Concerto, Op. 115 (1930/2020)

Program Notes:

Jeronimas Kacinskas's trumpet concerto was brought to my attention by my dear friend Dovas Lietuvninkas. We attended the Eastman School of Music together (2012-2017) and he currently serves as the principal trumpet of the Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra. The piece represents the first signifcant contribution to the Lithuanian trumpet repertoire, but was long thought to be lost to the mists of time. Recently, a piano reduction surfaced at the Prague Conservatory and while it does not contain nearly enough information to recreate the full concerto, it was sufficient to prepare a critical performance edition. The following biographical information is taken from Music Information Centre Lithuania:

Jeronimas Kacinskas (1907-2005), a classic of Lithuanian modernism, was surprising in the scale of his avant-gardism during the 1930s. In the fairly conservative milieu of that time, he was noted not only for his microtonal and atonal athematic compositions. In discussing questions of national music, the composer sought to expand the traditional concept of Lithuanian art based on recreating the folk models, and to bring attention to the intuition and individuality of the artist.

Kacinskas began to study music with his father, an organist, at the age of six. Unfortunately, the disturbances of the period and the barely developing system of musical training created obstacles to a consistent ongoing education. With the onset of the First World War, the family moved to Russia. After returning to his homeland in 1919, Kacinskas studied independently, and was then accepted to study piano, viola, composition and pedagogy at the music school in Klaipeda, and for one year - in Kaunas. Having acquired the basics of classical composition, Kacinskas became interested in modern works, and wrote his first songs, which were "full of unusual combinations".

In 1929 he entered Jaroslav Kricka's composition class at the Prague Conservatoire, and studied conducting with Pavel Dedecek and Method Dolezil. Here Kacinskas also successfully completed Alois Haba's class of quarter tone composition, and made his mark as one of the professor's most talented students. He wrote freely and with little effort, using newly learned principles of composing in microtones and an athematic form. Haba considered his Second String Quartet, and Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra the most interesting of his early compositions. Unfortunately, these scores no longer exist.

Until the Second World War, Jeronimas Kacinskas worked with the Kaunas Radio and Vilnius Philharmonic as well as Opera orchestras, and was one of those rare conductors to conduct from memory. Not only well-known classical, but all symphonic music written by Lithuanian composers was performed in over one thousand of his conducted concerts. Kacinskas ended up on the Communist blacklists, and emigrated in 1944 after refusing to write a cantata about Stalin; he spent time in Lithuanian refugee camps in the Czech Republic, and later in Bavaria. Nearly all of the compositions he had written thus far disappeared during the war.

In 1949 Kacinskas moved to Boston, where he worked until 1995 at the St. Peter's Church of the Lithuanian community. Starting in 1952, he conducted a great many orchestras and choirs, including in such famous venues as Carnegie Hall. Notable among the several dozen religious compositions which he wrote while living in the USA, is Missa in Honorem Immaculati Cordis Beatae Mariae Virginis (1951), dedicated to the 700th anniversary of the baptism of Lithuania's King Mindaugas. The composer taught at the Berklee College of Music during 1967-86. His opera, "Juodas laivas" (Black Ship), was staged by the Chicago Lithuanian Opera in 1976.

Jeronimas Kacinskas visited his homeland after many years - in 1991. His work was finally acknowledged, and many of his songs and religious compositions were performed at that time. In 1992, the composer was awarded the Lithuanian National Award.