Vladas Jakubėnas

Vladas Jakubėnas (born November 29, 1903 in Biržai , Lithuania , † December 13, 1976 in Chicago ) was a Lithuanian composer , educator and music critic . He was a student of Franz Schreker .

Life

Vladas Jakubėnas was born on November 29, 1903 in Biržai (Lithuania) into an Evangelical Lutheran family and baptized on April 15, 1904, Jakubėnas himself insisting on the date of baptism as his date of birth. The mother, Halina Lipinska, came from a Polish Protestant family, in which musicality had a high priority and was also practiced every day. After marrying Povilas Jakubėnas, Halina Jakubėnienė moved to Lithuania and respected the traditions and culture of her new home.

The father, Povilas Jakubėnas (1871-1953), studied Protestant theology at the University of Tartu and in 1900 was assigned as pastor to the Biržai parish, where he was involved in various areas, such as editing Lithuanian publications. He was the co-founder of the school in Biržai in 1908, which later became a high school. Since he attached great importance to national awareness, he taught his fellow men Lithuanian . The future bishop headed the theology faculty at the Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas , which he himself called.

Jakubėnas' first music teacher was the family friend of Pastor V. Meškauskas, whose daughter later gave Jakubėnas piano lessons. Classes were interrupted by the war, the family fled to Moscow and later to the Crimea . Back in Lithuania in 1918 Jakubėnas attended the “Aušra” high school in Kaunas and received piano lessons from E. Čiurlienė at the music school. For health reasons, the grammar school was changed and Jakubėnas graduated from the Biržai grammar school. Since Jakubėnas thought it was pointless to continue his studies in Kaunas, since only “classical music” was recognized there without considering contemporary music, he applied for a scholarship to study abroad, which was rejected by the then Education Minister Leonas Bistras . Jakubėnas continued his studies at the Riga Conservatory, majoring in piano and composition. Jakubėnas had composition with Jāzeps Vītols , who paid no attention to contemporary music, but was very tolerant of his students in that he did not hinder them in their search for their own style. Many songs and works for piano date from this period. The final concert in 1928 with the works of Jakubėnas was also positively mentioned by the Latvian press, which described him as “an emotional person with a great future”.

Back in Lithuania, after the first solo concert with his own works, Jakubėnas applied again for a scholarship for foreign studies, which was approved by the then newly incumbent Minister of Education. Studying in Berlin from 1928 to 1932 with Franz Schreker helped him to find and enrich his final style. Jakubėnas wrote his first symphony for the final examination, which was premiered by the Berlin Radio Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Schreker. Back in Lithuania, Jakubėnas got a job as a piano and music theory teacher at the conservatory in Kaunas. Jakubėnas was very active as a music critic with over six hundred publications in various magazines such as Vairas , Muzikos barai , Akademikas and many others.

In 1944 Jakubėnas decided to leave the country due to the uncertain political situation. He first came to Germany and in 1949 emigrated to the USA and settled in Chicago. Jakubėnas composed non-stop in the DP camps because - as he himself said - he had time and an audience there. He gave private lessons in piano, music theory and composition. From 1950 he taught at the National University of Music, a year later also at Boguslawski Music College as Leader of Theory Department . These positions were only temporary, the main activity remained private lessons, also as a vocal coach . Jakubėnas composed little in his time in the USA.

Mention should be made of the importance of his exile music for Lithuania as well as the posthumous reburial of his bones in his homeland.

Works

• Melody legend for violin and piano
• Serenade for violoncello and piano
• Songs for voice and piano
• Songs for voice and orchestra
• Works for choir a cappella, e.g. E.g .: Tyloj Tu Švenčiamasis (In silence you are sanctified)
• Works for choir and orchestra
• Works for orchestra, chamber music & ballet
• Works for piano, e.g. B., Two Tonbilder op. 2 - From the Fairy Tale Land & Legend (1926/1927)

literature

• L. Venclauskienė: Vladas Jakubėnas. Straipsniai ir recenzijos , Vilnius 1994
• I. Skomskienė: Vladas Jakubėnas , Kaunas 1999
• Kolja Lessing: Vladas Jakubėnas - a Lithuanian Schreker student , from: Audronė Žiūraitytė and Klaus-Peter Koch (eds.): German-Baltic musical relationships: history - present - future , ISBN 3-89564-111-1

swell

1. ↑ Displaced Persons: Refugees from the Baltic States in Germany