Links
about
Stein Skjervold, baritone (Norway)
Eglė Andrejevaitė, piano (Lithuania)
The sonnet is a labyrinth of words, a precious, meticulous filigree construction, exploding with color and depth. The 14-line poem, with its pulsating iambic rhyme, its intricate and complex construction form, traces its origins back to the 13th century. The classic sonnet was created by Renaissance poets Francesco Petrarca and Michelangelo Buonarroti, and made eternal by William Shakespeare. The themes they explore are as old as the world: eternal love and romance, death, time, and faith.
The vocal-instrumental music concert SONETAI will feature two sonnet cycles created by the Hungarian romantic Franz Liszt and the 20th century English composer Benjamin Britten. The cycles of both authors are some of the most interesting examples of this genre in the history of music, bringing fame and recognition to the creators.
The Seven Sonnets of Michelangelo is the first complete song cycle written by Britten and dedicated to the tenor Peter Pears. It is a passionate musical performance of the poems of Michelangelo Buonarroti (1564-1616), written in Italian. Throughout the cycle, as in the text, there is a wide range of feelings for the object of love: the sonnets are alternately passionate, sorrowful, fiery and tender.
Liszt's Petrarch Sonnets were originally composed as songs for tenor, and the piano versions of these works, which Liszt included in his Années de Pélérinage (the second, Italian Years of Pilgrimage), retain a strong sense of the sung line. All three songs are based on sonnets by the Italian Renaissance poet Francesco Petrarca (1304-1374). They are meditations on love, on the poet's passionate love for Laura de Noves. Interestingly, both the songs and the solo versions exist in two completely different versions - different forms and variations.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Pianist Eglė Andrejevaitė and Norwegian baritone Stein Skjervold, who lives in Lithuania, have been on stage together since 2012. The artists' common focus is on romantic and contemporary music. Franz Schubert's vocal cycle "Die Schöne Müllerin" (The Beautiful Miller's Wife) became their first joint project. In 2015, the duo presented the work of contemporary Lithuanian composers in the chamber music program "Songs of Love and Loneliness": music was composed by Vidmantas Bartulis, Albertas Navickas, Jurgita Mieželytė, Loreta Narvilaitė, Linas Rimša. In 2022, the Lithuanian National Philharmonic's concert program featured the duo's "Childhood Memories". It focuses on the theme of children in music through the "eyes" of J. Jurkūnas, R. Schumann, A. Šenderov, and M. Mussorgsky. SONETS is the duo's fourth concert program, which premiered in Lithuania in the summer of 2024 in Nida, at the international music festival N ŽEMĖ.
