arranged for and recorded by Manuel Zurria (IT)

commissioned by the WDR Cologne (Wittener Tage für neue Kammermusik 2020)

"Unanime" for 8 bass flutes (2020)

perf. by the National Estonian Symphony orchestra, cond. Olari Elts
concert recording / 10.9.2021

Commissioned by Musica femina München and composed for the Münchener Kammerochester, cond. Clemens Schuldt

"Hier ist alles Abstand, und dort wars Atem". R.M.Rilke. Die achte Elegie

Following the series of my aquatic pieces, “Apnea” (in latin “absence of breathing”) for string orchestra, written during the pandemic winter, reflects the importance of breathing whilst exploring the physical and emotional transformation during the immersion under the water. The macro form of the composition reminds of a very long breath-in and a gradual breath-out stretching the time in between while continuing to delay the climax and increase the tension until the limits. The orchestra is playing without any pause taking both the players and listeners through the existential odyssey.

"Apnea" for strings (2021)

Commissioned by the GAIDA festival (Vilnius). 1st performance: 28th of October, Vilnius St. Catherine Church, GAIDA festival, perf. Jauna Muzika choir, cond. Vaclovas Augustinas 

Concept/composition: Justė JANULYTĖ                                                           Electronics - creation/performance: Michele TADINI/Antonello RAGGI

If the radiance of a thousand suns were to burst into the sky, that would be like the splendor of the Mighty One and I am become Death, the shatterer of worlds (from Bhagavad Gītā), – so was talking Julius Robert Oppenheimer, scientific director at Manhattan Project, after the first artificial nuclear explosion 'Trinity test' near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16th July 1945.

"Radiance" is a metaphoric reflection of the anatomic/philosophy, energetics/poetics of the nuclear explosion; intending to be a requiem for the victims of the first atomic bombing. The genetic code of the piece is a duality and ambiguity symbolized by the Bhagavad Gītā phrase and refers to the initial, purely scientific enthusiasm of the Manhattan Project in inventing the atomic bomb; and its apocalyptic consequences after dropping it on inhabited areas. The structure of the composition is an overlap of two antiphonic processes of radiation: two groups of high and low choir voices that initially "live" in a unison start radiating, splitting (fission), because of the strong attraction between opposites poles, their territories get closer, until, they completely merge (fusion). Therefore the explosion becomes inevitable. Justė Janulytė

Creation and production of the electronic part of Radiance involves several real-time processes of augmentation, de-humanization, and transfiguration of the sonic material, in line with the poetic frame set by Janulytė’s idea. The progressive accumulation, distortion, and polarization of different vocal registers takes the listener into a different flow of time where the natural logic of action-consequence is being destroyed, and therefore the catastrophe is always happening, or has not happened yet. In the end, in the little details that only a macroscopic stretch of time and sound can reveal, we can find seeds of beauty from which we can go on after the tragedy. Antonello Raggi

"Radiance" for choir and live electronics (2015)

recorded by Masanori Oishi at the Takefu International music music festival 2021 (Japan)

"Psalms" for soprano saxophones (2008, vers. 2021)

Performed and recorded on the 2 October 2021 by the WDR chamber choir, WDR symphony orchestra, cond. Enno Poppe. WDR Funkhaus Wallrafplatz, Cologne (DE)

"Airports also have a soundtrack, a symphony of airplane engines, a couple of simple sounds that extend into a space devoid of rhythm, an Orthodox twin-engine choir, gloomy minor, infrared, infra-black, largo, based on a single chord that bores even itself. A requiem that opens with the potent introitus of takeoff and closes with an amen descending into landing". Olga Tokarczuk. The Flights. 

The piece was commissioned by the Westdeutscher Rundfunk Köln (WDR) for the 70th anniversary of “Musik der Zeit” concert series and dedicated to Harry Vogt. 

The dense micro-polyphony of “Recordare” is constructed from 3 distinct timbre groups - winds, voices and strings, each living in separate space and time dimensions like single organisms with individual heart beating, breathing and moving tempos. Their pulsating sounds merge into the interactions of growing intensity, like waves of increasing length and force, gradually expanding the dynamic scale of the piece towards the limits. 

The infinite word “recorda(re)” is circling through the choir voices continuously as a mantra and has a double meaning - “to remember” and “to record”, both symbolising the radio mission.

Video recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVXiwERS7Fc

"Recordare" for choir, orchestra and organ (2021)

perf. by London sinfonietta, cond. Jack Sheen. 2nd of December 2022, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank center, London (UK)

"To dream is to forget.." - Fernando Pessoa. The Book of Disquiet

"I’ve been living with the minor second all my life and I finally found a way to handle it…" Morton Feldman, 1982

Co-commissioned by and written for Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta and Remix Ensemble

Cyclically floating between different phases of density and intensity, minor and major, slowing or accelerating waves, the piece is woven from hypnotically repetitive patterns of 7 slightly different tempos which intertwine through 16 lines of the ensemble conceived as a complex human body with regular breathing, heart beating, eye movements, blood flow etc., all happening at the same time but not synchronised.

The title “Sleeping Patterns” refers to the brain wave oscillations through different sleep stages as well as to the Morton Feldman’s question “Why Patterns?”

Duration: 20’

Instrumentation: fl, ob, cl, bsn, tpt, hn, tbn, acc, kbd, 2 vibr, 2 vln, vla, vc, cb

© Éditions Salabert/Universal Music Publishing Classical

"Sleeping patterns" for ensemble (2022), London sinfonietta

perf. by Rūta & Zbignevas Ibelhauptas Piano Duo (LT)
Commissioned by the “Warsaw Autumn” foundation

A slow metamorphosis of silence of the falling snow. Alongside it is a metamorphosis of touching the piano; a study of the touches that vibrate the pianos and turn them into long sounding, resonating objects. Thus you realize that the piano keys are like certain magic buttons by which resonating abysses of the piano can be raised. If you succeed in pressing them right, you may hear at least some music of those resonating abysses, meanwhile the sounds of the key attacks are just little iceberg peaks sticking out on the surface.

Desktop

"Silence of the falling Snow" for 2 pianos (2002)

"Sleeping patterns" for ensemble (2022), London sinfonietta (excerpt)

perf. by Talvi Nurgamaa (Ensemble for New Music Tallinn)

"Psalms" for viola d'amore (2008, vers. 2023)

commissioned by Ircam-Centre Pompidou and SWR for the 100 years anniversary of György Ligeti

1st performance: ManiFeste (Philharmonie de Paris), 19th June 2023, SWR Vokalensemble, cond. Yuval Weinberg, electronics IRCAM: Robin Meier

Duration: 18'

"then white light / no longer disguised as matter". Louise Glück, End of Summer

“Iridescence” for choir and electronics (2023) is a search for a musical metaphor of light - a radiating sound object, a choir emanating light, inspired by “Lux aeterna” by György Ligeti, one of my lighthouse composers. The title comes from the interviews with Ligeti who used this term to describe sound surfaces of changing colours in terms of harmony and timbre which appeared immediately as a perfect concept to my composition referring to the optic, light-based phenomenon of iridescence in nature.

The voices of the choir are constantly moving in a circle from the highest frequencies down to the lowest pitches and returning, gradually expanding the micro-polyphonic sphere, densifying, enriching, transforming it towards its utmost limits. The only form of sound in the piece is a pure wave, like a simple breath in and out which becomes slower and longer along the organic evolution of the entire sound body. The only text material used, pronounced without consonants and therefore accessible only for the singers, is a phrase from Richard Brautigan's poetry “Star Hole” (“I sit here on the end of a star”) which, like a mantra, is repeated infinite times adding a melancholic, nostalgic, lightly apocalyptic dimension to the lux aeterna theme:

I sit here
on the perfect end
of a star,
watching light
pour itself toward
     me.

 

The light pours
itself through
a small hole
in the sky.

I'm not very happy,
but I can see
how things are
     faraway.

Richard Brautigan


Justė Janulytė © Éditions Salabert/Universal Music Publishing Classical

"Iridescence" (2023) for choir and live electronics (Robin Meier, IRCAM), excerpt

commissioned by and written for the 60th anniversary of Ars Nova ensemble (Poitiers)

“Clessidra” (“sandglass” in Italian) contains two opposite processes happening simultaneously, which are overlapping and create a musical metaphor of a sandglass with one part being filled and the other emptied. One layer of the texture (vibraphone, accordion and synthesiser with an organ timbre) are constantly descending down from their highest overtones meanwhile the rest of the ensemble (strings, bowed harp and winds) is gradually expanding its space and dynamics until their paths cross and merge into one spectrum.

1st performance: 23 November 2023, Auditorium de Potiers (FR), Ars Nova ensemble, cond. Gregory Vajda

"Clessidra" for ensemble (2023)

perf. Manuel Zurria (IT). More info: http://www.janulyte.info/en/works/psalms/

"Psalms" for 8 bass flutes (vers. 2014)

Commissioned by Ircam-Centre Pompidou and SWR for the 100 years anniversary of György Ligeti

1st performance: ManiFeste (Philharmonie de Paris), 19th June 2023, SWR Vokalensemble, cond. Yuval Weinberg, electronics IRCAM: Robin Meier

Duration: 16'

"then white light / no longer disguised as matter". Louise Glück, End of Summer

“Iridescence” for choir and electronics (2023) is a search for a musical metaphor of light - a radiating sound object, a choir emanating light, inspired by “Lux aeterna” by György Ligeti, one of my lighthouse composers. The title comes from the interviews with Ligeti who used this term to describe sound surfaces of changing colours in terms of harmony and timbre which appeared immediately as a perfect concept to my composition referring to the optic, light-based phenomenon of iridescence in nature.

The voices of the choir are constantly moving in a circle from the highest frequencies down to the lowest pitches and returning, gradually expanding the micro-polyphonic sphere, densifying, enriching, transforming it towards its utmost limits. The only form of sound in the piece is a pure wave, like a simple breath in and out which becomes slower and longer along the organic evolution of the entire sound body. The only text material used, pronounced without consonants and therefore accessible only for the singers, is a phrase from Richard Brautigan's poetry “Star Hole” (“I sit here on the end of a star”) which, like a mantra, is repeated infinite times adding a melancholic, nostalgic, lightly apocalyptic dimension to the lux aeterna theme:

I sit here
on the perfect end
of a star,
watching light
pour itself toward
me.

The light pours
itself through
a small hole
in the sky.

I'm not very happy,
but I can see
how things are
faraway.

Richard Brautigan

Justė Janulytė © Éditions Salabert/Universal Music Publishing Classical

"Iridescence" for choir and electronics (Ircam, Robin Meier, 2023, studio recording)

perf. by Orchestre Philharmonique de Radio France, cond. Kristiina Poska, Auditorium de la Maison de la Radio et de la musique, Paris (FR), 13 March 2024 

Co-commissioned by Radio France, L'Orchestre National des Pays de la Loire and Brno Philharmonics

“Confluere” (from Latin “to flow together”) for chamber orchestra, like one river flowing into another, was composed to be performed just before the W. A. Mozart’s 40th symphony in G minor. The composition takes its first theme - the sighing “sospiro” figure and repeats it breathlessly, almost obsessively through different layers of the dense orchestra texture, while slowing it down extremely. This minor second-based motive is being explored through various angles and colours, harmonies and timbres, gradually expanding its range up to the limits and thus preparing the listeners for the arrival of the Mozart.

"Confluere" for chamber orchestra (2024), excerpt

commissioned by the Cesis Art Festival 2012, written for Kamer choir and Sinfonietta Riga, dedicated to Normunds Šnē

The piece is an extremely gradual and surreal odyssey from the "clouds" to the "earth" in both physical and metaphorical senses. The musical structure is based on a canon of 3 layers - strings and voices that are temporal and timbral opposition as ''instrumental'' and ''human'', and winds which have a position of the middle, being a ''breathing instrument'' and helping to connect two opposites creating a smooth ''thermodynamic'' transformation of the sound substance. Those 3 layers could remind of different water states in the hydrological cycle - liquid, vapor and ice and their cyclical conversion processes (evaporation, condensation, precipitation and infiltration) become in music transformation of timbre and harmony, the densification and clarification of micro-polyphonic texture, accumulation and dissollution of different layers, pulsation of dynamic crescendos-diminuendos, rising and sinking of macro register and micro intonations. The directions of these changes are guided by the progressive cyclical form where every cycle is longer in time and wider in register than previous, gradually embracing the maximum range from the highest possible violin harmonics at the begining to the lowest open string of contrabass at the very end of the composition, whilst the harmony is based on a continuous sequential sinking of a diatonic mode crossing the cycle of fifths at 3 different levels.

To all these acoustic processes the poetry by Knuts Skujenieks gives a verbal expression, poetic meaning and moves the work into almost sacral dimension. The content, however, remains only to the performers as the singers articulate only vocals of the poem to purify the verbal material masking the consonants as word attacks, which can be seen in the instrumental parts as well - all the notes the string and wind players produce start from the silence, reach the general dynamics and vanish into silence, creating the "underwater" pulsations, unifying the timbres and homogenizing the texture. The poetry of Skujenieks was chosen not only for its literal sense, but also for the poet's connections with Lithuania as a part of the historical, cultural and linguistic relationship of our two countries - very important for me and musically realized by continuous collaboration with Latvian artists. 

"As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth, and making it bud and flourish, so that it yealds see for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it". (Isaia 55:10-11)

Observation of Clouds for voices, winds and strings (2012)

dedicated to Henri Demarquette

performed by Henri Demarquette and Sequenza 9.3., cond. Catherine Simonpietri

Plonge tes yeux dans les yeux fixes / Des Satyresses our des Nixes                            Charles Baudelaire (L'Avertisseur, Fleurs du Mal)

1st performance: 3rd of June, 2015, Philharmonie de Paris                                       

"Plonge" (eng. "Plunge") for cello and 12 voices (2015) was commissioned by Henri Demarquette and the vocal Ensemble Sequenza 9.3  for their programme "Vocello" and premiered at a special concert at the Philharmonie de Paris on the 3rd of June.
As my previous pieces were mostly written for strings (especially cello) and voices, usually in "monochrome" ensembles, I was really curious to mix, fuse these timbres together in a very homogeneous texture, revealing the "cantabile" quality of both and exploring very different colours of different ranges of the cello which may correspond to different timbres of the choir.
When I discovered "Vocello" repertoire, I got completely taken by Dido's Lament by Henry Purcell the musicians included into their programme, which is based on a continuously descending basso continuo. In terms of baroque rethorics this figure is called catabasis, a musical symbol of the descent to the underworld. Then by a pure accident my attention had been captured by a related ecxerpt from Charles Baudelaire's poetry, creating a mystic vision of sinking into a state of stasis (Plonge tes yeux dans les yeux fixes / Des Satyresses our des Nixes from L'Avertisseur, Fleurs du Mal). So my piece is an acoustic metaphor of all these inspirations together. The musical process is an extremely gradual catabasis although with a "happier end", rather bringing to an ecstatic, hypnotic state unlike the tragic Purcell's final. The musical structure of the piece could remind of a whirling vortex that is gradually getting more and more slow, wide, profound until the cellist gets drowned and melted in the sea of voices which accumulate like increasing resonances of the cello line... Through this slowing vortex the connection between the musical time sensation and space is also being explored: the more the acoustic space is filled in with sounds, the more their spectrum becomes wider and richer, the more the time gets slow until completely freezes. Juste Janulyte

"Plonge" for cello and 12 voices (2015)

Written for Goska Isphording&Maciej Frąckiewicz and commissioned by the Musical Aspiration Foundation (PL), co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland (programme Composing Commissions, implemented by the Institute of Music and Dance) with the support of the Lithuanian Composers’ Union.

In this piece two instruments of a very different or even opposite origin and acoustic nature are melted into a monolithic “monochrome” mechanism, as if constructing a utopian instrument with characteristics of the harpsichord and accordion. The idea of such composition came from a play on words, only changing a sequence of letters in an English name of the harpsichord: harpSIchord – harpISchord. “Harp” is being read as an arpeggio (e.g. a technique asking to play chord notes in succession upwards or downwards), while “chord” is perceived as a synchronous entrance of all the chord sounds together. In this piece the two indivisible phases of sound – sound attack and resonance – are being separated in a sense of timbre. The first one is obviously assigned to the harpsichord, which naturally has almost no resonance, and the second one clearly belongs to the accordion, dynamically raising sounds from the silence. By the way, the principle of duality/opposites is expressed also through a special use of double keyboards which both instruments have whilst the diatonic white-keys harmony comes from the “eolian (wind) harp” sound.

Justė Janulytė

At van Abbe Eindhoven

"Harp is a Chord" for harpsichord and accordion (2016)

"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

"The Color of Water" for saxophone(s) and chamber orchestra (2017)

www.justejanulyte.com/en/works/sandglasses/

Juste Janulyte. Sandglasses (extract)

Juste Janulyte. Sandglasses (extract 1)

perf. Gianluca Gentili (IT) / recorded live on the 19 maggio 2018 / Festival Strumenti Umani Montefano (MC)

"Psalms" for electric guitars (2008, vers. 2018)

Commissioned by the Berliner Festspiele / Maerzmusik and Konzerthaus Berlin Symphony Orchestra, dedicated to Peter Rundel

How many swans were there? White Constellation, their silence, piercing some violence, The water. Each planetary, an organ. If the train slowly rips the field in two, Makes a shore, as it were, then where Were you, burning like birds…  - Quinn Latimer, Like a Women

The inspiration for the piece was both visually and musically evoked by the above Quinn Latimer poetic essay; suggesting the use of the organ as the central, spinal element of the musical body. The organ serves here also as a sort of a sandglass (referring to my Sandglasses, performed at Maerzmusik in 2011) as the borderlines of its range determine the limits of the time, in which the whole acoustic organism unfolds. Furthermore, all other layers of the orchestra are affected by the strong gravitation force represented by the organ. The dualistic structure of composition, based on opposite motions (catabasis versus anabasis) slowly crossing each other, reminds one also of the beautifully symmetrical shape of the Cygnus (Swan) constellation.                                                                                           The title of the piece is an hommage to Onutė Narbutaitė (Was there a butterfly? for string orchestra, 2013), one of my "lighthouse" composers.

Live recording from the premiere: 28 March 2019, org. Martin Knizia, Konzerthaus Berlin Symphony Orchestra, cond. Peter Rundel, Maerzmusik festival, Berlin (DE)

http://www.justejanulyte.com/en/works/was-there-a-swan/

"Was There a Swan?" for organ and symphony orchestra (2019)

Commissioned by the Lithuanian National Philharmonics and written for the Estonian National Male Choir and Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra, cond. Mikk Üleoja, for the "Freedom of the Baltics" concert, dedicated to the centenary of the re-establishment of the Baltic States

The phrase "here at the quiet limit of the world" from the poem Tithonus by Lord Alfred Tennyson became not only the title of the piece but also inspiration to reflect the phenomenon of the limits through musical metaphors. How can the separating limit between earth and sky be captured while one is still within the earth and another is already the sky?! The strings and voices in this composition are conceived as opposite elements: while the orchestra is going down and shrinking, the choir is rising up and expanding, until their trajectories, as well the dimensions of space and time, merge and the limits disappear. 

Instrumentation
male choir t4t4b4b4, strings 5.5.4.4.2

"Here at the quiet limit" for male choir and string orchestra (2018)

http://www.justejanulyte.com/en/works/now-im-nowhere/

commissioned by and written for the Estonian National male choir for their 75-years celebration

"Now I'm nowhere, but wish
I could live in the North, where days
And nights, where sounds and colours
Snow and rain is one and all;
Where nature is not ours,
But we are of the nature; where everything, even the death
Is just one, continuous birth."

Alfonsas Nyka-Niliūnas (1919-2015)

"Dabar aš esu niekur, bet norėčiau
Gyventi šiaurėje, kur dienos
Ir naktys, kur garsai ir spalvos,
Sniegas ir lietus yra viena ir visa;
Kur gamta yra ne mūsų,
Bet mes gamtos; kur viskas, net mirtis,
Tik vienas, nenutrūkstamas gimimas."

16 November 2019, Estonia Concert Hall, Tallinn (EE)

kuulamiskoopia - listening copy

"Now I'm Nowhere" for male choir (2019)

Commissioned by the Lithuanian National Philharmonic for the concert series “Viva Musica Via Baltica” (Vilnius - European Capital of Culture) and composed for Sinfonietta Rīga

The structure of the two-layered score of “Elongation of Nights” reminds of the elongation of night while the day is getting shorter: one layer is setting down and getting quieter which makes way for the second layer that becomes louder and pulsates with elongating sounds. Every player has its own part (21 in total) similar to the echoes of a canon, thus such a monochromatic orchestra sounds like a utopian 84 string instrument. The harmony of the piece is based entirely on fifths, derived from the natural tuning of strings. Morton Feldman would have probably called such piece as “Fifths in my Life”.

Dedicated to autumning Vilnius.

Duration
8'30''

Recording
Released by the Lithuanian Music Information and Publishing Centre in 2010 in "Zoom in 8: new music from Lithuania".

Performers
Sinfonietta Rīga | cond. Normunds Šnē
Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra | cond. Risto Joost or Robertas Šervenikas
BBC National Orchestra of Wales | cond. Garry Walker
National Chamber Orchestra of Moldova | cond. Robertas Šervenikas
Polish Chamber Philharmonic Orchestra | cond. Rodrigo Tomillo                         
Leopoldinum Chamber Orchestra Wroclaw | cond. Ernst Kovacic                                                                           Philharmonie Brno | cond. Maciej Tworek                                                                  String Orchestra of Brooklyn | cond. Eli Spindel   

"In the music of Justė Janulytė the sound unfolds as an autonomous event, with incredible lightness, as a confluence of energies, which transform it into increasingly dilated harmonies. No beat, no apparent rhythm, just the ‘deaf’ pulsation perhaps, a downtempo, as some kinds of the electronic music are qualified; the swelling of intensities, the saturation of space, and then eventual return to the state of calm, which is already different, marked and disturbed. The importance of material that found reflection in the titles of her works: Textile (for orchestra, 2006), Aquarelle (for choir, 2007), Silence of the Falling Snow (for two pianos, 2006), Endings (for 4 saxophones, 2005)... But the most important is metamorphosis, a very personal one and therefore instantly recognisable. This is not the telluric forces in Xenakis, or the atomic process in Ligeti, but rather an irradiant form. Elongation of Nights, the second score for string orchestra after the White Music, with which the composer made her public debut in 2004, gives a good example of such radiation. Some kind of timeless, floating metamorphosis. A strikingly innovative dramaturgy of sound..." Antoine Gindt | MUSICA festival brochure, 2011 

http://www.janulyte.info/en/works/elongation-of-nights/        

"Elongation of Nights" for string orchestra (2009)

Programme note

The piece is written in the style of pure repetitive minimalism, the texture is based on the counterpoint of regular pulsations. The choir is split into four micro-ensembles by regulating the texture clarity-density level and interpreting the old tradition of cori spezzati. The harmony is based on the slow sequences of diatonic scales, imitating overlaps of watercolour hues without distinct beginning/end outlines. The piece does not contain verbal text, only mormorando and vowels; hence there is no sound attacks paralleled with consonants of the verbal text. The only gesture in this piece - the sound emerging and submerging into silence, as if a tip of the iceberg revealing only small part of what the hearing cannot grasp, but may be able to imagine.

Perf.  by Estonian Philharmonic Chamber Choir, cond. Paul Hillier             

"Aquarelle" for choir (2007)

Programme note

This piece is the synchronization of different versions (played by the same or different cellists) of one musical line. The result of these 'vertical' variations reminds of the effect of different voices which are silently reading the same text or perhaps telling an orison, psalm or a mantra with individual intonations, timbres, tempos etc., thus creating polyphony of interpretations, either coming closer or moving away from each other.

The piece was commissioned by the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival (2008) and written for Anton Lukoszevieze.

Performed by Francesco Dillon (IT) live at the Villa Romana (Firenze)

More info at: http://www.janulyte.info/en/works/psalmscellos/

"Psalms" for cellos (2008)

The works of Justė Janulytė claim to build a "monochrome music" collection: they explore time-space perception through large-scale multilayered textures and extremely gradual metamorphoses. Justė Janulytė's catalogue, balancing between the aesthetics of minimalism, spectralism and acoustic electronica, has become one of the most fascinating focal points in the contemporary musical world. (Universal Music Publishing Classical) 

More on www.justejanulyte.com

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