Vytautas Bacevičius (born ''Vytautas Bacewicz''; 9 September 1905, in

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of canti ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

(then

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...

) – 15 January 1970, in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...

) was a Lithuanian composer''

New Statesman The ''New Statesman'' is a British political and cultural magazine published in London. Founded as a weekly review of politics and literature on 12 April 1913, it was at first connected with Sidney and Beatrice Webb and other leading members ...

'' 136第 4851-4863 2007 of radical and modernistic leanings. Most of his works are in an

atonal Atonality in its broadest sense is music that lacks a tonal center, or key. ''Atonality'', in this sense, usually describes compositions written from about the early 20th-century to the present day, where a hierarchy of harmonies focusing on a s ...

idiom of his own devising. He developed a theory of 'cosmic music' and came to regard

Schoenberg Arnold Schoenberg or Schönberg (, ; ; 13 September 187413 July 1951) was an Austrian-American composer, music theorist, teacher, writer, and painter. He is widely considered one of the most influential composers of the 20th century. He was as ...

's 12-note music as out-dated, regarding himself as a successor to

Scriabin Alexander Nikolayevich Scriabin (; russian: Александр Николаевич Скрябин ; – ) was a Russian composer and virtuoso pianist. Before 1903, Scriabin was greatly influenced by the music of Frédéric Chopin and composed ...

André Jolivet André Jolivet (; 8 August 1905 – 20 December 1974) was a French composer. Known for his devotion to French culture and musical thought, Jolivet drew on his interest in acoustics and atonality, as well as both ancient and modern musical influe ...

and Varèse. Bacevičius studied in Łódź with, among others,

Kazimierz Sikorski Kazimierz Sikorski (June 28, 1895 – July 23, 1986) was a Polish composer. His arrangement of the "Mazurek Dąbrowskiego" is currently used as the Polish national anthem. Biography Sikorski was born in Zurich, but studied in Warsaw, first mu ...

and moved to

Kaunas Kaunas (; ; also see other names) is the second-largest city in Lithuania after Vilnius and an important centre of Lithuanian economic, academic, and cultural life. Kaunas was the largest city and the centre of a county in the Duchy of Trakai ...

in Lithuania in 1926. In 1927 he went to

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

where he studied composition with

Nikolai Tcherepnin Nikolai Nikolayevich Tcherepnin (Russian: Николай Николаевич Черепнин; – 26 June 1945) was a Russian composer, pianist, and conductor. He was born in Saint Petersburg and studied under Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov at t ...

. Returning to Lithuania in 1928 he established himself as a pianist and composer and teacher. He became the Chair of the Lithuanian Section of the

ISCM The International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) is a music organization that promotes contemporary classical music. The organization was established in Salzburg in 1922 as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik (IGNM) following the ...

. He was on tour in Argentina in 1939 when the Germans invaded Lithuania, rendering him an exile in America. He moved to the

in 1940 and lived mainly in New York, continuing to give recitals but mainly supporting himself by teaching. Though born in Poland, he adopted the Lithuanian form of his name (Bacevičius); he was the brother of the Polish composer

Grażyna Bacewicz Grażyna Bacewicz Biernacka (; 5 February 1909 – 17 January 1969) was a Polish composer and violinist. She is the second Polish female composer to have achieved national and international recognition, the first being Maria Szymanowska in the ...

, to whom he dedicated his Second Symphony, ''della Guerra'', in 1940. Bacevičius regarded his orchestral works as the most important part of his output, and composed six symphonies in all as well as four piano concertos, a violin concerto and numerous works for piano solo.

Works

Worklist

Recordings

* Orchestral Music: Graphique, Poème Électrique, Piano Concerto No. 1, Sur les thèmes lituaniens, Symphony No. 2, Della Guerra, Symphony No. 6, Cosmique; Aidas Puodžiukas, piano.

Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra The Lithuanian State Symphony Orchestra ( lt, Lietuvos valstybinis simfoninis orkestras or LVSO) is one of Lithuania's two national orchestras, founded in 1988. The other, the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra (LNSO, Lietuvos nacionalinis sim ...

dir. Vytautas Lukočius and Martynas Staškus, conductors.

Toccata Classics Toccata Classics is an independent British classic music label founded in 2005. The founder of Toccata Classics is Martin Anderson, a music journalist. The label was founded primarily to promote unrecorded works by lesser-known composers, inc ...

2007

External links

A performance of Piano Concerto No. 4
by

Gintaras Januševičius Gintaras Januševičius (born 16 January 1985) is a Lithuanian pianist, music educator, event producer, radio presenter, and philanthropist. He is renowned for narrative recitals and original interpretations; particularly that of Rachmaninoff, ...

with the

Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra The Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra or LNSO (''Lietuvos nacionalinis simfoninis orkestras, LNSO'') is one of Lithuania's two national orchestras,Jonathan Bousfield ''Baltic States'' Rough Guides 2004 p97 "Classical music, opera and ballet; ...

, on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

References

1905 births 1970 deaths Lithuanian classical composers Musicians from Łódź Lithuanian emigrants to the United States Lithuanian expatriates in France 20th-century classical composers Male classical composers 20th-century male musicians {{Lithuania-composer-stub