Country in eastern Europe. The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was created in the 13th century. Lithuania was the last European state to convert to Christianity (1387–1413). In 1386 Grand Duke Jogaila was crowned King of Poland, and for 350 years Lithuania and Poland were united. During this period Russia, Prussia and Austria made territorial claims, and the Lithuanian-Polish state was partitioned three times. After the third partition (1795) Lithuania was a province of the Russian empire for almost 125 years. Tsarist oppression, with press and stage censorship, the closing of Vilnius University and the imposition of the Russian language in schools, theatres and publishing, provoked a national liberation movement. Following the revolution in Russia, Lithuania was proclaimed a sovereign state in 1918. In 1919 Poland began an occupation of southeastern Lithuania, including Vilnius (the capital), that lasted almost 20 years; Kaunas served as the capital during this period. After Lithuania was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940 there were mass deportations to Siberia, particularly of the intelligentsia. In 1941 Lithuania was occupied by Hitler's army; in 1944, when they were expelled, a second Soviet occupation began. Lithuania lost almost a third of its population through deportations, armed resistance and emigration. On 11 March 1990 the sovereign Lithuanian state was restored.
JUOZAS ANTANAVIČIUS (I), JADVYGA ČIURLIONYTĖ/R (II)
By the 14th century there was professional music in the courts of the Grand Dukes, and missionary monks had probably introduced Gregorian chant. Traditional instruments such as the kanklės and medinės triūbos may have been used in court ceremonies; court inventories mention the organ, clavichord, cymbals, harp, lute, kobsa, pan pipes, recorder and trumpet. Lithuanian and Polish musicians active in the 16th and 17th centuries included Stephanus Vilnensis [de Vylna], Kazimieras Stanislovas Rudamina, Wacław z Szamotuł, Mikołaj Gomółka, Cyprian Bazylik, Jan Brant, Krzystof Klabon, Simonas Berentas (1585–1649) and Marcin Kreczmer (1631–96). Lithuanian composers wrote masses and motets modelled on Netherlandish polyphonic works of the 15th and 16th centuries. The first Lithuanian book of psalms with musical notation was the Catechismusa Prasty Szadei (Königsberg, 1547) by Martynas Mažvydas. The Reformation encouraged the spread of the Protestant chorale and of psalms in Lithuanian and Polish. The Jesuits founded Lithuania's first university (1579), at Vilnius, as well as 11 school theatres which played a major part in musical life from the 16th century to the 18th. In 1667 Žygimantas Liauksminas (c1596–1670), professor at Vilnius University, published a manual of musical notation and choral singing, Ars et praxis musica. During the 17th century musical ensembles were maintained at the courts of Vilnius, Nesvyžius, Grodno and Slonim; some Lithuanian aristocrats were themselves composers, including members of the Radvila and Ogiński families.
With the decline of the educated Lithuanian aristocracy in the late 18th century, culture became increasingly democratized. The Vilnius City Theatre (active with interruptions 1785–1866) included melodramas and vaudevilles by Lithuanian composers in its repertory. The German composer and conductor J.D. Holland, who taught music theory, counterpoint and composition at Vilnius University (1802–26), established its chair of musicology in 1803. Amateur composers, most of them organists, were the first to aim at creating a national Lithuanian musical style; their works (harmonized traditional songs, masses and piano pieces) were not of a very high standard. The founders of a professional national school of composition were Česlovas Sasnauskas (1867–1916), Juozas Naujalis (1869–1934), Mikas Petrauskas (1873–1937) and most notably M.K. Čiurlionis (1875–1911). Their works are in the late Romantic tradition, sometimes tending towards Expressionism and Constructivism (Čiurlionis used his own serial technique in his piano preludes of 1904–5). Birutė (1906) by Petrauskas, usually considered the first Lithuanian opera, is in fact a play with incidental music; Petrauskas's more mature opera Eglė, Queen of the Grass-Snakes was completed in 1920. Other notable operas of the early 20th century were the historical-heroic Gražina (1933) by Jurgis Karnavičius (1884–1941), with simple and appealing music related to traditional melodies, and Trys talismanai (1934) by Antanas Račiūnas (1905–84). Other composers who helped to establish a national style during the inter-war years, often drawing on traditional Lithuanian music, were Yuozas Gruodis (1884–1948), Stasys Šimkus (1887–1943), Juozas Tallat-Kelpša, Balys Dvarionas (1904–72), Stasys Vainiūnas (1909–82) and Juozas Pakalnis (1912–48). In the 1930s some composers tried to unite the national style with a more modern musical language, notably Gruodis, Karnavičius, Kazimieras Viktoras Banaitis (1896–1963), Vladas Jakubėnas (1904–76), Vytautas Bacevičius (1905–70), Jeronimas Kačinskas (b 1907) and Julius Gaidelis (1909–83). In 1904 the first Lithuanian music journal, Vargonininkas (‘The Organist’, edited by Naujalis), appeared. Lithuanian emigrants to Russia, Latvia, Poland, the USA and Germany performed Lithuanian works in those countries and distributed gramophone records of Lithuanian music. The Archive of Lithuanian Folklore was created in 1935, and Juozas Žilevičius set up the Lithuanian Music Archive in Chicago.
With the Soviet annexation of Lithuania (1940) came the cultural dictatorship of Soviet Realism, the breaking of contact with modern Western music, and strict ideological censorship. Many placatory works of programme music were written. In 1948, as in all other Soviet republics, a union of composers and musicologists was founded. Until the 1960s most composers wrote in neo-romantic and neo-classical styles, striving for simplicity and ‘closeness to the people’. More progressive tendencies were inhibited by the communist-inspired opposition to ‘formalism’. But the conservative musical language gave rise to some notable works by composers including Dvarionas, Račiūnas, Vainiūnas, Julius Juzeliūnas (b 1916), Eduardas Balsys (1919–84) and Vytautas Klova (b 1926). Composers who had emigrated (mostly to the USA), among them Bacevičius, Kačinskas and Gaidelis, and later Darius Lapinskas (b 1934), used more modern compositional techniques. The ‘thaw’ of the 1960s enlarged the horizons of composers in Lithuania; Juzeliūnas created an original harmonic system based on elements of traditional music, and Blasys used 12-note techniques. Other exponents of modern trends were Benjaminas Gorbulskis (1925–86), Vytautas Montvila (b 1935), Vytautas Barkauskas (b 1931), Vytautas Laurušas (b 1930), Vytautas Jurgutis (b 1930), Antanas Rekašius (b 1928), Algimantas Bražinskas (b 1937), Teisutis Makačinas (b 1938), Jurgis Juozapaitis (b 1942) and Borisas Borisovas (b 1937). Among prominent representatives of modern Lithuanian music are Feliksas Bajoras (b 1934), Bronius Kutavičius (b 1932) and Osvaldas Balakauskas (b 1937). In the late 1970s and early 80s a nostalgic, contemplative and minimalist tendency emerged, expressed in images of time standing still, an intimate lyricism, meditative atmospheric effects and repetitive techniques. Such works were written by Kutavičius, Bajoras, Juozapaitis, Mindaugas Urbaitis (b 1952), Algirdas Martinaitis (b 1950), Jonas Tamulionis (b 1949), Vidmantas Bartulis (b 1954) and Onutė Narbutaitė (b 1956). Younger composers are Rytis Mažulis (b 1961), Nomeda Valančiūtė (b 1961), Šarūnas Nakas (b 1962), Eglė Sausanavičiūtė (b 1963), Remigijus Merkelys (b 1964) and Antanas Jasenka (b 1965).
The music education system includes the Lithuanian Music Academy (in Vilnius, with one department in Kaunas), five conservatories (Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Šiauliai, Panevėzys), three secondary schools specializing in music, and about 80 state music colleges. The Lithuanian Composers’ Union consisted of about 120 composers and musicologists in 1996. Musicologists engaged in research into Lithuanian art music are Algirdas Ambrazas (b 1934), Jonas Bruveris (b 1939), Juozas Gaudrimas (b 1911), Ona Narbutienė (b 1930) and Vytautas Landsbergis (b 1932), who held the political office of President of the Supreme Council from 1990 to 1992.
See also Vilnius.
GroveO (A. Tauragis)
MGG2 (‘Litauen’; J. Antanavičius)
A. Miller: Teatr i muzyka na Litwie 1745–1865 (Vilnius, 1935)
S. Yla, ed.: Lietuvių nacionalinė opera (Vilnius, 1960)
A. Tauragis: Lithuanian Music: Past and Present (Vilnius, 1971)
J. Bagdanskis: The Lithuanian Musical Scene (Vilnius, 1974)
V. Venkus: ‘Musďkal'nďy teatr: operď i operettď’, Iz istorii litovskoy muzďki, iii (Leningrad, 1978), 19–44
L. Mel'nikas: ‘Litovskaya fortepiannaya i organnaya muzďka’ [Lithuanian piano and organ music], Mezhnatsional'nďye svyazi v sovetskoy muzďkal'noy kul'ture (Leningrad, 1987), 193–207
R. Mikenaite: XX a. polifonija ir jos apraskos siuolaikineje lietuviu muzikoje: Mokymo priemone [20th-Century polyphony in Lithuanian music: an instructional aid] (Vilnius, 1987)
L. Melnikas: ‘Einflüsse der italianischen Musik auf die Entwicklung der Musikkultur Litauens im 17. und in der ersten Hälfte des 18. Jahrhunderts’, Muzikzentren: Persönlichkeiten und Ensembles (Michaelstein and Blankenburg, 1988), 13–15
J. Trilupaitiene: ‘Muzikai feodalineje Lietuvoje’ [Musicians in feudal Lithuania], Menotyra: Iskusstvovedenie, xvii (1990), 56–68
J. Trilupaitiene: ‘M. Gomolka i muzďkal'naya kultura Litvď v XVI veke’ [Gomółka and musical culture in Lithuania in the 16th century], Pribalticheskiy muzďkovedicheskiy sbornik, iv (1992), 93–101
J. Vyliute: ‘Die litauische Oper in den Jahren 1940–1990’, Opera kot socialni ali politicni angazma/Oper als soziles oder politisches Engagement (Ljubljana, 1992), 196–203
J. Trilupaitiene: ‘Baroko muzikos bruozai Lietuvoje’ [Characteristics of Baroque music in Lithuania], Gama, no.2 (1993), 20–23
V. Bakutite: ‘Das Objekt und das Subjekt der Geschichte der litauischen Musik (am Ende des 18. Jahrhunderts und im 19. Jahrhundert)’, Music History Writing and National Culture (Tallinn, 1995), 7–16
J. Trilupaitiene: Jezuitu muzikine veikla Lietuvoje [The musical activities of the Jesuits in Lithuania] (Vilnius, 1995)
based on MGG2 (v, 1376–81) by permission of Bärenreiter
Music played an important ritual role in the culture of the early Baltic tribes who settled the southeastern coast of the Baltic from the late 3rd century bce. By the end of the first millennium, there was a corpus of mythic and heroic epics that were delivered at funerary rites (these were later also used at court). The principal genre of traditional Lithuanian music is song (daina), with a rich repertory of songs used for feast days, dancing, weddings and family occasions, work and military songs, children's songs, comic songs, ballads and laments. Some songs are of ancient origin; many reflect daily life, others historical events (the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the early 20th century was vividly depicted in song). The present article discusses traditional Lithuanian music with origins before industrialization and the Soviet era. Until the mid-20th century Lithuania was an agricultural country, as is reflected in the themes and imagery of songs that deal with village working life and the close link with nature. A non-Christian concept of the world is retained in early traditional poetry: nature is personified and appeals are made to vegetation, trees, the ‘broad field’, the wind, sun and earth. A detached attitude to events prevails, man's life being seen as part of the natural cycle. The songs are generally lyrical and light, with no dramatic extremes. Narrative songs are lyrical in character; the ideas are compressed and dialogue alternates abruptly with narrative and lyric-dramatic elements. The poetry is rich in fixed symbols and epithets. Certain concepts, especially those of time and space, are given hyperbolic expression, while family relationships, particularly those of mother and child, brother and sister, are tenderly portrayed.
2. Modal structures, rhythm and metre.
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
Besides the features common to traditional features Lithuanian music and poetry in general, there are certain regional genres and musical dialects, elements of which may date from before the 10th century, when Baltic and Slavonic tribes, and to some extent the Finno-Ugrians, were in close contact. The Dzūkija region in south-east Lithuania (adjoining Belarus) has retained the greatest quantity of stereotyped musical forms linked with work and ritual. These include many melodies with a range of three to five notes: children's, shepherds’ and dance songs with accented rhythm, as well as many raudos (funeral laments) and wedding laments sung by the new bride, making use of free recitative. Work songs are richly represented and include songs for harvesting rye, oats and flax, for ploughing, haymaking, threshing, grinding corn, spinning and weaving. The cycle of harvest songs, sung by reapers during harvesting and at the concluding ritual, is particularly interesting; the melodies have a narrow range and are based on a unifying model, varied by different rhythmic patterns and freely prolonged ‘notes of repose’ (the minor 3rd or 4th), which also occur in more developed modal melodies.
Some of the more important ancient ritual and festive songs are related to the calendar, including Kalėdos (Christmas), winter and New Year songs; Užgavėnės (Shrove Tuesday) carnival songs, which involve the wearing of masks, the burning of a dummy and a circuit of the ‘broad fields’ to invoke a good harvest by loud singing; spring songs, including invocations of spring (in eastern Dzūkija), Velykos (Easter) songs, which accompany the customary young men's walk through the village offering congratulations, and swinging-songs sung to produce a plentiful harvest of flax and rye; and Kupolinės (Midsummer Night) festivities celebrated with blazing bonfires and the weaving of garlands. Round-dances depict the events before a wedding, the matchmaking and choice of a bride or groom. All these rituals and song texts have roots in the pre-Christian period.
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
The songs of the Dzūkija area are exclusively monodic. Their versatile modal structures are based on melodic patterns of small intervals, which occur in rudimentary form in the earliest surviving examples. The ancient heptatonic modal melodies probably developed from the narrow-range systems and later increased in number. The most widespread modes were the G, A and C modes; the D and E modes were less common. The F mode is not characteristic except in the sutartinė concords (see §4 below). The harmonic minor is not characteristic either; the raising of the seventh degree is usually artificial. Alterations of A-mode melodies into the harmonic minor and attempts to perform them in two parts were perhaps prompted by the button accordion, introduced into Lithuania late in the 19th century. The pentatonic mode used in the east was probably derived from the Finnish tribes.
Except in simple isometric structures, the rhythmic organization of melodies is varied. Certain types of melody are notable for their rhythmic freedom, embellishments and the prolongation of culminating notes, and even in early songs the poetic accentuation is sometimes subordinated to the rhythms of the melody. In general, both melodic and textual rhythms are asymmetrical. The verse has a striking variety of speech inflections and displaced stresses; diphthongs, accented consonants and other phonetic irregularities apparently facilitated the development of free versification.
The most widespread musical metres are duple, quadruple and triple; asymmetrical metres are less common. Mixed metres take the following forms: predominantly 3/4 with occasional bars of 4/4 or vice versa; insertions – expansions or emotional interjections of a single bar – within regular metres; and repeated heterometric formulae of 5 + 3 quavers (ex.1), 4 + 5 quavers and, rarely, 5 + 3 + 3 quavers.
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
The textual form of stanzas of free verse developed with a miniature musical form of two or three melodic lines; for example, a three-line stanza with five syllables (two bars) in each of the first two lines, and seven syllables (three bars) in the third.
Although the versification has great variety, the eight-bar melody is usually strictly constructed with specific motifs between cadences, melodic movement from the fourth degree to the second, and characteristic use of the tritone. The length of melody is independent of the number of syllables in the line. The most common forms are AABA, ABAC and ABCA. Melodies of three three-bar phrases (as in ex.2) belong to a special group. Mixed forms consist of regularly alternating two- and three-bar phrases, such as 2 + 3 + 2 + 3 (ex.3) or 3 + 2 + 3 + 2 arranged as ABAC (10 bars) or AABCA (13 bars).
The repetition of one or two of the last lines of a stanza at the beginning of the next is characteristic of earlier melodies; the repetition of the last two lines of a stanza is a later phenomenon. The stress of text and melody at the end of a song do not necessarily coincide: if the text has a feminine ending and the melody finishes on a strong beat, the last syllable of the text is omitted. Dzūkijan melody is notable for its structural clarity, aphoristic quality and developed lines. The singers vary almost every stanza of the song, adding barely audible embellishments. The tempo is usually moderate and relaxed.
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
The polyphonic genre sutartinė (‘concord’ or ‘singing in concord’) which has been retained in northern Aukštaitija (south-east Lithuania, around the upper River Nemunas) is apparently one of the earliest forms of the synthesis of traditional poetry, music and dance. Sutartinės may be vocal, instrumental or mixed, or may be sung by dancers (see §5 below). Until the mid-20th century instrumental sutartinės were played on wind instruments associated with shepherds and on the kanklės, a type of zither (see §6 below). The principal characteristic of the sutartinė is its construction on simultaneous 2nds which are not resolved (see ex.4). The melodies consist of two similar parts: the text is sung to the first and meaningless refrains to the second, sung a 2nd higher or lower than the first. Numerous modifications include passing 4ths and the unison. There are three basic types of sutartinė: contrapuntal, sung by two singers; canonic, sung by three singers entering in turn (each with a break) forming an endless chain of two-part counterpoint; and those which are mainly for dancing and performed antiphonally by two pairs of singers. The rhythm of the sutartinė is duple with clearcut scansion and sharply accented syncopation. The texts are concerned with working and community life. The large number of meaningless euphonious refrains points to the age of the sutartinė, of which the earliest do not have a semantic text but consist entirely of interjections. The sutartinė is disappearing but about 2000 live performances were collected (some on gramophone records) in the first half of the 20th century. Sutartinės were sung and danced by women only. Primitive simple songs, in which the first voice sings a two-bar text and the second answers with a refrain, are related to the sutartinė. Like the sutartinės they were sung in spring by women going round the fields.
Two- and three-part diatonic homophonic singing, based on the three principal degrees (tonic, dominant and subdominant), is also widespread in Aukštaitija; it is increasingly important in collective singing, and threatening to supplant Dzūkijan monody. The origin of this genre has not been explained although it is known to have existed by the late 18th century. Žemaitija (western Lithuania) is also an area of homophonic part-singing, but the style of performance is different. Although the melodies have the same harmonic support as those of Aukštaitija, many of them are performed by solo singers in an improvisatory manner, and are marked by great rhythmic freedom and ornamentation. The principal support of the melody is the fifth of the scale which is accented rhythmically and dynamically, giving the melody a melancholy character.
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
Dances are performed only collectively, the dancers themselves singing. One of the earliest dances, the sutartinė (see §4 above), is performed by women in groups of two pairs who sing a dialogue while crossing or changing places and forming circles and chains, sometimes in imitation of work movements. The steps are mainly small, without leaps, and the tempo is moderate. The texts, mostly humorous, are sung only by the dancers and without instrumental accompaniment.
Ritual round-dances form a separate group. Those for Christmas (Kalėdos) have restrained dance-figures, given meaning by the ritual context: the texts reflect a pre-Christian ideology. Among the dances usually accompanied by an instrumental ensemble are wedding round-dances. Many round-dances imitate work movements, for example Linelis (‘Flax’) or Dobilas (‘Clover’) representing the growth and use of these plants, Kalvis (‘The Smith’) and Kurpius (‘The Shoemaker’). In figurative round-dances the dancers imitate the movements of birds and animals, for example the men's dance Oželis (‘Little Billy-Goat’) or Blezdingėlė (‘The Swallow’) in which girls dance waving their kerchiefs.
Rateliai (game-dances) have rich choreographic patterns, the dancers being symmetrically grouped, but the movements do not illustrate the content of the song; they are restrained, without any leaps, consisting of running and lateral, double, triple and polka steps. The speed is moderate, sometimes with several tempos in one dance. Later dances – the polka, waltz and quadrille – have been adopted from the West.
Traditional song and dance ensembles enjoy great popularity. Some attempt to reproduce authentic traditional art, and make a significant contribution to research; others use traditional material to create a new style which is accessible to contemporary audiences.
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
The most varied and interesting early instruments survive in north Lithuania in the sutartinė area (see §4 above). Wind music, based like the sutartinė on simultaneous 2nds, was played there as late as the first half of the 20th century.
Skudučiai (sing. skudutis) are a set of separate stopped wooden pipes with two sickle-shaped cuts in the rim (fig.1a). The pipes are 8 to 20 cm long; each produces only one note and the tuning of the sets varies. In a group of two to five players each uses one, two or three pipes thus producing three, four or five simultaneous 2nds played in rhythmic patterns.
The ragas is a wooden trumpet used in the same type of ensemble as the skudučiai. It is made by splitting a piece of ash wood lengthways and hollowing out a channel in the two halves; these are then fastened together with birch bark and a mouthpiece is cut out at the upper end. Each ragas produces one note, and the set consists of five, tuned in 2nds (fig.2).
The trimitas or daudytė, a long cylindrical wooden trumpet with a small conical bell, is made from alder, ash or spruce in the same way as the ragas. It is 100 to 250 cm long and produces a natural scale. Used by the skerdžius (senior shepherd) or at weddings and celebrations, it is played singly or in pairs.
The ožragis (goat horn, fig.1b) has four or five finger-holes and produces the notes of a major pentachord; it is used by the skerdžius when herding livestock.
The birbynė, a wind instrument made of maple or ash, has a conical barrel with five or six finger-holes; a mouthpiece of the clarinet type is inserted at the upper end and a cow-horn bell is attached at the lower. The birbynė produces a gentle tone and is used as a solo instrument.
The lumzdelis, a duct flute made of the wood or bark of the bird-cherry (prunus padus), willow or aspen, is 15 to 40 cm long. The upper end is bevelled into a beak shape, and it has six to nine finger-holes producing a diatonic scale with a range of a 7th. The lumzdelis is a shepherd's instrument played while driving livestock to pasture, with characteristic use of trills and grace notes. Two are sometimes played together.
Of the string instruments, the kanklės (a type of plucked zither, fig.3) is the best-known Kantele. Its size varies, but the body is basically trapeziform and is hollowed out of one piece or made from boards of lime, oak, aspen or ash glued together; the soundboard is of spruce, the soundholes are circular and usually ornamented, and it has between five and ten strings. It is played resting on the knees; the strings are plucked with the right hand and damped with the left. Its earliest use seems to have been for a kind of meditation; it is used for solo performances of sutartinės (see §4 above) and has also been played in other instrumental ensembles and to accompany song.
The most widespread percussion instruments are the tambourine, the kelmas (a drum, made from a hollowed-out tree stump covered with skin) and skrabalai (a set of small wooden bells; fig.4).
The village instrumental ensemble consisted of a violin (adopted from the West in the late 16th century), a birbynė and a ‘bass’ (cello). From the mid-19th century onwards Lithuanian musicians began to include instruments of other peoples (accordion, concertina, clarinet, cymbals, guitar, mandolin) in ensembles alongside traditional Lithuanian instruments, especially as foreign dances such as the polka, waltz, mazurka and quadrille became popular. In the 20th century some traditional instruments, including the kanklės and birbynė, were modified for use in art music; professional orchestras with traditional instruments were formed and some composers wrote works for them in traditional styles. Traditional instruments are taught at conservatories and at the Academy of Music in Vilnius.
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
Ludwig Rhesa included seven traditional tunes in a collection of traditional song texts published in Königsberg in 1825. This was followed by publications by Simonas Stanevičius (1829), Georg Nesselmann (1853), Friedrich Kurszatis (1876), Oskar Kolberg (1879), Adalbert Bezzenberger (1882), Christian Bartsch (1886–9) and Antanas Juška (1880–82; 1883; 1900). Major 20th-century collections are listed in the bibliography. The publication of a catalogue of traditional Lithuanian songs, Lietuvių liaudies dainų katalogas, began in 1972; a multi-volume collection of traditional songs, Lietuvių liaudies dainynas, began to appear in 1980. The most comprehensive archives of traditional music are the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore (c120,000 items) and the Archive of Ethnic Music at the Lithuanian Academy of Music (c85,000 items).
Lithuania, §II: Traditional music
C. Bartsch: Dainų Balsai: Melodien litauischer Volkslieder (Heidelberg, 1886–9)
A. Juszkiewicz: Melodje ludowe litewskie [Lithuanian folk melodies], ed. O. Kolberg and I. Kopernicki (Kraków, 1900)
A. Sabaliauskas: Lietuvių dainų ir giesmių gaidos [Melodies of Lithuanian songs and choral rounds] (Helsinki, 1916)
T. Brazys: Lietuvių tautinių dainų melodijos [Lithuanian folksong melodies] (Kaunas, 1927)
U. Katzenelenbogen: The Daina (Chicago, 1935)
J. Čiurlionytė: Lietuvių liaudies melodijos [Lithuanian folk melodies] (Kaunas, 1938)
J. Čiurlionytė: Lietuvių liaudies dainos vaikams [Lithuanian folksongs for children] (Kaunas, 1948)
V.F. Beliajus: The Dance of Lietuva: 54 Circle and Folk Dances from Lithuania (Chicago, 1951)
A. Juška: Lietuviškos dainos [Lithuanian songs], ed. A. Mockus and J. Čiurlionytė (Vilnius, 1954)
J. Čiurlionytė: Lietuvių liaudies dainų rinktinė [A selection of Lithuanian folksongs] (Vilnius, 1955) [in Lith. and Russ.]
A. Juška: Lietuviškos svodbinės dainos [Lithuanian wedding songs], ed. V. Maknys, V. Paltanavičius and Z. Slaviūnas (Vilnius, 1955)
Z. Slaviūnas: Sutartinės: lietuvių liaudies daugiabalsės dainos [Sutartinės: polyphonic Lithuanian folksongs] (Vilnius, 1958–9; Russ. trans., 1972)
S. Paliulis: Lietuvių liaudies instrumentinė muzika: pūčiamieji instrumentai [Lithuanian folk instrumental music: wind instruments] (Vilnius, 1959)
A. Landsbergis and C. Mills: The Green Linden (New York, 1964)
L. Burkšaitienė and D. Krištopaitė, eds.: Aukštaičių melodijos [Melodies from the Aukštaitija region] (Vilnius, 1990)
T. Brazys: ‘Die Singweisen der litauischen Dainos’, Tauta ir žodis, iv (1926), 3–50
B. Sruoga: ‘Lithuanian Folk Songs’, Folk-Lore, xliii (1932), 301
J. Balys: ‘Lithuanian Folk Dance’, JEFDSS, ii (1935), 139–42
J. Żilevičius: ‘Native Lithuanian Musical Instruments’, MQ, xxi (1935), 99–106
Z. Slaviūnas: ‘Lietuvių kanklės’, Tautosakos darbai, iii (1937), 244–318 [with Eng. summary]
Z. Slaviūnas: ‘Lietuvių etnografinės muzikos bibliografija’, Tautosakos darbai, v (1938), 281–300
A. Paterson: Old Lithuanian Songs (Kaunas, 1939)
J. Čiurlionytė: ‘Kaip užrašnėti liaudies melodijas’ [How to write down folk melodies], Tautosakos rinkėjo vadovas, ed. J. Balys (Kaunas, 2/1940), 77–111
E. Geist: Antikes und Modernes im litauischen Volkslied (Kaunas, 1940)
V.F. Bieliajus: The Dance of Lietuva (Chicago, 1951)
J. Lingys, Z. Slaviūnas and V. Jakelaitis: Litovskiye narodnďye tantsď [Lithuanian folkdances] (Vilnius, 1953, enlarged 2/1955)
J. Balys: Lithuanian Narrative Folksongs (Washington, 1954)
P. Stepulis: Kanklės (Vilnius, 1955)
J. Balys: Lithuanian Folksongs in America (Boston, 1958)
J. Čiurlionytė: Litovskoye narodnoye pesennoye tvorchestvo [Lithuanian folksong culture] (Moscow, 1966)
J. Čiurlionytė: ‘Die Sutartinė: eine besondere Art des litauischen mehrstimmigen Volksgesanges’, DJbM, xii (1967), 116–23
Z. Slaviūnas: ‘Zur litauischen Vokalpolyphonie’, Deutsches Jb für Volkskunde, xiii (1967), 223–43
G. Četkauskaitė: ‘Lietuvių muzikinio folklore klasifikacijos principai’ [The classification principles of Lithuanian folk music], Liaudies kūryba, i, ed. A. Stravinskas and others (Vilnius, 1969), 144–61
J. Čiurlionytė: Lietuvių liaudies dainų melodikos [Outlines of Lithuanian folksongs] (Vilnius, 1969)
A. Venckus: ‘Šešiagarsės lietuvių liaudies muzikos dermės’ [The hexatonic modes of Lithuanian folk music], Liaudies kūryba, i, ed. A. Stravinskas and others (Vilnius, 1969), 68–78
G. Krivickiené-Gustaityté: Vilnius Lietuvių liaudies dainose [Vilnius in Lithuanian folksongs] (Chicago, 1970) [with Eng. summary]
L. Sauka: ‘Lietuvių laidotuviu raudu metras’ [The metre of Lithuanian funeral laments], Lietuvos TSR Mokslu Akademijos darbai, ser. A, xxxix/2 (1972), 121–34
M. Baltrenene: Litovskiye narodnďye muzďkal'nyďe instrumentď [Lithuanian folk instruments] (diss. Leningrad Institute for Theatre, Music and Cinematography, 1974) [in Russ.]
B. Kazlauskiene: Vestuvins dainos: jaunojo puseje [Classification of Lithuanian wedding songs] (Vilnius, 1977) [with Ger. summary]
R. Apanavicius: ‘Lietuvių liaudies muzikos instrumentu tobulinimas’ [Improvements in Lithuanian folk musical instruments], Menotyra, xiii (1985), 20–32
R. Astrauskas: ‘Kai kurie lietuvių liaudies dainų ritmikos bruožai’ [Some rhythmic features of the Lithuanian folksong], ibid., 50–69
Z. Kelmickaite: ‘Tradicinis muzikinis folkloras siandienineje lietuvių kulturoje’ [Traditional musical folklore in the modern culture of Lithuania], ibid., 4–10
R. Sliuzinskas: ‘Anhemetonikos bruožai lietuvių liaudies dainų melodikojc’ [Anhemitonic features in Lithuanian folksong melodies], ibid., 34–49
L. Burkšajtenė: ‘Funktsional'nďye osobennosti melodiki litovskikh svadebnďkh pesen’ [Functional characteristics of Lithuanian wedding song melodies], Muzďka v svadebnom obryade finnougrov i sosednikh narodnov, ed. I. Rüütel and K. Pak (Tallinn, 1986), 56–65 [in Russ.]
H.D. Rinholm: ‘Lithuanian Folksong Poetics: Remarks on Imagery in Text and Context’, Linguistics and Poetics of Latvian Folk Songs: Essays in Honour of the Sesquicentennial of the birth of Kr. Barons, ed. V. Vikis-Freiburgs (Kingston, ON, 1989), 123–35
L. Madetoja: ‘Liettualaisista kansansävelmistä’ [Lithuanian folk melodies], Etnomusikologian vuosikirja, iii (1989–90), 212–32
N. Laurinkienč: Mito atšvaitai lietuvių kalendorinese dainose [Mythological reflections in Lithuanian calendar songs] (Vilnius, 1990)
M. Baltrėniėne and R. Apanavičius: Lietuvių liaudies muzikos instrumentai [Lithuanian folk music instruments] (Vilnius, 1991)
Ritual and Music: Vilnius 1997 [incl. R. Astrauskas: ‘The Lithuanian Calendar Rites and Music: On the Issue of Cycle Unity’, 55–67; G. Kirdiene: ‘Die Litauische Geigen-Volksmusik in den Hachzeitsriten-und Zeremonien’, 96–114]
R. Sliuzinskas: ‘Dudy w tradycyjnej muzyce instrumentalnej litwy’ [The bagpipe in the traditional music of Lithuania], Muzyka, xliii/3 (1998), 113–18