Pēteris Vasks

Pēteris Vasks

Pēteris Vasks (born April 16, 1946 in Aizpute , Latvian SSR ) is a Latvian composer .

Life

Pēteris Vasks was born the son of a Baptist pastor. He attended middle school in his hometown and learned to play the piano and violin at the local music school.

From 1959 to 1964 Vasks took violin and double bass lessons at the Emīls-Dārziņš music school in Riga. Vasks was a double bass player in ensembles of various symphony and chamber orchestras from 1963 to 1974: from 1963 to 1966 in the orchestra of the Latvian National Opera , from 1966 to 1969 in the Lithuanian Philharmonic Orchestra and in the season 1969/1970 in the Latvian Philharmonic Chamber Orchestra and from 1971 to 1974 in Latvian radio and television orchestra.

At the same time he studied double bass from 1964 to 1970 with Vytautas Sereika at the Lithuanian Music Academy in Vilnius . There he got to know the music of the Polish avant-garde. The musical training was interrupted by military service in the Soviet Army in 1970 and 1971.

From 1973 to 1978 Vasks studied composition with Valentin Utkin at the Latvian Music Academy Jāzeps Vītols in Riga .

Since 1989 Vasks has been teaching composition at the Jāzepa Vītola Latvijas Mūzikas akadēmija (the conservatory ) in Riga. Vasks, who now lives in Riga as a freelance composer, is one of the most famous composers from the states of the former Soviet Union. His Musica dolorosa , written on the occasion of the death of his sister, is seen by many Latvians as an expression of the suffering of their people in the “Soviet Union Peoples Prison”, as Vasks calls the oppression during the Soviet occupation .

Honors

• Vasks has received the Latvian Grand Music Prize three times for his compositions , in 1993 for Litene , in 1998 for the violin concerto Fernes Licht and in 2000 for his 2nd symphony.
• Since 1994 Vasks has been an honorary member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences .
• In 1996 he was named Main Composer of the Stockholm New Music Festival.
• In the same year the Alfred Toepfer Foundation FVS awarded him the Herder Prize .
• In 2001 Vasks was accepted into the Royal Swedish Academy of Music .
• On June 13, 2006 the asteroid (16513) Vasks was named after him.

Works

• 1973: Tris skandarbi (three pieces)
• 1974: Music for two pianos
• 1974: Partita per violoncello e piano
• 1975: Mate saule (mother sun)
• 1975: Liepa (The Linden Tree)
• 1976: Madrigal based on a poem by Claude de Pontoux
• 1977: In memoriam
• 1977: Moments musicaux
• 1977: Musu mašu vardi (The names of our mothers)
• 1977: Ne tikai lirika (Not just lyrics)
• 1977: Quintet No. 1
• 1977: Toccata
• 1977: String Quartet No. 1
• 1978: Baltais fragments (white fragment)
• 1978: Concerto vocale
• 1978: Grāmata čellam (The Book)
• 1978: Vasara (summer)
• 1979: Cantabile
• 1979: Tris skatieni (Three Glances )
• 1979: Concerto per timpani e strumenti di percussione
• 1979: Klusas dziemas (Silent Songs)
• 1980: Ainava ar putniem (Landscape with Birds)
• 1980: Balta ainava (White Landscape)
• 1980: Cantata for harpsichord
• 1980: Skumja mate (sad mother)
• 1981: Kekatu dziesma (Carnival song )
• 1981: Rudens muzika (autumn music)
• 1981: Ziles zina (Message from a titmouse)
• 1981: Ganu dziesma (shepherd's song)
• 1982: Quintet No. 2
• 1982 Ugunssargs (fire keeper)
• 1982 Vestijums (embassy)
• 1982/1983 Pieskarieni (touches)
• 1983: Musica dolorosa
• 1984: Cantus ad pacem
• 1984: String Quartet No. 2
• 1985: Episodi e Canto perpetuo , "Hommage à Olivier Messiaen "
• 1985: Maza vasaras muzika (Little Summer Music)
• 1986: A little night music
• 1986: Lauda
• 1986: Sonata per contrabbasso solo
• 1987: Latvija (cantata)
• 1987: Pavasara sonata (spring sonata )
• 1988: Mazi silti svetki (A little party)
• 1988: Musica seria
• 1988: Musu dziesma (Our Song)
• 1989: Concerto for cor anglais and orchestra
• 1989: Varonis (The Hero)
• 1989: Zemgale
• 1990: Sava tauta (In his people)
• 1990: Vientulibas sonata (The Sonata of Solitude)
• 1991: Balsis (voices)
• 1991: Te Deum
• 1991: Pater noster
• 1992: Izdegušas zemes ainavas (Landscapes of the Burned Out Earth)
• 1992: Sonata for flute solo
• 1993: Litene
• 1993/1994: Concerto per violoncello ed orchestra
• 1995: Pavasara muzika (spring music )
• 1995: String Quartet No. 3
• 1995: Three Poems by Czesław Miłosz
• 1995/1996: Adagio
• 1995/1996: Musica adventus
• 1996/1997: Dona nobis pacem
• 1996/1997: Tāla gaisma ( Distant Light), for violin and string orchestra
• 1998/1999: Symphony No. 2
• 1999: String Quartet No. 4
• 2000: Missa per coro a cappella
• 2001: Viatore
• 2001: piano quartet
• 2002: Musica appassionata for string orchestra
• 2002: Plainscapes
• 2002/2003: Bass Trip for double bass solo
• 2003/2004: String Quartet No. 5
• 2004/2005: Canto di forza for 12 cellos (commissioned by the Alte Oper in Frankfurt am Main)
• 2004/2005 Symphony No. 3
• 2006: Meditation for violin and string orchestra
• 2007: Sala Symphonic Elegy for orchestra
• 2009: Credo for orchestra
• 2009: Concert for flute and orchestra (on behalf of the WDR in Cologne)
• 2010: Epifania for string orchestra
• 2011: Plainscapes for violin, violoncello and piano
• 2011: Prayer
• 2012: Klātbūtne Presence for violoncello and string orchestra
• 2012: Latvian dance for piano
• 2012: Liepa Der Lindenbaum for choir
• 2012: Mazā vasaras mūzika Small summer music for viola and piano
• 2013: Mīlas dziesmas love songs for choir
• 2013: The Fruit of Silence for mixed choir and piano
• 2014/2015: Concert for viola and string orchestra (on behalf of BBC Radio , Vale of Glamorgan Festival and Orchester Philharmonique de Strasbourg )
• 2018: Concerto for oboe and orchestra composed for Albrecht Mayer, premiered to celebrate 100 years of Latvian independence

Discography (selection)

• Cantabile per archi / Message / Musica Dolorosa / Symphony “Voices”. ( WERGO , 1993)
• Baltic organ music. ( BIS Records , 1996) with Hans-Ola Ericsson and others
• Wergo Collection Vol. 2. (WERGO, 1997) with the Latvian National Symphony Orchestra (conductor: Pauls Megi ) and others
• Music of Peteris Vasks. (1997) with the Flanders Fiamminghi Orchestra (conductor: Rudolf Werthen )
• Dolorosa. ( ECM , 1997) with Dennis Russell Davies
• Distant Light / Voices. ( Teldec , 1999) with Gidon Kremer and Kremerata Baltica
• String quartets 1, 2, 3. (Conifer, 1999) with the Miami String Quartet
• String Quartet 4th ( Nonesuch Records , 2003) with the Kronos Quartet
• Ensemble Sortisatio. ( Querstand , 2004) with the Ensemble Sortisatio
• Violin Concerto "Distant Light" / Musica Dolorosa / Viatore. (BIS Records, 2005) with the Swedish Chamber Orchestra (Dir .: Katarina Andreasson )
• Message. ( Red Seal , 2005)
• Symphony No. 3 / cello concerto. (Ondine 2006) with the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra (cond.: John Storgårds )
• Pater Noster. (Ondine, 2007)
• Viatore. (WERGO, 2008)
• Chamber Music. ( MDG , 2008) with the Trio Parnassus and others
• Works with violoncello. (Hänssler, 2008) with David Geringas and others
• Cantus ad pacem. (WERGO, 2008)
• Episodi e Canto perpetuo. With the trio Rafale . Acousense, 2013.

literature

• Pēteris Vasks. List of published works . Status July 2013. Schott, Mainz 2013, ISMN 979-0-001-18213-3.
• Vita Lindenberg: Currents in Baltic Modernism, especially using the example of Pēteris Vasks . In: Hartmut Krones (ed.): Multicultural and international concepts in new music . Böhlau, Vienna, Cologne, Weimar 2008, ISBN 978-3-205-77501-0 , pp. 455-462.

Web links

• Literature by and about Pēteris Vasks in the catalog of the German National Library
• Homepage of Pēteris Vasks (English)
• Interview with Peteris Vasks

Footnotes

1. ↑ ^{a b} Jan Brachmann: Born out of pain. The Latvian composer Pēteris Vasks turns seventy. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 16, 2016, p. 14.
2. ↑ ^{a b c} Pēteris Vasks. List of published works . Status July 2013. Schott, Mainz 2013, p. 4.
3. ↑ Harald Eggebrecht : Pēteris Vasks . In: Süddeutsche Zeitung, April 16, 2016, p. 18.