer’s aim to express the
anxiety and calm of the human soul through sound images, on the parallel
of the sea raging and abating.
Folk songs used for piano music and harmonised for chorus constitutes a
separate group. In harmonising folk songs he used his own stylistic
devices (a lively bass, wide range of pitch, chromatic progressions and
altered chords, and canons) in moderation, and maintained the form,
simplicity and mood of the folk songs.
Ciurlionis’ musical works and harmonised folk songs were put out in the
following publications: Vieverselis (The Lark), 1909, a collection of folk
songs for elementary schools; Muzikos kuriniai (Musical Compositions),
1925; Kuriniai fortepijonui (Works for the piano), 1957; Liaudies dainos
ir kuriniai fortepijonui (Folk Songs and Works for Piano), 1959; Preliudai
ir fugos (Preludes and Fuges), 1959; Fugos, kanonai ir preliudai (Fugues,
Canons, and Preludes), 1965; Styginis kvartetas (String Quartet), 1966.
Painting
Ciurlionis left some 300 paintings, almost
the same number as musical compositions. However, he is not as well known
for his melodious music as for his colourful painting, in which he showed
himself to be an original and profound artist of great feeling. The second
talent that lay in him broke through of its own accord in artistic work of
independent type, when he attended the Warsaw Academy of Art for a short
while after completing his music studies. He stands alone in Lithuanian
art because of his unusually individual style of painting, more an inner
flair than an acquired technique.
Ciurlionis began to paint when he was already a mature composer, an, so to
speak, carried music over into painting. He not only used the principles
on musical composition in his art work, but also gave musical terms to
some of his paintings, calling them preludes, fugues, and sonatas.
Especially near to and characteristic of music is the development of a
theme in several paintings, where each of them reveals diverse scenes and
moods. The compositional structure of the three or four-part sonata is
found most often. The frequent repetition of motifs, the melodic rhythm of
the lines, and the playful harmony of colours also join his painting to
his music. For example, the symphonic poem The Sea (1907) and the cycle of
paintings The Sonata of the Sea (1908) draw on this kind of analogy of
means of expression. Besides, one theme joins both of these works; namely
the dialectics of rest and movement in the rhythm of nature.
Delving into the foundations of the universe, of nature and man’s
existence, Ciurlionis formulated his own conceptions and visions, which
led him from music to painting. He painted his first works and cycles of
symbolic character while attending the Warsaw Academy of Art from
1904-1906: The Serpent (Vision), Rex, The Creation of the World (Let There
be Light), The Deluge, The Storm, Silence, Stillness, Knowledge, The Music
of the Forest, The City, The Bridge, The Ship, The Funeral and others.
Most of these paintings were put on show at the student exhibitions at the
Warsaw Academy of Art and at the first Lithuanian Art Exhibition held in
Vilnius in 1906.
Ciurlionis did his best artwork between 1907 and 1909, while living in
Vilnius and St. Petersburg. At that time he passed over from realistic
symbolism to a more mystical kind of symbolism, which fitted better the
view of the world that he had created. In the universe and in nature he
saw a peculiar inner life, full of mystery and elemental force. Depicting
this through his paintings, he gave the visible world a spiritualism
appearance as if it were some kind of echo or reflection of another,
invisible world. Both merge in his fantasy and become an astonishing
symphony of symbols. This is how his so-called triptychs, sonatas, and
cycles, making up the greater part of his work, came into being, as, for
example: 1907 - the triptych Spring, Sonata of Spring, the cycle Winter,
the triptych Folk Tale, The Sonata of the Sun, the cycle Signs of the
Zodiac; 1908 - Sonata of the Sea, Sonata of the Pyramids, the triptych
Summer, Sonata of Summer, Sonata of the Stars, Sonata of the Serpent, and
others. In these works Ciurlionis achieved great pithiness and sensitivity
as well as expressiveness and elegance of artistic form.
The above-mentioned series of works, painted on subjects concerning the
universe and nature, develop one idea or another through scenes of diverse
moods. The sonata composition of four scenes predominates. The first
(Allegro) is usually lively and dynamic in mood; the second (Andante) is
quiet and serious; the last scenes (Scherzo, Finale) are impetuous and
stormy, dramatic in mood, expressing victory or sudden resignation. On the
whole, the sonatas are bright and optimistic, as if they were enthusiastic
hymns to eternal life.
Symbols drawn from natural phenomena are strikingly vivid in some of
Ciurlionis’ other paintings: Hymn (1907), My Road (1907), The Black Sun
(1908), and the great Rex (1909).
Visions of a world of happiness, beauty, and peace are united to these
predominating subjects in others: The Altar, The Offering, The Angel (all
1908), Paradise, Fairy-Tale of the Castle (1909).
A couple of paintings depict the life of Lithuania symbolically: The
Fairy-Tale of Kings (1908), The Knight (1909).
Ciurlionis felt deeply the natural beauty of Lithuania, fascinating and
dream-like in its nuances of gentle colours, and he carried it over into
his paintings. Lithuania’s nature and the world outlook of the
Lithuanian nation are reflected in all his principal works. He was
acquainted with this outlook through knowledge of the people’s way of
life and customs, folk tales and songs.
Various works of engraving make up a separate group: prints, drawings,
book covers, initials, vignettes.
Most of his works are painted in water-colours or tempera on paper, very
few in oil on canvas.
Ciurlionis’ paintings belong to those works of art, which stir the
imagination, compelling one to think and to interpret them in a variety of
ways. Some hold his paintings to be the first examples of abstract art,
others would deny this. The individualistic form of his paintings is
strongly bound up with a meaningful idea content. The basic meaning of his
work was to reveal the profound foundation of eternal life and its divine
harmony in the reality of nature.
Photos from the Lithuanian
Art Museum archives
