ABSTRACT
This chapter addresses topicality in postmodern music and calls for further investigations of new topics characteristic of contemporary music. The reception of Lithuanian music abounds with paradox. In the twenty-first century, the extreme diversity of Lithuanian music has expanded. The chapter discusses several symptomatic cases where reconstructive models of idealization of the past are formed and the cultural tropes of loss and longing are interpreted. Several typical examples of the twenty-first-century Lithuanian music suggest reinterpretations of the discussed tendencies in Bronius Kutavicius' work. Reflective nostalgia permeates the music of another Lithuanian composer, Onute Narbutaite. Her recollective technique relies on a critical approach to a highly selective textual network, emphasizing the Lithuanian cultural diversity, and in which the pastoral idiom plays an important role. Narbutaite's music contains numerous examples of critical reinterpretations of musical idioms formed by her composition teacher, Bronius Kutavicius. The topic theory employed for this analysis provides new investigation strategies of critical reflections of tradition in contemporar.
