i
I feel like I am about to throw up. My heart is beating so hard that it will soon leap out of my mouth. I have been to the bathroom maybe eight times today. But that’s it, there’s nowhere to retreat to, I’m standing outside the door, and I have to go. “Monika Mašanauskaitė,” I hear, and the door opens. I have no choice but to enter. My body is sweating. My arms have turned into two icebergs that can’t seem to stop melting. “I can hardly move my fingers,” I think.
Every sound I hear is too loud. The clacking of my elegant heels, the turning of pages by the important people sitting in the long row in front of me. I am glad that I am wearing a bright blue suit. I imagine that it protects me like armor. Why is someone clapping much louder, with a slower rhythm, and standing out from the rest? Does someone want to distract me? The stressed brain is unstoppable. It goes to the darkest and most frightening corners, even when there are no real dangers around. I try to remember the affirmation, “You are a master. You are ready.” I repeat it several times in my mind. I bow and sit down. I feel the giant camera and the live stream staring right at me, as if it wants to say this very important thing and to make this moment even more powerful. My thoughts are scattered, even though I have planned and prepared for this day for a year, today is the day when my body cannot handle the tension. If you want to go on stage, you must accept this fact. Sometimes, it’s just not your day. Never again! Why am I torturing myself so much?! I chose to be here. Every second seems to last for hours… I take a deep breath, I exhale, I raise my hands, I look at the camera, I say to myself “it’s time to start” and I surrender myself to the inevitable. I start playing Čiurlionis’ preludes in the second round of the M.K. Čiurlionis International Competition of Pianists and Organists. I don’t know where the fifty-five minutes suddenly melted away, I must have gone into a flow. My body remained glued to the piano stool, despite my thoughts urging me to leave several times.
In 2019, I performed in two rounds of this competition (there are three in total), and it was one of the most intense stage experiences. At the same time, it’s very nice to remember the Olympic shape I had reached and how strongly my body had mobilized. If it wasn’t for Covid-19 and the world coming to a standstill, I would probably have been competing in similar competitions for at least a few more years and following the standard path of a classical pianist. However, with time to reflect, creative curiosity prevailed, and so our duo Piano Phase Project with Polish pianist Anna Szałucka was born.
ii
It’s a warm August evening, and I’m sitting on the shoreline of Gibsons, a town in British Columbia, 8,000 kilometres from Lithuania. The gentle breeze, the scent of the forest, and the cooling evening remind me of my beloved homeland. Perhaps it’s due to the very similar geographic latitude? Anna and I came here to film the artistic movie Sound Meditation (Garso meditacija), inspired by Čiurlionis’ mysticism and exploring the relationship between humans, creativity, and nature. “What surprised me the most,” Anna says when asked what Čiurlionis means to her, “is that, although I’m originally from Poland, I had never heard of him before. His music struck me as an interesting blend of Romanticism and Impressionism, like a mixture of everything that Lithuania was at the time: a lot of nature and Lithuanian identity, but also a touch of Polishness, a closeness to Eastern culture, and at the same time, European, especially French, influences. I really love how he portrays nature in his work, but to me, his painting feels much more revolutionary than his poetry or music – they resonate with me the most.”
“But why so far? Aren’t the forests in Lithuania beautiful too?” many people ask. I found my answer while sitting on a rock, gazing into the distance. That quiet evening, I looked at the gently rippling water and the boats swaying in the distance with their bright, glowing lanterns. Could it be? I was seeing a living version of Čiurlionis’ painting Tranquility. That day, it became absolutely clear to me that the Čiurlionis-like alchemy had led me to this place. Perhaps, in his imagination or an alternate reality, Čiurlionis had already traveled here, as his works go far beyond the beauty of nature in our latitudes. The more I explore Čiurlionis’ personality, the more I question whether we will ever truly grasp the spirituality of his art and fully understand what he was expressing through his work.
iii
Čiurlionis, Čiurlionis, Čiurlionis… For a long time, he seemed a very distant cultural personality, deeply buried in the past. I realize now that I was looking at him and hearing about him in a very narrow context. I started playing his music as a child, but now I realize that to really understand and feel his art, you have to be a very mature person.
“It is easier to build a monument, name a street or a school after Čiurlionis. But to analyze what he said, why he spoke and created the way he did, is very difficult,” says Ričardas Jankauskas, a teacher of music, art history and ethics at the Vilnius Lyceum, and a long-time lecturer at the National Pupils Academy.
And Jonas Mekas has said that “Čiurlionis is a god… He cannot be touched… No one will ever equal Čiurlionis… Therefore, it is not worth even trying. Do not become… Don’t even start painting…”
Looking at Čiurlionis from such perspectives, we realize that he can teach us much more than it seems at first glance. Čiurlionis can be compared to the philosophers of Ancient Greece. They were not just masters of thought and words; they sang their philosophical texts, played the lyre or kithara, acted in theater, and some were even athletic enough to compete in the Olympic Games, believing in the principle of healthy body, healthy mind. In other words, these people knew everything, they were not bound by limitations. And it turns out that Čiurlionis was a skilled swimmer! Unfortunately, longevity and good health eluded him in his own life. However, he never lacked freedom of thought and creative versatility – qualities that we, as contemporary artists, strive for in our quest to break free from dogmas and the rigid frameworks set by traditional art guardians. “Weakness is baseness,” said Čiurlionis. Weaknesses limit oneself to only what one knows. Weakness is confining oneself to a single creative model. Weakness is the inability to try something new. The Čiurlionis-like strength is painting the vast and nearly incomprehensible cosmos or creating an abstraction as intangible as music. Strength is exploring Lithuanian culture and folk songs even before mastering the Lithuanian language. Strength is the courage to merge different creative genres: art, music, and literature. Strength is the ability to shift one’s creative perspective. But are we strong enough to see in Čiurlionis’ paintings the modern steamboats, the pine queen, or the fact that the world is held in the palms of the hands of only one king – or perhaps a queen – wearing a white robe?
iv
Although I first got to know Čiurlionis through music, it is his mastery of words, thought, and brush that fascinates me the most. In general, it is difficult to argue about taste in art. But is our taste sufficiently developed?
I have always been suspicious of art criticism. It often seems that in order to objectively evaluate a performance or a work of art, you have to have been involved in the “making” of that art. If you’re talking about pianism, you have to be able to play; if you’re talking about composition, you have to be able to compose music; if you’re talking about art, you have to know how to paint. When I had to get seriously involved with the music of Čiurlionis and to arrange his symphonic poem In the Forest for piano four hands, I was confronted with a lot of static musical episodes that often sound convincing in the orchestra, but when these episodes are transferred to the piano, the lack of movement is very evident. Nevertheless, many moments in the symphonic poem In the Forest are simply brilliant, for example, the introduction. How is it possible to create music that really brings the image of the rustling forest to the fore?
It was not easy for Čiurlionis. Born and raised in small Lithuanian towns at the end of the 19th century, far from the major cultural centers of Europe – Paris and Vienna – he lacked the opportunity to see and experience what his Western European contemporaries encountered daily in concert halls and art galleries. Despite this, the breadth and depth of his consciousness allowed him to become an artist of remarkably broad vision. Čiurlionis studied mythology, physics, philosophy, astronomy, and mineralogy and took an interest in Eastern art alongside musical disciplines such as harmony. He read works on art theory, religion, and human psychology. So, as modern people saturated with “knowledge” and driven by rationality, can we truly understand Čiurlionis’ art, filled with divine serenity and harmony? Can we feel that cosmic unity and establish such a profound connection with nature, otherworldly energy, and spirituality as Čiurlionis painted and experienced?
v
Dear, though I feel more inclined to say – majestic – Čiurlionis,
Happy 150th birthday! Though your physical life was not long, you continue to teach and amaze me to this day. I am grateful that, through your art, I traveled to Canada, where I had the time and space to explore it more closely and deeply. Do you know why I spent so much time in the forest while I was there? It was because your symphonic poem In the Forest gave me the very first spark for this life project. Thank you for sending the vision and giving me the strength to create the art film Sound Meditation, where, just as you loved to do, we combined music, painting, and literature! Thank you for your words, reminding us that “…the clouds have covered the earth. There, earthly matters take place: chaos, noise, unrest. Silence.” These words are calming and harmonizing. Thank you for constantly reminding us that domesticity and practicality are only a small part of our lives, that we need to look beyond and not be afraid to encounter the mystical, spiritual, and limited perception of ourselves. Nietzsche was probably wrong: God is not dead. At least in your work, that’s for sure.
Congratulations, and know that we are still learning to get to know you. I wish you to live forever, to be discovered and known by the whole wide world!
Monika, 2025
P. S. In this letter, you will also find my first poem, “Movement”. I was really struck by creative lightning. So far, it has only flashed once and has not come back.
Movement
There is no one who can convince me otherwise.
After hours of darkness, the light will rise.
I will float above the clouds,
I will sense the rhythm of life.
The sounds of hope will accompany me,
with the music alongside the planet sea.
Forest, neurons, stars, networks—
What can I do to see, to connect it all?
No more doubt, no more fear,
here I am, the drum of life to be.
Unknown, undiscovered, unrevealed—
That is where I want to be.
Our greatness is beyond linear.
The truth floats together with the river.
I hear the unknown to caress my eardrum.
My soul finds an inspiring boredom.
I let it sink for a very long and deep ride,
no more fear will be there on my side.
***
You can listen to the symphonic poem In the Forest performed by pianist Monika Lozinskienė on Spotify or YouTube by entering Monika Lozinskienė – In the Forest.
You will be able to see the Čiurlionis-inspired film Sound Meditation created in Canada, on Friday, April 4, 2025, at Romuva Cinema Centre. Tickets.
