Inventions

Duration: 25-35 minutes

Vilnius: Vaga, 1984

Inventions marks a transitional period in Mindaugas Urbaitis’s oeuvre, from atonal and dodecaphonic music to minimalism. The aleatoric concept is prominent here as well: repetitions of melodic segments, asynchronous between different parts, undetermined in their order of succession and number of repetitions of each segment, thus resulting in undetermined duration of the performance. At first the composer had devised a composition for 3~5 oboes. But then it appeared that there was only one oboe player in Lithuania at the time, interested in performing and promoting contemporary music (Juozas Rimas). Therefore such a way of performing this piece, with the soloist on stage and pre-recorded other oboe parts, was established since then.

Linas Paulauskis