Seeking Unity and Cyclical Consistency in Performing Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis’s ‘Unrecognised Cycle No. 10: Sea Etudes’

Abstract

The article revisits the question of whether the piano works by Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis (1875–1911) can be understood as components of larger cycles – an issue brought to the fore by scholars Vytautas Landsbergis, Darius Kučinskas, and Rimantas Janeliauskas, among others. Building on Janeliauskas’s concept of ‘cyclicality’ within Čiurlionis’s oeuvre – particularly his notion of ‘unrecognised cycles’, a term coined by the musicologist himself – the author investigates how performers might approach one of these, namely, ‘Unrecognised Cycle No. 10: Sea Etudes’, both in compliance with a series of characteristics of music and through concrete actions by a performer, so that it can be actually perceived as a musical cycle by the listener.