Vytautas Bacevicius (1905-70) spent the latter part of his career in the U.S., where his music was almost completely ignored. In the Poème, the Piano Concerto, and the Second Symphony he shows himself to be a progressive interested in diverse styles like the machine music of composers such as Mosolov and Honegger, with perhaps a touch of Scriabin thrown in. His music is strident and somewhat noisy (sort of like Milhaud), and the Lithuanian motives supposedly worked into the concerto are certainly not readily identifiable as such. Still, he has a distinctive style, and it all comes together in the Symphony where his use of percussion (castanets and tambourine) and harp is particularly distinctive. The central Andante funèbre is a major statement, make no mistake.
The last two works on this interesting disc, Symphony No. 6 and Graphique, are both short, single movements in which the composer abandons tonality in favor of pure texture. It says something for Bacevicius’ strong point of view that the music remains recognizably his own, and you may find that it grows on you. Certainly the performances are strong ones, and what rawness there is in the orchestra’s brass section clearly works to the music’s advantage. Bacevicius was a real questing spirit, and he’s worth getting to know, particularly for the Second Symphony.
