BY HEART for Wind Octet by ALBERTAS NAVICKAS (Lithuania, 1986)

[#334] Dec 15, 2025 Lithuania | 2019 | Wind Octet | Grade 6 | 11’ | Chamber Winds

Premiered by Solisti della Scala conducted by Andrea Vitello

Publish & Purchase at Lithuanian Music Information Centre

By Heart, by Lithuanian composer and scientist Albertas Navickas is our Composition of the Week.

By Heart was written in 2017 specially for a recording project lead by Andrea Vitello and “Solisti della Scala” ensemble. The music was released in 2018 and published in 2019.

The octet, which matches in instrumentation the famous Stravinsky’s octet, 1012-0220, has a duration of 11 minutes, and it is published at the Lithuanian Music Information Centre.

“In by heart, Lithuanian (but adopted Parisian) composer Albertas Navickas breaks down the instrumental filigree in subtle whispers: the brass and woodwinds are often scored in unpitched “blow” gestures and often combined with the pronunciation – in the mouthpiece of the flute – of some verses from the Sonnet no. 30 by William Shakespeare. The sounds progress into an abstract and disconnected galaxy in which the relationships and similarities between each part are torn apart, deconstructing the foundation of polyphonic writing.” Program notes by Italian musicologist Guido Barbieri

Dr. Albertas Navickas studied composition with Prof. Osvaldas Balakauskas at the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre. In 2009 he graduated from the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre (MA in Composition) and the Vilnius University (BSc in Biochemistry). In 2007-2008 Navickas also studied composition at the Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique et de Danse de Paris with Prof. Stefano Gervasoni. In 2008 the composer was awarded (together with his fellow composers from the New Opera Action Festival) the prize for the best stage work at the annual Lithuanian Composers’ Union competition; in 2009 he won the first prize at the young composers’ competition of choral music Vox Juventutis. In 2010 he started his PhD research on genetic engineering and minimal music analysis at the “École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales” in Paris.

Albertas Navickas has written solo music, chamber, orchestral as well as vocal music.

Albertas Navickas has participated in various music composition and performance workshops, his works have been performed in contemporary music festivals in Lithuania and abroad. He has also participated in organising contemporary music festival Druskomanija, Music Laboratory Network The PROCESS (part of the Vilnius European Capital of Culture 2009) and is one of the founders of interdisciplinary performance movement Music Is Very Important.

The idiom, sound, and aesthetics of Albertas Navickas’ music remind of the forms of French culture (from impressionism to authors heavily influenced by French music, such as Kaija Saariaho). His music of serene melancholy is supple, pastel, nuanced, formed of transparent textures and subtle dynamics, with specific acoustic coloring; it is a music of a single state (be it a chamber miniature or an opera), which spreads like an aroma and is slightly intoxicating.