Rūta Vitkauskaitė

Programme Note

Dūžiai/Beats is a cycle of songs based on poems by Kotryna Nekrošiūtė, a friend of Rūta, and composed by student musicians during their first year of composition studies. The cycle has never been publicly performed and is still awaiting its world premiere. The 3 poems used in the piece are performed in Lithuanian, and are translated here in English by Rūta Vitkauskaitė.

I
You’re chasing with blindfolded eyes
Your gifted life
That is young, blind, deaf, strange,
Alient
You’re reaching with handcuffted arms
Towards white crying bird
It’s song is so near
But you will never catch it
Stop, finally,
do not rush,
Embrace black silence with your eyes
The white bird is talking
listen to it with your heart.

II
Dark demons come to life in the shadows
And swallow the sweetest dream!
Dropped golden fantasy into the corner
They quietly leave with nothing
Imprisoned by never stopping time
Hysterical cuckoo is screaming twelfth
The mirrors are breaking, they do not want to
suffer
It is too hard for them to mirror us as such

III
With thoughtful gaze they are watching my life
From dead ancestors’ ember-place
On the bench of the spirits
Centuries old gods and goddesses are waiting
To see in my and your hearts
Golden crown of the grass-snake*
(*explanation – crass-snake was the main god of
home in the Lithuanian pagan tradition)