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latvian music history ...
I	UDK78(474.3)" 19":78.038
DOI: 10.4312/mz.54.2.97-139
Janis Kudinš
Jazeps Vltols Latvian Academy of Music Latvijska akademija za glasbo Jazepsa Vitolsa
Latvian Music History in the Context of 20th-century Modernism and Postmodernism. Some Specific Issues of Local Historiography
Latvijska zgodovina glasbe v kontekstu modernizma in postmodernizma 20. stoletja. Nekaj posebnosti lokalnega zgodovinopisja.
Prejeto: 10. julij 2018 Sprejeto: 22. avgust 2018
Ključne besede: zgodovina glasbe 20. stoletja, modernizem, postmodernizem, Latvija, lokalne posebnosti in zgodovinopisje
IZVLEČEK
Ali pojma »modernizem« in »postmodernizem« pravilno zaobjameta tokove v zgodovini glasbe 20. stoletja ali gre zgolj za teoretične abstrakcije? Kako jih lahko uporabljamo v povezavi z zgodovino glasbe specifičnih držav, ko na primer analiziramo lokalne zgodovinske izkušnje? Prispevek se bo osredotočil na ta vprašanja, da bi predstavil modernistično in postmodernistično estetiko in slogovni razvoj v latvijski zgodovini glasbe 20. stoletja.
Received: 10th August 2018 Accepted: 22nd August 2018
Keywords: 20th-century music history, modernism, postmodernism, Latvia, local peculiarities and historiography
ABSTRACT
Do the terms "modernism" and "postmodernism" objectively characterize the trends in the music history of the 20th century or are they merely theoretical abstractions? How can they be applied to the music history of specific countries, for example, when analysing a local historical experience? The article will consider these questions primarily to focus on the representation of the modernist and postmodernist aesthetics in the stylistic developments of the 20th-century Latvian music history.
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Research on music and its aesthetics has long raised the question of to what extent is it possible to explain music history as a process that reflects a clear schematic development. For instance, do the notions of Modernism and Postmodernism objectively refer to trends in the music history of the 20th century or are they just theoretical abstractions? How could we apply them to the music history of a specific country, for example, when analysing the local Latvian historical experience? The paper will tackle these questions primarily in order to focus on the representation of modernist and postmodernist aesthetics in the stylistic developments of the 20th-century Latvian music history.
First, I will outline my position concerning Modernism and postmodernism in the context of the notion of style in musicology. Then I will attempt to determine the local peculiarities of Modernism and postmodernism in Latvian music history throughout the 20th century. I will also focus on the various factors that underlie the specific situation of Latvian music history, which can be described as stylistically conservative and artistically vivid postmodernism that was not preceded by either long or intense modernist period. In this respect, we can highlight the 1960s as a very interesting decade in Latvian music history - a time when expressions of moderate and radical Modernism as well as the very first examples of postmodernist aesthetics emerged simultaneously. Our discussion will finally include comparing historical experiences and local features across different (both larger and smaller) countries.
Modernism and Postmodernism in the Context of the Category of Style
Concerning the interpretation of style categories, I have critically evaluated conclusions reached through two musicological research methods. The first method encompasses approaches reflected in theoretical texts; as an example, we can take a look at the following definitions of style in music provided by three well-known musicologists:
Style is a replication of patterning, whether in human behaviour or in the artefacts produced by human behaviour that results from a series of choices made within some set of constraints. An individual's style of speaking or writing, for instance, results in large part from lexical, grammatical, and syntactic choices made within the constraints of the language and dialect he has learned to use but does not himself create. And so it is in music, painting and the other arts. More generally, few of the constraints that limit choice are newly invented or devised by those who employ them. Rather they are learned and adopted as part of the historical/cultural circumstances of individuals or group.1
Style is a semiotic object in several musical works. These musical works united similar worldviews, who has attributed the view and which is closely related to the designator - a musical means of expression.2
1	Leonard B. Meyer, Style and Music: Theory, History and Ideology (Chicago: University Of Chicago Press, 1997), 3.
2	Vyacheslav Medushevsky, MysbiKanbHbiu ctunb kgk ceMuotu^ecmu o6beKt (Musical Style as a Semiotic Object), Sovetskaya Muzyka, no. 3, 1979: 31.
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The musical style is a specific representation of a creative personality - it is the
expression of a creative or interpretative personality.3
The second "method" can be traced in (less and more familiar) musicological research papers by authors of various nationalities dealing with specific periods of European music history as well as specific expressions of style.4
These authors define the concept of style - as a historically established, objective and, at the same time, individually subjective, characteristic method of artistic expression that can be analysed as such - from two points of view. First, they understand it as a purely musical phenomenon, which manifests itself in a pool of compositions and is concretised based on specific principles of music expression - harmony, manners of execution, creation, dramaturgical principles, and genre structures. Second, they identify style as a phenomenon, which allows one to make judgements about the dominant basic aesthetic viewpoints of a particular period in cultural-historical space, in various spheres of a person's life, not just their artistic work; this phenomenon is understood to exist in changing relationships with other processes.
As regards the historical development of composition in Europe from the Renaissance to the beginning of the 20th century within the context of style perception, it is thus possible to evaluate the most diverse aspects of music in the realm of culture, structured by society. At the same time, examining the process of music history through the prism of the category of style also reflects certain problems, which have become particularly acute when considering the music of the 20th century. It is common knowledge that European music history can be divided fairly easily into several major periods, such as Baroque, Classicism and Romanticism, up to the end of the 19th century.
Music and other kinds of art in the above periods, regardless of the different chronology in every single European country, are dominated by one prevalent stylistic tendency, allowing for analytical summarizing and generalizations about artistic heritage. However, since the end of the 19th century it has been difficult to identify at least one prevalent stylistic tendency the perception and analysis of which would enable making generalizations on the musical heritage of the period in question. The abundance of (externally) often essentially different aggregates of stylistic trends in the music of the 20th and early 21st centuries results in difficulties concerning the use of the category of style, music analysis and aesthetic generalizations. Does this abundance of differences allow for the use of the notion of style when studying music creations with relevance to the 20th century? In my opinion, the category of style is still applicable to the analysis of diverse processes that pertain to the development of musical creation in this period.
3	Jevgeny Nazaikinsky, Ctunb u xaHp e MysbKe (Style and Genre in Music, Moscow: Vlados, 2003), 78.
4	Cf. Manfred Bukofzer, Music in the Baroque era. From Monteverdi to Bach (New York: Norton, 1947), 489; Leonard Ratner, Classic Music: Expression, Form and Style (New York: Schirmer, 1980), 295; Larisa Kirillina, KnaccuvecKuu cTunb e MysbKe XVIII - HavanaXIX eeKoe: caMocosHaHue Bnoxu u MysbKanbHai npaKtuKa (The Classical Style in the Music of the Eighteenth - Early Nineteenth Centuries. Self-consciousness of the Epoch and Musical Practice, Moscow: State Conservatory, 1996), 192; Ray Longyear, Nineteenth-Century Romanticism in Music (New Jersey: Prentice-Hall INC, 1973), 289; Marina Lobanova, Musical Style and Genre. History and Modernity (Amsterdam: Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000), 210.
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When analysing concepts not only in the field of musicology, but also in other arts, Modernism in music proves to be a period of particular creativity of various European composers, especially so in the late 19th century and in the first third of the 20th century (but several aspects of Modernism appear also in the middle of the 20th century). The period of Modernism primarily emerged as a response to the outset of technological progress, the democratization of society and social as well as political controversy linked with the above processes. Modernism pushed the ideas of technological progress to the extreme and reflected rapid changes that took place in social and political spheres. These processes did not resolve social conflicts; on the contrary, the sharpening of conflicts led to two World Wars with tragic results. In the artistic creative sphere, Modernism, with its attempts to reach some cardinally new, previously not existing forms of expression, is an answer to the spirit of the era. It led to a greater differentiation between popular and elitist art, a tightening of the link between art and the processes and images of (a person's) everyday life, with specific musical intonations that could be heard outside, among the crowd.
The period of Modernism and its aesthetic guidelines in music and other arts are characterized by the simultaneous emergence and development of several and often rather diversified stylistic trends - for instance, impressionism, expressionism, neo-folklorism and avant-garde (a parallel can be drawn to the development of different social-political movements and philosophical schools of the period: existentialism, phenomenology, linguistic philosophy, intuitive philosophy, pragmatism). All of the above trends both individually (in various aspects of musical language and forms of expression) and all together point to the most essential features of the modernist aesthetic. However, the generalization of these features finally makes it possible to perceive Modernism as a significant concept for characterizing the style of music in the first third of the 20th century.5 Likewise, the period of the last third of the 20th century may be treated as the period of postmodernism in all fields of art.
Postmodernism in different arts can be considered a period in which radical modernist resolutions lost their status of artistic novelty. That is why the concept of postmodernism circumscribes an expression of deep reflections as well as the actualization of artistic retrospection in diverse forms of art. Additionally, when discussing the synthesis of various traditions as a key element of post-modern culture, the majority of philosophers and authors of new aesthetic theories often stress the aspect of shallow, already-known content. It is enough to remember that, for example, the American philosopher Ihab Hasan (1925-2015) delineates characteristic signs of postmodernism, which express themselves in the cultural life of society, as follows: anti-form (disjunctive, open), play, chance, text/intertext, combination, difference/ trace, irony, indeterminacy, immanence etc., in contrast to classical cultural values.6
5	The proposed conclusions on Modernism are based on the findings that have been expressed by other musicologists. Cf. Hermann Danuser, Die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts (Laaber: Laaber Verlag, 1992), 465; Leo Botstein, "Modernism", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 16, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 868-875; Jim Samson, "Avant-garde", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 2, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 246-247; Daniel Albright, ed., Modernism and music (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004), 256.
6	Ihab Hassan, The Postmodern Turn: Essays in Postmodern Theory and Culture (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1987), 267.
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We should also mention French philosopher Jean Baudrillard's deeply ironic views on the commercialisation of art, which has, in his view, stimulated the so-called simulacrum or the replacement of true values with imagined objects for mass consumption, and the creation of spiritual concepts.7 According to Jean-François Lyotard, the meaning of the post-modern situation is that people no longer believe in an overall story. Faith has vanished, and the process has been going on throughout previous centuries, ever since Renaissance, the era that conceived man as the highest being and the measure of all values (the Renaissance and modern age anthropocentrism). In Renaissance, the intellect of man was understood to be the guarantor of progress, as far as it was rooted in high morals, and the greatest goal of art was to reflect only the beautiful and the ideal.8
If we develop Lyotard's ideas further, we can note that this loss of faith developed in its clearest form in the second half of the 20th century, following World War II. This was the time when, due to state politics as well as religious and economic antagonisms, the states of Europe and other continents divided into many hostile groups. Along with these processes, the real threat of an ecological catastrophe became evident, at both a local and global level. As a result, the gained experience and the cultural philosophical concepts stemming from the previous centuries were hidden or denied almost openly. The idea of comprehensive progress culminated during the first half of the 20th century, but afterwards, it was replaced by a period of deep scepticism. This period was characterised by a previously unheard of synthesis and interaction of varied traditions and theories, whose active coexistence was visible not only at the socio-political and economic level but also in the field of artistic creative works. In principle, the nonbe-ing in the artistic language is clearly seen as stimulating artists to turn to the search for the synthesis of many different stylistic elements, and, in this very direction, seeing the possibility to develop their own original handwriting, which very discretely reflects the characteristic stylistic retrospection and intertextuality.
The term intertextuality is principally used with the meaning that entered into circulation in the 1960s, thanks to regular publications by the French linguist and philosopher Julia Kristeva dealing with postmodern culture, art and aesthetic questions. Overall, in the analysis of the intertextual aesthetic and artistic processes, it is regularly used as a synonym of context, tradition and allusion. At the same time, intertextuality is also considered to be an expansion of an already familiar idea, namely that one text can be explained by another, which alludes to yet another text, and so on endlessly. In the circulation of codes, any text can be potentially remade into other intertextual qualities. Still, it can be concluded that - unless we want to radicalise the meaning and significance of the concept of intertextuality - postmodernist works of art have developed a notable acuteness in expressing textual relations, and this acuteness is often directed towards the creation of poetic and stylistic allusions through the characteristics of the styles belonging to previous periods.9
7	Jean Baudrillard, Simulacra and Simulation (Michigan: Michigan University Press, 1994), 164.
8	Jean-François Lyotard, Toward the Postmodern, ed. R. Harvey & S. Roberts (New Jersey: Humanities Press, 1995), 256.
9	Toril Moi, ed., The Kristeva Reader (Columbia: Columbia University Press, 1986), 328.
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Among the most vivid trends of the postmodernist period we can list, for instance, neo-romanticism,10 minimalism11 and new inwardness (spirituality),12 with their stylistically conservative expressions in the music of classical genres. At the same time, postmodernism has continued to develop the ideas behind avant-garde music. Another and quite special form of postmodernist aesthetics is music based on the principles of polystylistics (techniques of collage, citations etc.).13 Each of the above trends suggests a different way of retrospection, which is inherent to postmodernist art, due to their different and more profound reflection on the musical styles of the various preceding periods - their inherent features, aesthetical values and social significance.14
Of course, the position on the use of the notion of style in the analysis of 20th century Modernism and postmodernism that is suggested in this paper is only one of the ways how to perceive and interpret this particular musical heritage. Furthermore, I would like to point out some peculiarities that pertain to Latvian music history over the course of 20th century. If we look at the development of European music history in a schematic way, various texts from this field of research often reflect a reference to a chronologically sequential transition from modernism to postmodernism. However, there is no direct concordance with such a schematic viewpoint regarding the peculiarities of the local Latvian music history. It is interesting to assess the perspectives offered by such a schematic view from the viewpoint of the local historical experience.
The Fragmentation of Stylistic Manifestations of Modernism in Latvian Music History
The specific experience of Latvian music history in the 20th century reveals a lack of a period with a convincing and artistically vivid expression of the modernist aesthetics, especially the absence of radical forms of expression characteristic of avant-garde mu-sic.15 It is also notable that in the cultural space of the former Baltic German community,
10	Jann Pasler, "Neo-romantic", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 18, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 756-757; Martin Wehnert, "Romantik und romantisch", in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart, vol. 8, ed. Ludwig Finscher (Kassel: Bärenreiter, 1998), 464-507.
11	Keith Potter, "Minimalism", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 16, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 716-718.
12	Christopher Fox, "Neue Einfachheit", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 18, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 781.
13	Peter Burkholder, "Collage", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 6, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 110-111; Ivan Moody & Alexander Ivashkin, "Alfred Schnittke", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 22, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 564-568; Ivana Medic, From Polystylism to Meta-Pluralism. Essays on Late Soviet Symphonic Music (Belgrade: SASA, Institute of Musicology, 2017), 219.
14	The proposed conclusions on postmodernism are based on the findings that have been expressed by other musicologists. Cf., Danuser, Die Musik des 20. Jahrhunderts, 465; Albright, ed., Modernism and Music, 256; Jann Pasler, "Postmodernism", in The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol. 20, ed. Stanley Sadie (London: Macmillan Publishers Limited, 2001), 213-216; Judy Lochhead & Joseph Auner, eds., Postmodern Music/Postmodern Thought (New York: Routledge, 2002), 372.
15	Until the 20th century, the main ethnic group living in Latvia - Latvians - were not full rulers of their own land. From the end of the 18th century, four historically Latvian ethnographic regions came under the rule of the former tsarist Russian empire. In this period, which lasted until the beginning of the 20th century (World War I), the territory of today's Latvia was artificially divided into several provinces. The ruling class at that time was the Baltic Germans (a minority in terms of population) who had lived in the territory of Latvia since the 13th century. It was only in the 20th century, after the end of World War I in 1918, that Latvians established an independent state of their own on their territory - the Republic of Latvia. Cf. Daina Bleiere, ed., History of Latvia:
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widely represented in Latvia at the end of 19th century and beginning of the 20th century, musical life did not offer any other (modernist) trends.
During the period of Latvia's independence between the two world wars, an important and perhaps decisive role in the romantic aesthetic's initial development was also the close involvement of the Latvian composer Jäzeps Vitols (1863-1948) with the definite and overall conservative romantic traditions of the second half of the 19th century, broadly spread throughout Europe. In that period, the chief cultural influence was exerted by the St. Petersburg Conservatory, founded and, for many years, directed by the Russian composer and music theoretician Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov (1844-1908), in whose environment Vitols gradually became a noteworthy composer and music teacher (and a professor beginning in 1901). When Vitols returned to the land of his birth in 1918, where he founded (in 1919) and, for many years, directed the Latvian Conservatory (today the Jäzeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music), including its composition class, it was only natural for him to promote and implement those concepts which had been until that point assuredly tested both in theory and practice - concepts based on the strong classic and academic musical traditions.16
Thus, the dominant traditions of musical life and the leading academic school of composition before World War II prompted the fragmented representation of modernist ideas in Latvia. During this period, there were almost no Latvian composers educated abroad. These circumstances indicate the main differences in the representation of the aesthetics of Modernism in Latvia in comparison to the music and musical life in Western Europe. However, even in these circumstances, some Latvian composers regularly showed some interest in various aspects of the modernist aesthetics and style. Scattered echoes of the modernist aesthetics and its varied stylistic characteristics can be identified in some works of diverse genres by Latvian composers of this period - for example, the piano music by Lücija Garüta (1902-1977), Arvids Žilinskis (1905-1993) and Volfgangs DärzinS (1906-1962), and the operas (especially Hamlet, 1935) by Jänis Kalninš (1904-2000). Also noteworthy is composer Victor Babin's (1908-1972) creative work in Latvia at this time. Babin was born in Moscow. He graduated from the Riga Conservatory and Jäzeps Vitols' composition class in 1928 with the first performance of his Piano concerto, which was, according to reports by his contemporaries and to the then reviews, based on dodecaphonic principles. Unfortunately, the score of the concerto has not survived. After graduating from the Latvian Conservatory, Babin studied composition with Franz Schreker (1878-1934) and the piano with Arthur Schnabel (1882-1951) at the Berlin Hochschule für Musik. He emigrated to the United States in 1937 and lived there until his death in 1961. There are not many similar examples in Latvian music of the interwar period, but they all highlight the unique process with the gradual trend towards the modernist aesthetics and adaptation of a variety of styles.17
the 20th Century (Riga: Jumava, 2006), 559; Janis Kudins, "The National Music Identity in the Global Cultural Crossroad. Some Still Topical Local Problems in the Latvian Music History Writing", Musicology and Cultural Science 11, no. 2 (2015): 37-44.
16	Cf. Arnolds Klotins, "Jazeps Vitols as a Fundamentalist and Universalist of Music", in: Music in Latvia, 2013', ed. Inara Jakubone (Riga: Latvian Music Information Centre, 2013), 3-15; see also the website of Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 10 May 2018, http://lmic.lv/core.php?pageId-754?pageId-754&id-26793&&subPageId-756&action-showSubPage
17	Cf. Janis Kudins, "Modernism as a Marginal Phenomenon in the Context of National Musical Culture: Some Local Historical Experiences Peculiarities in Latvia Between the Two World Wars", Lietuvos muzikologija 16: 40-51.
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It is interesting to note that the situation in Latvia was different way than in the other Baltic countries, Lithuania and Estonia: before World War II, Lithuanian and Estonian composers showed greater interest in Modernism.18 The Latvian music historian Arnolds Klotins commented as follows:
World War I and the founding of the Latvian nation in 1918 was a kind of turning point in the development of national music. Up until then, timeless works had been created in all of the main musical genres, and, if that is seen as an indicator for the establishment of a national musical school, then that had already taken place, prior to the founding of the nation itself. Latvian music began to hold an equal footing in comparison with and in competition against other cultures. It cannot be said that this was as intense during the period between the world wars. Concert life in Riga was not far behind other major metropolises, but in the realm of new music composition there was an attitude of self-preservation and avoidance of foreign influences, and engagement in the latest world trends was not as vital in music as it was in other arts. So, for example, Latvia never joined the International Society for Contemporary Music, which was founded after WWI and organized major new music festivals in the 1920's, representing its member countries. Therefore the contact of Latvian composers with foreign countries was episodic.19
A new period in the development of professional music culture in Latvia started in 1940 and lasted until the end of the 1980s. In this period, Latvia was again occupied - twice by the Soviet Union (1940-1941, 1944-1991), and, during World War II, by Germany (1941-1944). The Soviet occupation force that ruled Latvia during this period implemented working practices in cultural institutions that differed dramatically from the experience gained in the first period of Latvian independence - the freethinking and diversity that had developed were no longer possible under Soviet totalitarianism. Since the field of culture was considered one of the most important tools in the upbringing of an obedient "Soviet person", relentless attempts to include political ideology and control were made in all spheres of culture, including professional music, and methods of political censorship were used widely to hide undesirable information.
Political censorship in the arts (music included) under the Soviet regime in the post-World War II Latvia resulted in extremely limited possibilities to experience the works by the avant-garde and post-avant-garde composers living in Western Europe. In the 1940s and 1950s, almost all composers living in Latvia had to engage in self-censorship as regards aesthetics and stylistics, artificially limiting their creative attempts, so as not to receive new punishment or harsher sanctions. That was also the main reason why so many artistically colourless or contradictorily perceptible works were produced. In the 1940s and 1950s, the creative work of Latvian composers is, in fact, difficult to generalise in terms of stylistic tendencies. The main orientation proved to be towards the
18	Urve Lippus, "Baltic Music History Writings: Problems and Perspectives", Acta Musicologica, vol. 71, no. 1: 50-125.
19	Arnolds Klotins, "The Music of Latvia (A brief Historical Overview)", in: Music in Latvia, 2004', ed. Inara Jakubone (Riga: Latvian Music Information Centre, 2004), 7; see also the website of Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 10 May 2018, http://lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=754?pageId=754&id=4489&&subPageId=756&action=showSubPage .
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classical romantic music language, which is very distant from the emotionally elevated and sharpened musical expression characteristic of the 19th-century Romanticism. This situation characterized the musical creative processes in Latvia until the end of the 1950s when the socio-political environment in the Soviet Union slightly changed.
A slight weakening of ideological control took place during the period when Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971) led the Soviet Union (1956-1964). From the end of Khrushchev's rule until the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of the 1980s, the Soviet authorities allowed artists to become familiar with the experience of Modernism, which had already spread all over Western Europe. At least a small portion of aesthetic and stylistic pluralism was officially allowed only in the two cultural centres of the Soviet Union - Moscow and St. Petersburg (Leningrad at the time). Attempts to let modernist ideas seep into other Soviet states, including Latvia, were strictly controlled, but their success also depended on particular composers, musicians and the subjective opinions of local authorities. In Latvia, only few composers were successful in this regard. Among these we shall draw attention to Janis Ivanovs (1906-1983) - a musician who represented a synthesis of classical traditions and Modernism in the field of symphonic music (Ivanovs is the author of twenty-one symphonies, composed between 1933 and 1983), and whose own artistic brightness is comparable to the music of such composers as, for example, Arthur Honegger (1892-1955) and Dmitry Shostakovich (1906-1975).20
Overall, Ivanovs' symphonic music represented a new level of clear, constructive form and precision in Latvian symphonic music, avoiding expressive approximation and passiveness. Under the influence of expressionism and neo-classicism, his works gained a new dimension of dramaticality and monumentalism in the decades following World War II, especially in the 1960s and 1970s. The dramatic aspects of his symphonies are multi-layered. His symphonies are defined by the artistic concept of the opposition between individual and mankind; they are associated with a sense of strong will, self-proclamation, and energetic struggle, as well as the pain of loss and resignation.21 They do not offer experiments in creating radical new musical language, but incorporate the principles of the twelve-tone technique used in various ways in his symphonies composed in the 1960s. However, the symbiosis of different styles made it possible for Ivanovs to create a vivid individual style, which is regarded as an expression of his personality.22
Furthermore, it is interesting to note that in Latvia the adaptation of the 1960s radical form of Modernism was often forbidden and disapproved in the traditional symphonic genres (symphony, concerto). A typical example of this is the work of Arturs Grinups (1931-1989). Unlike the majority of Latvian composers, Grinups rarely composed in the principal genres of vocal music - choir and solo voice. The main genre of his work was symphony, throughout his creative career (he created altogether nine symphonies, as well
20	More detailed information in English about the music of Jànis Ivanovs can be found online at the website address of the Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 20 April 2018, http://www.lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=747&id=289&.
21	For a more extensive characterization of Ivanovs' importance in Latvian symphonic music history, see Arnolds Klotins, Sinfonia Lettica 125 (Riga: Latvian Music Information Centre, 2005), 59.
22	Cf. Janis Kudins, "Balancing Personal Artistic Interests and the Demands of the Totalitarian Regime: Janis Ivanovs' Symphonic Music as a Vivid Example of Stylistic Moderate Modernism in Latvia After World War II", in: Sociocultural Crossings and Borders:MusicalMicrohistories, eds. Ruta Staneviciute & Rima Povilioniene (Vilnius: Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, International Musicological Society, 2015), 383-408.
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as a symphony for string orchestra and the work Quasi un a sinfonia), along with other symphonic and instrumental chamber music. The secret to the uniqueness of the composer's musical writing was in the ability to combine the brilliant late Romanticism (of the composers of the last third of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th century), with its characteristic range of expression and magnificent impressionistic orchestra sound potential, with the varied topicality of the then musical recording which sought to transform all previous experiences into a new model. Grinups preferred imagery that was metaphorically able to reflect the secretive process of psychological understanding of personal experiences, and stylistically represented expressionism with the accent on dissonance and deformation. Grinups was well known to his contemporaries for his sharp tongue and a difficult disposition. The consequence was that none of Grinups' symphonic works was released until recently; the scores were kept in the Latvian National Library.23 Another example demonstrating the peculiarities of the local socio-cultural context in connection to the modernist aesthetics is the Latvian composer Romualds Grinblats' (1930-1995). He was born in Russia (in Tver), but came to live in Latvia after World War II. The composer's activities in the 1960s were characterized by an interest in the avant-garde musical language and aesthetics. In 1970, the Soviet censorship banned Grinblats' Concerto for the flute and orchestra, because he used serial principles in his composition. This was one of the reasons why Grinblats left Latvia in the 1970s and moved to St. Petersburg (Leningrad at that time).24
Generally, in the late 1950s and in the 1960s, Latvian composers of different generations showed either an orientation towards the musical language typical of Romanticism or to different manifestations of the so-called "moderate Modernism". The term "'moderate Modernism"' is based on conclusions reached by other musicologists on the issue of Modernism in music and other arts of the 20th century.25 For instance, the musicologist Arnold Whittall identified three typical features of works belonging to what he terms "moderate mainstream" (a synonym for "moderate Modernism"):
1.	the distinction between consonance and dissonance (even though it was no longer an absolute),
2.	the identifiable presence of motivic or thematic statement and development, and
3.	the consistent use of rhythmic, metric regularity.26
In this context, radical avant-garde experiments appeared in Latvia only in rare cases. However, as a reflection of various aspects of Modernism, there developed a tendency to synthesize the stylistics of academic and popular music. Examples of this kind are Concerto for the saxophone, piano and string orchestra (1962) and Concerto leggiero
23	More detailed information in English about the music of Arturs Grinups can be found online at the website address of the Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 20 April 2018, http://www.lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=747&id=3149&.
24	More detailed information in English about the music of Romualds Grinblats can be found online at the website address of the Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 20 April 2018, http://www.lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=747&id=3322& .
25	Cf. Albright, Modernism and Music: An Anthology of Sources, 428; David Joel Metzer, "Musical Modernism at the Turn of the Twenty-first Century", in Music in the Twentieth Century ( Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2009), 254; Robert P. Morgan, "Secret Languages: The Roots of Musical Modernism", Critical Inquiry 10, no. 3 (1984, March 1984): 442-461.
26	Arnold Whittall, "Individualism and Accessibility: The Moderate Mainstream", in The Cambridge History of Twentieth-Century Music, eds. Nicholas Cook and Anthony Pople (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 370.
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for nine jazz instruments and string orchestra (1970) by Gederts Ramans (1927-1999), and Symphony No. 4 (with rock ensemble instruments and elements of rock style, 1973) by Imants Kalnins (1941). Additionally, the trend towards Neo-classicism began to develop in the 1960s (between the two world wars this tendency was not present), and there appeared the first samples of polystylistic synthesis. This allows us to conclude that, in the history of Latvian music, modernist stylistic expressions gained ground simultaneously with the emergence of postmodernist aesthetics.
The Actualization of Postmodernist Aesthetics within the Framework of the Totalitarian System. The Case of Margeris Zarins
In the 1960s, the composer and writer Margeris Zarins (1910-1993) introduced into Latvian music a new, previously unknown stylistic concept.27 The artist's interest in various styles of the past, as well as historical themes, was expressed already at the beginning of his creative career, in the second half of the 1930s. Still, World War II and the first ten years of the subsequent Soviet occupation externally restricted Zarins' artistic interests. At the end of Stalin's dictatorship (in the middle of the 1950s), he was forced to avoid the aesthetics and stylistics that could potentially be called "formalistic", i.e. not fit for the demands of socialistic realism. For example, at that time Zarins was composing the opera Uz jauno krastu (On a New Shore), which was premiered in 1955, whose libretto was based on a false interpretation of history, stressing untruths about the occupation of Latvia and its annexation into the former Soviet Union in 1940. Today, we can consider this opera to be an interesting example of the socialist realist aesthetic, with simple, easily understood melodic lines and illustrative musical demonstration.
After the end of Stalin's dictatorship, during the "thaw" that followed at the end of the 1950s, the creative work of Zarins as a composer (as well as a writer) showed some significant changes. The composer was always interested in the free, experimental view of the music of the past and its various styles, and in the opportunities to contrast and synthesize those with the musical language of the 20th-century modernist and popular music. Thus it is not surprising that in the 1960s, in a slightly different socio-political context of the former USSR, Zarins was basically the first in Latvia who embraced the birth of the postmodernist aesthetic. He utilized characteristic signs of postmodernism, for example retrospection, intertextuality, conscious stylistic fragmentation and irony (referring to the essays of Ihab Hasan as well as texts by Baudrillard and Lyotard), in an artistically vivid and convincing way, masterfully balancing between the ideological control by the totalitarian regime and his own interests.
All in all, Zarins wrote operas, a ballet opera, music for the vocal-instrumental and instrumental genres during the 1960s, tracing an original stylistic synthesis (polystylism). A few of his works composed during this time were clear dedications to the official ideology and the totalitarian regime (for example, the opera Uz laukuma [In the Field], composed in 1969, was dedicated to the 100th anniversary of Lenin's birth, focusing on the idea of the "revolutionary uprising"). Still, in the majority of cases, the composer
27 More detailed information in English about the music of Margeris Zarins can be found online at the website address of the
Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 20 April 2018, http://www.lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=747&id=2434&.
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primarily indulged himself in playing with various styles. Zarins himself commented on the polystylistic aspects of his music by saying: "The use of varied styles is also my style!"28
In essence, this is a characteristic postmodernist position, and the composer put it into practise in an environment where there was hostility to the term Modernism (at that time in Latvia, publications that were controlled by censors used this term very reservedly, often mentioning it as being an "undesirable" Western cultural trend), and where the term postmodernism had not yet entered the field of the arts and cultural analysis.
During this period of Latvian music history, Zarins was basically the only composer dealing with the interaction of modernist and postmodernist aesthetic ideas. Three of his works (examples) allow one to see the variety of ways in which he managed to realize his interest in stylistic play and polystylistic principles.
In 1963, Zarins composed a cycle for a mezzo-soprano and a chamber orchestra Partita baroka stila (Partita in Baroque Style) with texts in French (the authors were the 13th-century French trouvere Adam de la Halle, the 15th-century French poet François Villon and the l6th-century French poet Pierre de Ronsard). The cycle is made up of six parts: "Variations", "Galliard", "Intrada", "Saltarella", "Menestrel", "Pavane". The names of the parts refer not just to Baroque music, but also to the Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the foundation of Zarins's vocal cycle is stylistic variety and interpretation. The poetry from different historical periods narrates a story of a young girl falling in love and later being disappointed in love. The main musical impulse is based on a musical quote from a melody by the French trouvère Adam de la Halle (1237-1288) from the musical play Jeu de Robin et Marion (c. 1282-83), with which Zarins's vocal cycle begins. It is interesting that Zarins slightly changed the modal foundation of de la Halle's melody. In de la Halle's song, the melody is in the Mixolydian mode:
u - : rs m'ai - me, Rû-bins m'a, Rü-biria ma de-mari -dé-e, Si - ma - ra.
Sous'ka - nie ei chain'cu ' rele A t leu y ri ' vaf
Example No. 1: Example from Adam de la Halle's song Robins m'aime: Richard Taru-skin, "Adam de la Halle and the Formes Fixes", in Music from the Earliest Notations to the Sixteenth Century, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009, accessed electronically 20 April 2018, http://www.columbia.edu/~qx2126/upload/oxford_music_history/vol_1/ actrade-9780195384819-div1-004004.html.
In Zarins's quoted version the melody is in the Lydian mode, and it is supplemented by characteristic dissonant harmonic successions, characteristic of the 20th century musical language, as well as a combination of timbres of various instruments:
28 Tatiana Kurysheva, Marger Zarin, ed. Marina Sabinina (Mapsep 3apuHb, Moscow: Sovetskyi Kompozitor, 1980), p. 91.
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Example No. 2: Example from Zarins's Partita in the Baroque Style first edition (text in French with a translation in Russian): Margeris Zarins, Partita v style barokko/Partita in Baroque (Moscow: Muzyka, 1966).
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The quoted melody represents the basis for the development of musical material in all parts of the cycle. By including and contrasting various stylistic elements, Zarins created a vivid polystylistic composition. This was done with the instruments pertaining to the chamber orchestra - violins, violas, cellos, flute, oboe, English horn, saxophone, xylophone, bells, piano, harp and guitar. The varied sonic combinations allowed the composer to create both a baroque and a renaissance music stylization that includes elements of contemporary musical language (in the sections "Variations", "Galliard", "Intrada"), allusions to impressionist style (the mezzo-soprano and harp in the section "Menestrel"), and, periodically, musical links to jazz rhythms and their characteristic harmonies (in the sections "Saltarella" and "Pavane"). We should note the dual and reserved view of jazz music in the former USSR, even in the 1960s in the period of thaw. That is why Zarins's artistic bravery was especially notable, beside his ability to synthesize various styles.
The jazz sound is realized most vividly in the last section of the cycle - "Pavane". There, the voice of the mezzo-soprano sings Pierre de Ronsard's poetry about a young girl's disenchantment with the boy she loves as well as with love itself. The foundation of the mezzo-soprano vocal line is the recognizable melody of Adam de la Halle's song "Jeu de Robin et Marion", though transformed into a new version in a different genre. The instrumental accompaniment in the finale is based on a jazz-like ostinato-type rhythm figure, on marked bass-line motifs and a harmonic procession. The timbre of the bell gives the music both a dramatic and an ironic character: see example No. 3.
Altogether, the combination of varied stylistic elements in Zarins's cycle Partita in Baroque Style results in vivid stylistic play. Zarins had the ability to synthesize aspects of music from different eras very organically and, at the same time, did not lose the stylistic concept that tied the composition together. In every sense, this composition by Zarins was something unexpected at the beginning of the 1960s and something new in the history of Latvian academic music. It is possible that today this work could still attract attention, even in a broader European context, as a bright example of a postmodernist aesthetics in its birth process.
Zarins' oratorio Mahagoni, completed in 1965, is an interesting example of the balance between the ideologically correct theme and the courage to continue with polystylistic experiments. Officially, this oratorio was dedicated to the Congolese independence leader and the first democratically elected Prime Minister of the Republic of the Congo Patrice Lumumba (1925-1961). The oratorio uses texts (translations in Latvian) by the American poet Langston Hughes (1902-1967) as well as texts by the Latvian poet Alfreds Kruklis (1921-2003).
The oratorio is made up of six parts, and its performance requires three choirs, soloists (a mezzo-soprano, a tenor, a bass and a child's voice), piano, and a large percussion ensemble. The contrast between various styles (in both the parallel and simultaneous sound) allows one to perceive the vivid theatricality of this work, which can, in fact, be realized as a stage performance. In the multi-layered styles, we can recognize an accent on the contemporary, at times dissonant harmonic language, allusions to American blues, as well as references to Gregorian chorales. All of these layers are very expressively used in the oratorio's finale, which reflects the text's "revolution against the imperialistic oppressors" in the wake of Patrice Lumumba's murder:
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Example No. 3: Example from Zarins's Partita in the Baroque Style first edition (text in French with a translation in Russian): Margeris Zarins, Partita v style barokko/Partita in Baroque (Moscow: Muzyka, 1966).
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Example No. 4: Example from Zarins's oratorio Mahagoni score (handwritten, not issued, score held in the library of Jazeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music).
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The music of Zarins's oratorio Mahagoni is also interesting in the context of the composer's stylistic vision of African music. In the Soviet Union of the 1960s and 70s, the trendy interest in the music of "exotic" cultures was supposed to promote the theme of "revolutionary freedom fight" in service of totalitarian ideology. Still, one cannot really hear any reference to traditional African music in Zarins's composition. It is more likely that the composer consciously changed the stylistic geographical accents, musically illustrating the historical events in the Congo by deploying characteristic aspects of American blues. At the same time, the composition's artistically interesting idea of stylistic play, implemented particularly in the varied layers of musical language, was interpreted as simultaneously representing modernist and postmodernist aesthetics.
Finally, at the end of the 1960s, Zarins composed another work regarded today as an interesting example of postmodernism even in the broader context of European musical history. At the time, Zarins was one of the three composers who represented a new trend of polystylism - the other two being the Italian composer Luciano Be-rio (1925-2003) with his Sinfonia (1968), and the Russian composer Alfred Schnitke (1934-1998) with his First Symphony (1968-1971). Zarins's Concerto grosso (1968) is a very vivid polystylistic work, playing with the stylistic elements of Baroque, Romanticism, the 20th-century expressionism and jazz. In Concerto grosso, Zarins highlights some interesting jazz elements, just as Schnitke does in his First Symphony. After its first performance, this stylistically innovative work was not performed for a very long time - this interesting fact reflects the overall context.
Zarins's Concerto grosso shows varied stylistic tendencies typical of the 20th century. First, we can discern the characteristic turn to the Baroque concerto genre of Neo-classicism. We can observe the genre-specific principle of a game or competition between two solo instruments and other instrument groups. Second, the contrast between layers of different styles expresses the principle of collage, which is particularly emphasized with the contrasts between various timbres. The harpsichord alludes to Baroque music, the piano focuses on stylistic expressions characteristic of the 20th-century, with a texture that includes figures of pointillism, while the symphony orchestra provides various stylistic layers reminiscent of both the past stylistic periods and the 20th-century.
The beginning of the first movement encompasses stylistic contrasts and a parallel setting of three varied musical themes. One can hear small stylistic signs in the cembalo part which create clear references to the 17th-century French harpsichord music in the texture:
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Example No. 5: Example from Zarins's Concerto grosso edition: Margeris Zarins, Concerto grosso. (Leningrad: Sovetskyi Kompozitor, 1982).
The piano theme creates a link to the characteristic linear texture of the avant-garde music, underlining the grotesque impression in the characterization of music:
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Example No. 6: Example from Zarins's Concerto grosso edition: Margeris Zarins, Concerto grosso. (Leningrad: Sovetskyi Kompozitor, 1982).
In the third theme, a synthesis of the texture and the harmonies of the cembalo part creates a Neoclassical stylization with a modernist musical language (this material is then transferred to and developed by the symphony orchestra):
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Example No. 7 Examplefrom Zarins's Concerto grosso edition: Margeris Zarins, Concerto grosso. (Leningrad: Sovetskyi Kompozitor, 1982).
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Zarins described his Concerto grosso in the following way: "My hope was to contrast the sound of the cembalo with the modern orchestra and piano. It is like two worlds of sound - one is intimate, the other is active, full of activity."29
Concerto grosso is made up of three movements, which corresponds to the classical instrumental concerto model. In the first movement, the three themes are developed in varied ways, using the characteristic concerto principle of competition between various instruments and their groups, creating fragmentary stylistic allusions to jazz as well as episodes with a sonoristic texture. The second movement of the concerto is created as a collage, or a dialogue between the "ancient music" of cembalo and the "modern" piano. In turn, the work's finale returns to the frequent changes and varied layers of style in the composition's various episodes. We can highlight the developed pseudo jazz episode - the improvisational character in the piano music with an orchestral accompaniment in blues style. The direct inclusion of allusions to jazz in the former USSR was courageous because of the country's official doctrine regarding jazz.
A particularly interesting moment in the realization of the polystylistic approach can be observed in the score of Concerto's third movement, which includes references to and elements of various styles in the function of allusion. For example, shortly before the jazz episodes we can hear an expressive simultaneous development of various styles, which provides a smiling allusion to George Gershwin's (1898-1937) music in the symphonic jazz style:
29 From an article on Margeris Zarins from Riga's former newspaper Rigas balss, February 12, 1969.
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Example No. 8 Example from Zarins's Concerto grosso edition: Margeris Zarins, Concerto grosso. (Leningrad: Sovetskyi Kompozitor, 1982).
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Zarins's Concerto grosso can be evaluated as one of the period's rare and artistically vivid realizations of polystylistic collage. Other composers also employed Neoclassical stylizations and stylistic allusions, but in a much more measured way. Zarins's polystylistic music embraced the intertextuality, characteristic of modernist and postmodernist aesthetics, and developed varied stylistic fragments as a unique artistic approach. At the end of 1960s, Zarins created an extraordinary episode in Latvian music history which enabled a quick transition from moderate Modernism to a stylistically conservative postmodernism, which marked the creative endeavours of Latvian composers in the last three decades of the 20th century.
Some Remarks on the Domination of Stylistically Conservative Postmodernism in the Last Third of the 20th Century and the Beginning of the 21st Century
The works of Latvian composers in the 1960s, 70s, 80s and 90s and in the beginning of the 21st century reflected stylistic impulses based on three fundamental trends.
After Zarins's radical experiments in the 1960s, polystylism continued to attract the attention of the next generation of composers. Zarins's love of stylistic play was most directly continued by Peteris Plakidis (1947 -2017), who in Muzika (Music), composed in 1969, as well as in Veltjums Haidnam (Dedicated to Haydn, 1982) for flute, cello and piano, practiced the principle of quoting and allusion. Still, for the most part, polystylism is often present in Latvian music only in the form of stylisations or an expression of reduced contrast. Stylisation and style allusion received attention from both symphonic music masters Janis Ivanovs and Adolfs Skulte, and younger composers in the 1970s, 80s, and 90s, for example, Pauls Dambis (1936), Romualds Kalsons (1936), Maija Einfelde (1939), Vilnis Smidbergs (1944), Peteris Vasks (1946), Selga Mence (1953), Arturs Maskats (1957), Andris Vecumnieks (1964), Rihards Dubra (1964), and others. The composers of this generation made discreet allusions to the musical styles of various eras, without overly accenting the collage principle and the associated contrast and dissonance.
The second stylistic impulse determined by the postmodernist aesthetic was the "new wave of folklore" in the genre of academic music. It should be noted that the term - "new wave of folklore" - is mainly adapted from the Soviet music critics (as novay'a folklornay'a volna). Basically, it marked the trend which represented an interest in adapting an authentic style of folk music to academic music genres.30 It was a continuation of folk music adaptations that began in the first third of the 20th century (Bela Bartok, Igor Stravinsky etc.), although after a pause. The term "new wave of folklore" highlights the focus on traditional culture with its most ancient layers as well as artistic interpretation. At that time, the brightest representative of this trend was the Latvian composer Pauls Dam-bis (1936), who influenced composers of his era and later generations.31 When analysing
30	Olga Frayonova, "HeorfonbKnopusM" (Neo-Folklorism), in: Georgi Keldysh, ed., The Music Encyclopedic Dictionary (Moscow: Soviet Encyclopedia, 1991), 379.
31	More detailed information in English about the music of Pauls Dambis can be found online at the website address of the Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 20 April 2018, http://www.lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=747&id=277& .
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Dambis' music, the Latvian musicologist Ingrida Zemzare aptly concluded that two basic trends could be observed in his creative activity:
First, he appears to be a successor in the continuous chain of traditional regenerators of folklore. But a new aesthetic approach should be noted here. According to the classical conceptions, folklore represents a certain national unity, interpreting the past of a nation as a primordially-collective and natural organism. The romantic conception, however, tends to express its regret for this by-gone oneness. Dam-bis' perception of folklore is neither strongly romantic nor objectivistic. It is rather lyrical, bound with the spiritual life of a person, intellectualism being the author's aesthetic platform. [...]
The second area of interest is connected with the ideas of the Renaissance. Traditionally Latvian composers have worked with poetry by contemporary authors or, less commonly, national classics. In spite of this tradition, a great many of Dambis' compositions have been inspired by outstanding achievements in world art and ideas, even very remote epochs and nations.32
Overall, Dambis inspired an interesting creative approach in the contemporary period of Latvian music history. His opus consists of dozens of choral (a cappella) cycles with Latvian folklore texts and elements of traditional music, as well as cantatas and oratories (for choir, symphonic orchestra or instrumental ensemble), many instrumental chamber music works and some operas. In the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s, a number of Latvian composers (for example, Romualds Kalsons, Peteris Plakidis, Juris Karlsons, Selga Mence) were influenced by Dambis' ideas about folk music adaptation and the synthesis of different styles. However, no other composer in Latvia implemented this trend - "new wave of folklore" - as intensely as Dambis did. It should be noted that, since the 1980s, Dambis started to pay less attention to the "new wave of folklore" in his creative work and his approach to composition has been most commonly associated with neo-romanticist tendencies.
Altogether, the trend of Neo-Romanticism, as the third impulse (with its characteristic forms of expression, tonal music language, and allusions to the musical language of the 19th century), is typical of the music created in the last decades of the 20th century and in the beginning of the 21st century by Latvian composers of the older and middle generations, for instance, Romualds Jermaks (1931), Agris Engelmanis (1936-2011), Romualds Kalsons (1936), Pauls Dambis (1936), Leons Amolinš (1937), Maija Einfelde (1939), Im-ants Kalninš (1941), Peteris Butans (1942), Vilnis Šmidbergs (1944), Peteris Vasks (1946), Peteris Plakidis (1947-2017), Juris Karlsons (1948), Alvils Altmanis (1950), Aivars Kalejs (1951), Imants Zemzaris (1951), Selga Mence (1953), Arturs Maskats (1957), Ilona Brege (1959), Indra Riše (1961), Rihards Dubra (1964), Andris Vecumnieks (1964) and others.
It is also interesting to note that several composers in Latvia (for instance, Zarinš, Dambis, Ivanovs, Kalsons, Karlsons) and two other Baltic countries (for instance,
32 Ingrida Zemzare, Paula Dambja speles (Riga: Liesma, 1990), 196-197.
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Vytautas Barkauskas, Osvaldas Balakauskas, Vytautas Jurgutis in Lithuania, and Ester Mägi, Arvo Pärt and Raimo Kangro in Estonia) actively used Latin and Italian, sometimes also French, for the titles or mottos of their musical work in the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The use of text in these languages (in vocal music) became a regular practice for some composers. The music historian Joachim Braun believes that composers thus tried to point out the hidden meaning in musical content - using these languages implied a reference to the secret message, the element of Aesopian language or the symbol of Western culture (especially in connection with music in the avant-garde style) under the totalitarian political regime.33
All in all, together with a moderate polystylistics, the "new wave of folklore" and, in a fragmentary way also the expression of trends of minimalism, Neo-Romanticism at the end of the 20th century reflects the dominance of a stylistically conservative postmodern aesthetic.34 The Latvian musicologist Arnolds Klotins aptly commented on this local peculiarity of the 20th-century Latvian musical history:
A stylistic renaissance and unpredictability in Latvian music began with the appearance of a new generation of composers, educated in the 1960's. This was a time when the avant-garde in post-war Western Europe had exhausted itself and had set the scene for Neo-Romanticism or, more broadly speaking, postmodernism. Thus there is as much fact as exaggeration in an Italian critic's (Armando Gentilucci (1939-1989), when he was visiting Latvia in 1986 [remark J.K.]) saying that "Latvian music has come upon a good postmodernism, while it has almost never contained any modernism itself35
Still, I would like to add that there was a new surge of an active avant-garde trend at the end of the 1990s in Latvia, when many composers born in the 1970s and 80s declared in the media the need for an alternative to "Neo-Romantic traditionalism".36 Among these, let us list the most notable: Rolands Kronlaks (1973), Märtins Vilums (1974), Gun-dega Smite (1977), Santa Ratniece (1977), Andris Dzenitis (1977), Jänis Petraskevics (1978), Santa Buss (1981), and Kristaps Petersons (1982). The creative searches of these composers are conspicuous for their radical approach to the adaptation and creation of concepts and ideas of avant-garde and post-avant-garde music. However, as regards
33	Cf. Joachim Braun, "Zur Hermeneutik der sowjetbaltischen Musik. Ein Versuch der Deutung von Sinn und Stil", Zeitschrift für Ostforschung 31, no.1 (1982): 76-93.
34	Cf. Jänis Kudins, "Latvian Symphonic Music at the Turn of the 20th and 21st Centuries: Neoromantic Trend and Reasons for it to be Topical", in: Creative Tendencies of Contemporary Music, ed. Jänis Kudins, (Riga: Jäzeps Vitols Latvian Academy of Music, 2009), 14-24; Jänis Kudins, "Neoromanticism as a Dominating Tendency in the Symphonic Music of Latvian Composers in the Last Third of the 20th Century and the Beginning of the 21st Century. The Local Causes for its Topicality in the Context of European Music History", in: Principles of Music Composing: National Romanticism and Contemporary Music (11), ed. R.Janeliauskas (Vilnius: Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, Lithuanian Composers' Union, 2011), 152-165; Jänis Kudins, "Peteris Vasks as Neo-Romantic: Characteristic Style Signs of Latvian Composer Symphonic Music in the Context of Postmodern Culture and Art", in: From Modernism to Postmodernism. Between Universal and Local. eds. Katarina Bogunovic Hocevar, Gregor Pompe, Nejc Sukljan (Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2016), 303-326.
35	Arnolds Klotins, "The Music of Latvia" 9; see also the website of the Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 10 May 2018, http://lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=754?pageId=754&id=4489&&subPageId=756&action=showSubPage .
36	Cf. Jänis Petraskevics, "New Times. New Paradigms?", in: Music in Latvia, 2004', ed. Inära Jakubone (Riga: Latvian Music Information Centre, 2004), 28-31; see also the website of the Latvian Music Information Centre, accessed 10 May 2018, http:// lmic.lv/core.php?pageId=754?pageId=754&id=4485&&subPageId=756&action=showSubPage .
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aesthetic and stylistic position, the more traditionally oriented older generation of Latvian composers still holds a balance.
In conclusion, the Latvia historical experience shows inconsistency with the overall schematic concept, according to which the varied trends of Modernism were followed by postmodernist stylistic traits in the second half of the 20th century. In Latvian music history, the 19th century Romanticism dominated until the World War II, and in the second half of the 20th century the emergence of Modernism, particularly avant-garde, was delayed as a result of the socio-political situation. Modernism thus appeared fragmen-tarily and reflected a different, non-Western development of musical styles. It was only at the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century that one could observe a varied stylistic trend in a broad spectrum from Neo-Romanticism to radical avantgarde and post-avant-garde experiments in music by Latvian composers. In addition, we can claim that the representation of modernist and postmodernist aesthetics in various European nations was determined in the 20th century by different historical situations. The consecutive evolution from Modernism to postmodernism is more of a fiction than reality. Also, the expression of modernist and postmodernist stylistic ideas formed in different ways in varied European nations. These local variations of expression have created an interesting layer of musical heritage, whose understanding (mutual comparisons among the historical experiences of various nations) is still an open research question.
Bibliography
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Bleiere, Daina, ed. History of Latvia: the 20th Century. Riga: Jumava, 2006. Botstein, Leo. "Modernism". In The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, vol.
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POVZETEK
Raziskovanje glasbe in njene estetike že dolgo postavlja vprašanje, do katere mere je mogoče glasbeno zgodovino razlagati kot proces, ki izkazuje jasen linearni razvoj. Ali na primer pojma »modernizem« in »postmodernizem« pravilno zaobjameta tokove v zgodovini glasbe 20. stoletja ali gre zgolj za teoretične abstrakcije? Kako jih lahko uporabljamo v povezavi z zgodovino glasbe specifičnih držav, ko na primer analiziramo lokalne zgodovinske izkušnje? Prispevek se bo osredotočil na ta vprašanja, da bi predstavil modernistično in postmodernistično estetiko in slogovni razvoj v latvijski zgodovini glasbe 20. stoletja.
V prispevku avtor zavzema svojo pozicijo v zvezi z modernizmom in postmodernizmom v kontekstu
muzikološkega dojemanja sloga. V ta namen najprej razišče lokalne posebnosti modernizma in postmo-dernizma v latvijski zgodovini glasbe 20. stoletja. Osredotoča se na vzroke za specifično situacijo, ki bi jo bilo mogoče opisati kot konservativno, a hkrati umetniško zavezano živemu postmodernizmu, ki pa ni nastopil po dolgem ali intenzivnem obdobju modernizma. V tem pogledu so bila najbolj zanimivo obdobje latvijske zgodovine glasbe šestdeseta leta, ko sta se hkrati pojavila tako zmerni in radikalnim modernizem kot tudi prvi svetli primeri postmoder-nistične estetike in sloga (polistilični postopki kolaža, citatov itd.; v tem pogledu je najbolj zanimiva glasba latvijskega skladatelja Margerisa Zarinša). Avtor upa, da bo odgovor na zgornja vprašanja v pomoč različnim zgodovinskim izkušnjam in lokalnim značilnostim v različnih državah.
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