The Letters to a Young Poet concert at Baltic Music Days 2026 will feature the world premiere of Orpheus, a new work by Krists Auznieks. The program is inspired by the letters of Rainer Maria Rilke also includes world premieres by Justė Janulytė, Rolands Kronlaks, and Liisa Hirsch. Each composer responds to Rilke’s letters in their own distinctive style: Janulytė explores slow, evolving processes; Kronlaks combines spatiality with sophisticated electronics; Hirsch emphasizes transparency, precision, and attentive listening. Central to the performance is the Latvian Radio Choir, conducted by Kaspars Putniņš, whose refined dynamics, intonation, and expressive sensitivity bring the composers’ visions to life. Spoken readings of Rilke’s letters, combined with choral textures and electronic layers, create a rich and immersive experience for the audience.
About Orpheus, Auznieks offers a reflection that encapsulates the essence of the work:
“Rainer Maria Rilke’s sonnet begins with a quiet refusal: ‘Errichtet keinen Denkstein.’ Do not erect a monument. Instead, let the rose bloom each year in Orpheus’ honor. The gesture feels important to me. Monuments insist on permanence, but the rose returns only by disappearing first. It blooms, fades, and blooms again—never the same, yet unmistakably itself.
The rose has appeared in a number of my works over the years. I am not entirely sure when this began, but it has gradually become a kind of recurring presence in my music: a fragile image of return, transformation, and quiet persistence. When I encountered Rilke’s line, it felt less like a symbol to illustrate than something already familiar.
In the poem, Orpheus is not really a figure but a condition. ‘Ein für alle Male ist’s Orpheus, wenn es singt.’ Whenever singing happens, Orpheus is there. The voice becomes a passage between presence and disappearance, between the world that is here and something just beyond it.
For me, this piece is less about Orpheus than about that threshold. Not a monument, but a bloom—something that appears briefly, transforms, and returns.“
This premiere offers audiences a rare opportunity to experience the birth of new music and the intimate interplay between text, voice, and composition. Through Orpheus and the wider Letters to a Young Poet program, Baltic Music Days 2026 invites listeners to contemplate the ephemeral beauty of sound, the persistence of creative ideas, and the delicate thresholds of artistic expression.
Composers in the crosshairs of our attention