XXIX Pažaislis Music Festival

This year, it would have been the 70th birthday of Vidmantas Bartulis, laureate of the National Culture and Arts Prize and composer. Commemorating this occasion, the Pažaislio Music Festival, in collaboration with the Kaunas State Philharmonic, presents to the audience one of the most monumental opuses of this versatile creator – the oratorio “Job the Unfortunate,” commissioned by the Vilnius Festival in 2003 and awarded the Lithuanian Composers’ Union Prize for the best orchestral composition and the Composer of the Year title to V. Bartulis.

As the composer himself said, the idea to write an oratorio based on the well-known biblical narrative had been brewing for almost a decade. “I wanted to interpret the Old Testament story of Job somewhat differently, to portray him as a hostage to two forces – the highest and the lowest. It is from this somewhat different perspective that the title of the composition emerged, as if hinting to the listener that the ‘Book of Job’ in the Holy Scriptures is not narrated sequentially.”

After the premiere, music critic Violeta Tumasonienė wrote: “The composer highlights the internal relationship of man with himself, with others, and with God, in the language of art. Job becomes a hostage in the struggle between good and evil. Since the Bible explains itself, the artist is left to extract universal meanings – good, evil, and so on. The text of the Bible is used to highlight universal existential issues, their tragedy, and dramatism. Vidmantas Bartulis’ oratorio ‘Job the Unfortunate’ speaks to each of us through Job’s lips. And the expressive music turns biblical universals into personal experience for each of us. That is the value of this composition.”

On the occasion of Freedom Defenders Day, the oratorio resounded for the second time in 2020, and after eighteen days, the composer embarked on eternity. His close friend, composer Algirdas Martinaitis, wrote at that time: “With all his ‘beloved’ compositions, V. Bartulis had long been building a dam and waiting for the opportunity to immediately open all the floodgates to a tumultuous flow – about all of us, about our existence in joy and suffering, about heaven and earth. Thus, from the depths, from the heart, ‘Job the Unfortunate’ burst forth.” Marking V. Bartulis’ 70th birthday, the monumental oratorio will resound for the third time.

Free admission