(Pol. Wilno; Russ. Vilna).
Capital city of Lithuania. It has at various times been under Polish and Russian dominion. From the 14th century there was a ducal court there and a singing school at Vilnius Cathedral. The granting of a city charter in 1387 led to the formation of musicians' guilds; around 1400 Grand Duke Vytautas had players of the flute, clavichord and organ in his retinue. The church of St John had a choir and music school by 1515, and the cathedral had an organ by 1551; Vilnius became a centre of organ building, the first mention of workshops dating from 1585. After Lithuania's union with Poland in the mid-16th century, Vilnius became an important musical centre. The Academia et Universitas Vilnensis was founded by the Jesuits in 1579. Polyphonic and choral singing were taught there and at the seminary. The court musical ensemble of Wladislaw IV Wasa (1632–48), with Italian soloists, gained wide renown; in 1634 the court heard the first opera given in Vilnius, Il ratto di Helena (probably by Marco Scacchi). In 1667 Žygimantas Liauksminas (c1596–1670), a professor at the Academy, published a manual on musical notation and choral singing, Ars et praxis musica.
By the late 18th century the Lithuanian aristocracy was in decline and cultural life was becoming democratized. Recitals were organized by Joseph Frank (1771–1842) and his wife, the singer Christine Gerhardi. Haydn's Creation was performed in February 1809 with Gerhardi in the soprano part, which she had sung at the work's premičre in Vienna. Subsequently other oratorios and masses by Haydn and Schubert were given, as well as Mozart's Requiem in 1840. Touring opera companies visited the city from the late 18th century; a permanent opera company was established in 1827, giving mostly Italian opera. A German company was active from 1835 to 1844. J.D. Holland taught theory, counterpoint and composition at the university from 1802 to 1826, and established the chair of musicology in 1803; instrumental performance was also taught there. After the nationalist revolt of 1832 was put down, the Tsarist government closed the university and introduced press and stage censorship, with dramatic works to be performed only in Russian. The Polish composer Moniuszko was active in Vilnius from 1840 to 1858 as organist, conductor and teacher; his opera Halka had its concert premičre there in 1848, and its stage premičre in 1854. In the 1850s and 60s concerts were given by Vieuxtemps, Henryk and Józef Wieniawski, Schulhoff, Antoni and Apolinary Kątski and Anton Rubinstein, among others. A private music college was opened in 1867, and the college of the Russian Music Association in 1874. In 1869 a Russian theatre was opened; there were visits from Italian, French and Ukrainian companies and from singers en route to Moscow or St Petersburg.
In 1904 the ban on the Lithuanian language was lifted. The composer M.K. Čiurlionis moved to Vilnius in 1907 and was active in musical life, directing the Vilnius Kanklės Society Choir. In 1906 this society gave the premičre of Birutė, with music by Mikas Petrauskas (1873–1937); a play with incidental music, it is often counted as the first Lithuanian opera. From 1919 Poland occupied the Vilnius area for two decades; Kaunas became the Lithuanian capital, and much musical activity shifted there. Vilnius University reopened in 1919. Among music schools active in this period were the Vilnius Conservatory (1921–35), the M. Karowicz Conservatory (1935–40) and the Jewish Institute of Music (1924–40); teachers included Tadeusz Szeligowski, W. Rudzyński and Stanisław Szpinalski (1901–57). In 1939 the main national cultural institutions were restored to Vilnius. In 1940, following Soviet annexation, Vilnius was made capital of the Lithuanian SSR. During the German occupation (1941–4) an opera company functioned there in difficult conditions. In the Soviet period some new institutions appeared, including the City SO (later the PO; founded by Balys Dvarionas), a professional choir and ensembles for traditional song and dance, but concert and theatrical repertory reflected Soviet ideology and were supervised from Moscow. The Vilnius Conservatory resumed activity in 1945; it merged with the Kaunas Conservatory in 1949 to form the Lithuanian State Conservatory.
Outstanding postwar ensembles include the internationally renowned Chamber Orchestra, founded in 1960. The Čiurlionis competition for pianists and organists was founded in 1965, and a chamber music festival in 1967. The national opera company gives a season from September to June each year, mostly from the standard (especially Russian) repertory, but also including Lithuanian works by Račiūnas, Klova, Barkauskas, Juzeliūnas and Balsys. The company performed at the Vilniaus Miesto Teatras (Vilnius Town Theatre) up to 1974, and then in the newly opened Operos ir Baleto Teatras. The Vilnius Museum of Theatre and Music was founded in 1964. Since 1946 the Lithuanian Song and Dance Festival has been held every five years in Vilnius, with between 30,000 and 40,000 participants.
GroveO (A. Tauragis and M. Morris)
MGG2 (‘Litauen’; J. Antanavičius)
J. Būtėnas: Lietuvių teatras Vilniuje [Lithuanian theatre in Vilnius] (Kaunas, 1940)
J. Banaitis: Tarybinė lietviu muzika 1940–1950 [Soviet Lithuanin music] (Vilnius, 1950)
Yu. Gaudrimas: Muzďkal'naya Kul'tura Sovetskoy Litvď (Leningrad, 1961)
V. Mažeika: Opera (Vilnius, 1967)
V. Nakas: ‘Gražina: the First Lithuanian National Opera’, Lituanus, xxi/1 (1975), 45–62
J. Bruveris: ‘Operos ir baleto teatras mūsų kultūroje’ [Opera and ballet theatre in our culture], Kultūros barai, xxvi/12 (1990), 7–11
J. Trilupaitiene: ‘Zygmunt Lauksmin w zyciu muzycznym Akademii Wilenskiej’ [Liauksminas and the musical life of the Vilnius Academy], Muzyka, xxxvi (1991), 101–16
V. Bakutite: ‘Formirovaniye muzďkal'no-teatral'noy kriticheskoy mďsli v Vilniuse (konets XVIII-nac. XIX v.)’ [The beginnings of music-theoretical criticism in Vilnius (late 18th century to early 19th century)], Pribalticheskiy muzďkovedicheskiy sbornik, iv (1992), 113–32
S. Hanheide: ‘Lieder im Angesicht des Völkermords: zu den Funktionen der Musik im Ghetto von Wilna’, Krieg und Literatur/War and Literature, vi/11–12 (1994), 69–85
E.A. Arias: ‘A Report: the 1995 Gaida Festival of Contemporary Music in Vilnius, Lithuania’, Litanus, xlii (1996), 47–54
based on MGG2 (v, 1376–81) by permission of Bärenreiter
JUOZAS ANTANAVIČIUS