Authentic Power and Gentleness: A Meeting With Pēteris Vasks

Authentic Power and Gentleness: A Meeting With Pēteris Vasks August 24, 2016

A piece that I wrote for the Latvian national music organization back in 2004 vanished from the internet at some point. I recently discovered that I still had the text of the piece in an e-mail, and so I thought I would share it here.

 

Authentic Power and Gentleness: A Meeting With Pēteris Vasks

peteris-vasks (1)Last week I had the unique privilege of introducing a group of American students from Butler University in Indianapolis to someone who is arguably Latvia’s most significant living composer, and certainly the most famous, namely P­ēteris Vasks. As I seek to sum up my impression of this man and his music, I find one word foremost in my mind: authentic. Vasks is a composer who, I think it is safe to say, composes not for money (indeed, he sees his work as helping to counter our tendency towards the commercialization of our world), nor for fame, nor for any other reason than this very simple one: he is a person of great creativity and deep spirituality, and music is the language in which he most naturally expresses these depths of his own person and experience. As he guided us through several different genres of his compositions, we saw before us a person of great humility. Vasks composes because it comes naturally, and that so many others are moved by his music is something he seems to consider a stroke of good fortune, rather than something that he ought to be able to demand as a right. As he played excerpts from his many CD releases, we had a unique opportunity to watch a composer listening to his own works, and I know I was not alone in remarking the sincerity with which he clearly felt every note of each opus. As one of the students, political science major Ellen Kizik, commented, “Every time he put on his music for us to sample, I would look over at Vasks. It was like he was in a trance – he was really concentrating on his music. Here was this genius sitting in front of me, a once in a lifetime opportunity. It left a very powerful impression on me.” For religion major Kirstin Golberg, the best part of the event was precisely being able to watch Vasks listen to his own music. She commented, “You could see the emotion on his face, that he was really passionate about his music, and that rubbed off on the rest of us.”

​Over the course of roughly an hour and a half, Vasks spoke of his life’s work and introduced these students to his music. Most of them were unfamiliar with his compositions – most young people in the United States as in Latvia do not particularly listen to ‘serious music’ or ‘art music’, and are even less likely to listen to music by living composers. However, by the end of the session the interest of these students had clearly been captured, and I suspect that this has every bit as much to do with Vasks’ own person and enthusiasm as with his music. How many world-renowned composers would take time from their schedule to meet with a bunch of college students – ones that were (with one exception) not even music majors? Vasks led us all through a selection of excerpts from his compositions: Dona Nobis Pacem, Encounter (from Three Poems by Czeslaw Milosz), Landscape with Birds for solo flute, the Piano Quartet, and finally the Symphony No.2. Although we did not get to hear them, he mentioned several works that are currently in progress, including his String Quartet No.5 and what is developing into a third symphony. Vasks also circulated the sheet music for some of the pieces while we were listening, and this was what made the biggest impression on religion major Jill Moffett, who said: “It was amazing to see the written scores of the pieces he played for us. I found myself wondering how a human mind could ever produce something like this.”

peteris-vasksPerhaps of most profound significance for these American students, however, was the information about Vasks’ life. On most of his CDs, one can read that Vasks was the son of a pastor, and that he studied in Lithuania. Few Americans however can connect these dots or have sufficient knowledge of the Soviet era to understand the connection: as the son of a religious figure, Vasks was prevented from entering university to study music in his native Latvia. It was for this reason that Vasks pursued his studies in Lithuania, trying repeatedly to be accepted into the conservatory in his native land. He eventually succeeded, but this was nevertheless a poignant reminder for some of us, and perhaps a first introduction for these young students, regarding the way the Soviets (like all totalitarian regimes) sought to stifle not just religious expression, but freedom and creativity in general. This, Vasks told us, was one reason he generally limited himself to instrumental compositions during the Soviet era. Words are dangerous in an obvious way, and their message of protest against or criticism of the powers that be is more easily discerned. Yet while music itself is also potentially dangerous, since it gives expression to the feelings of the human soul in a way that words often cannot, it is nevertheless much more difficult for authorities to demonstrate concretely that the message is subversive. Like Shostakovich, whom Vasks mentioned at our meeting and whose influence is particularly discernable in his Symphony No.2, so too P­ēteris Vasks gave expression to ideas of sorrow and joy, oppression and liberation, which the Soviet authorities could presumably interpret in a favorable light, but which others could discern as the longing of the soul for creative freedom, a cry of the oppressed spirit and its hope for a brighter future. For these American university students, too young to remember the cold war, these are valuable lessons they need to be made aware of. But we were also reminded of something more directly connected with the students’ present-day experience: that materialism and commercialism, in just as real if less violent ways, can also stifle genuine spirituality and the free expression of unrestrained human creativity.

​Someone to whom P­ēteris Vasks showed a copy of the score of his Second Symphony prior to its first performance commented that the work has both power and gentleness. This, I think, sums up the whole of Vasks’ many creative works. But more than this, I think it summarizes the impression we had of meeting the man behind the music: the man behind this powerful music is one who seems to value gentleness, simplicity, sincerity, and (returning to the word with which I started) authenticity. Ben Pruitt, a joint anthropology and philosophy major at Butler, remarked, “While I was listening to his music, I closed my eyes…It conjured up really vivid pictures in my mind. That’s never happened to me before while listening to classical music. Powerful emotions…it’s a really wonderful thing.” I know that this meeting made an impression on our whole group, whose visit to Latvia has been focused on the relationship between faith and vocation. I trust that Vasks’ words and music will help guide and inspire these students as they seek to find their own inner voice and their own path through life.

 

Dr. James F. McGrath

Butler University, Indianapolis, USA

 


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