Musical editions of Maironis (the early period)

In this paper, the author examines musical editions of Maironis' texts. He overviews musical works to Maironis' poetry composed until the poet's death in 1932 and analyses creative interaction between Maironis and its contemporaries-composers (mostly the composer Juozas Naujalis) and the significance of this cooperation concerning textual changes. The author emphasises that the most significant number of musical works were created to the poems from Maironis' coleection "Pavasario balsai" (Voices of Spring), which was published as many as five times during the poet's lifetime, each time with more or less extensive changes. The question, therefore, arises if these textual changes (or, adversely, the stability of the early edition) might have been influenced by the musical composition of the poet's contemporaries, its frequent performance, and popularity among the general public, in other words, did the musical works composed to Maaironis' poetry influence his creative process that can be traced in subsequent editions of his poetry? The author takes a separate look at the original works by Lithuanian composers and at the poems that had turned into popular songs, and discusses the sources of the melodies of the popular songs and the instances of contamination. Maironis was the most popular composer in his milieu (Maironis was the most popular poet among the composers?). All composers of his time wrote music to his poetry. Seventy-six works (with arrangements) were created during Maironis' lifetime. Most of them authored by Juozas Naujalis (28), Česlovas Sasnauskas (12), Aleksandras Kačanauskas (12), and Juozas Tallat-Kelpša (2). The composers used 26 poems from the collection "Pavasario balsai" and five poems from other publications. The following poems were especially popular: "Miškas ir lituvis" (The Forest and a Lithuanian, 5), "Mano gimtinė" (My Homeland, 5), "Sunku gyventi" (It Is Hard to Live, 4); with arrangements: "Kur bėga Šešupė" (Where the Šešupė Flows, 3+3), "Lietuva brangi" (Lithuania Dear, 3+2), and "Jau slavai sukilo" (The Slavs Have Risen, 2+3). There is no doubt that the composers wrote the tunes of their works themselves. However, the article mentions two instances when Maironis himself might have composed the music. These are Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis' song "Ten, kur Nemunas banguoja" (Where the Nemunas Runs in Waves) and Sasnauskas' "Kur bėga Šešupė". The sources of popular songs to Maironis' poetry are harder to identify due to a large number of variants that are difficult to count (so far, there exist records of 623 song lyrics and 146 melodies). In analysing possible influence of the composers on the changes in Maironis' poem, the author discuss three cases: (1) chronological parallel of the publishing of a poem and music, (2) a poetic text consolidated (stabilised) by the melody, which did not change in subsequent editions, and (3) a change in the poetic text stimulated by music. The discussion of the relationship between Maironis and his contemporaries-composers revealed a collaboration that was quite intensive and mutually prolific. In the case of Naujalis, it was face-to-face communication and, possibly, discussions regarding the choice of one word or musical note or another'; in other cases, creative cooperation developed through published texts