Name: Juste Janulyte - The Colour Of Water by Arvydas Kazlauskas
Duration: 16 min 41 s
Description: "The Colour of Water" for solo saxophone(s) (soprano/alto/baritone) and chamber orchestra. Recorded on 18th February, 2017 by Arvydas Kazlauskas (saxophone) and Sinfonietta Riga (cond. Normunds Šnē) at Saxophonia festival, Great Guild Hall, Riga, Latvia.

"The Colour of Water" for solo saxophone(s) (soprano/alto/baritone) and chamber orchestra. Recorded on 18th February, 2017 by Arvydas Kazlauskas (saxophone) and Sinfonietta Riga (cond. Normunds Šnē) at Saxophonia festival, Great Guild Hall, Riga, Latvia.

Juste Janulyte - The Colour Of Water

For 12 saxophones. Performed at the Sibelius academy in Helsinki on Dec 4 2014, conducted by Arvydas Kazlauskas.

The movement of time within dreams is beautiful and mysterious, as is the way scenes change. Reflections on a lake are broken by rain or ripples under skimming rocks but underwater life carries on serenely, rocked by other currents.

Lake Of Dreams

"The Colour of Water" for solo saxophone(s) (soprano/alto/baritone) and chamber orchestra commissioned by the Saxophonia festival (LV) and Klaipėda Music Spring (LT) 


"I expected to find complete darkness down below but at some point, much to my surprise, the ocean floor appeared transparent and radiant". Jacques Piccard, Swiss oceanographer and engineer

"..e il naufragar m'è dolce in questo mare". Giacomo Leopardi (..and sinking in this sea is sweet to me)

“The Colour of Water” is the 3rd part of my Latvian trilogy together with “Elongation of Nights” (2009) for string orchestra and “Observation of Clouds” (2012) for voices, winds and strings, continuing to explore some discoveries made in the first two parts and also dedicated to Riga Sinfonieta, Maestro Normunds Šnē and the Lithuanian saxophone player Arvydas Kazlauskas residing in Latvia.

The piece is an attempt to poetically reflect on the illusory colour of water that doesn’t actually exist, trying to give answers through musical metaphors of reflection and generating the musical material while applying mirror principles which predetermine both macro and micro levels. The solo part is based on the obsessively oscillating pendulum of low and high notes gradually increasing the distance between them. As a consequence, the expanding space between the opposite poles is being filled in with the orchestral “liquid” of changing timbre/harmony colours until this symbolic container becomes inevitably overfilled.

The strings are placed on the stage in a way to create the sound moving in an hypnotic circle/vortex which unites the swinging opposite poles of the solo part, whilst the soloist is being surrounded by the rising waves and submerged deeper and deeper down where the breathing stops and the tension of the polarity is released. Justė Janulytė

Juste Janulyte - The Colour Of Water

Arvydas Kazlauskas

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