The Myth of a modernist artist in the music of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis : discussing the score of the symphonic poem Jūra (The Sea)

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: "Jaunoji Lenkija" muzikoje; "Jūra"; Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis; Muzika ir autobiografija; Programinė muzika; Simfoninė poema; Simfoninė poema "Jūra"; Čiurlionis; „Jaunoji Lenkija“ muzikoje; "Young; M.K.Čiurlionis; Music and autobiography; Poland" in music; Programme music; Symphonic poem; Symphonic poem "The Sea"; The Sea; Young Poland in music; Čiurlionis.

ENThe paper is an attempt at specifying extra-musical senses inherent in the symphonic poem The Sea by M. K. Čiurlionis. The author draws our attention to the main key of the poem - E major, which in modernism - including Young Poland - was often associated with the theme of the artist (the theme of the artist (Karlowicz's 'Revival' Symphony, Fitelberg's symphonic poem Song of the Falcon, Scriabin's Symphony No. 1, and Huber's Symphony No. 2 Böcklin Symphony). At the same time the author points out that The Sea by Čiurlionis provides a parallel to the concept of mare tenebrarum, symbolizing mystery and the sphere of the unconscious, coined already by E. A. Poe, Maurice Maeterlinck and Stanislaw Przybyszewski. Taking into consideration the existing convergences between some fragments of The Sea and such compositions as Verklärte Nacht by A. Schönberg (allusion to the narrator theme from the string sextet appears in the coda of The Sea), or ‘Voluptes’ in E-major from the Symphony No. 3 The Divine Poem by Scriabin (the excerpt with an imitation of the sounds of birds) or a reprise fragment referring to the 5th variation from the finale of Symphony No. 2 by Huber, constituting ekphrasis (in E-major) of Böcklins painting Der Einsiedler vor einem Marienbilde, geigend, the author of the paper comes to the conclusion that the poem by Čiurlionis might have been an implicit self-portrait of the artist-composer attributing the traits of the Demiurge to himself and assuming the role of the leader of the nation. [From the publication]