Longīns Apkalns

1923-1999
Composer, singer, publisher and conductor

Longins Apkalns was born on 17 December 1923 in Riga into the family of Pastor Peteris Apkalns (Pēteris Apkalns). He graduated from Riga State Gymnasium No. 1. He began to study music at the Riga People's Conservatoire, but his studies were interrupted by the Second World War. In 1944 he emigrated to West Germany, where he resumed his musical studies in 1946, studying vocal art and composition at the Detmold School of Music as well as studying privately with Jazeps Vitols (Jāzeps Vītols), becoming the professor's last pupil. After his studies, he earned his living by helping to stage modern opera parts for young singers who came to him from all over Germany for this purpose. From 1955, he himself was a singer at the Osnabrück Opera, the Detmold Opera, and the West German Radiophon where he became well-known among Latvians living in Germany. In West Germany he met and later married a German singer, the Bremen-born Marga Schreiber, who later became known in Latvian society by her husband's surname and intensively devoted herself to Latvian music and its performance.

From 1968 to 1993 Longins Apkalns was a member of the editorial board of the magazine “Latvju Muzika” (Latvian Music) and wrote comprehensive publications on music issues in Latvian exile periodicals as well as in foreign publications. One of his most outstanding achievements is the book “Latvian Music” (Lettische Musik. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf and Härtel, 1977. 411 pp.). This was one of the first publications on the music of Latvian composers to be published outside Latvia. With the support of the Gopher Foundation and the Latvian Foundation, and with the active participation of the author, the work was translated and prepared for publication in Latvian, which the author unfortunately did not manage to experience. Longins Apkalns also is the author of an essay “Historiography of the Latvian Folk Song”.

Conducting was also an important part of his life. At the 2nd European Latvian Song Festival in Hanover, Germany, in 1968, he was both the chief conductor and one of the organisers. In 1974 he was also involved in the organisation of the 3rd European Latvian Song Festival in Cologne, Germany. As honorary chief conductor he participated in the 2nd Latvian Youth Song Festival in Rochester in 1977 and as chief conductor also in the song days of the World Association of Free Latvians on the island of Gotland in Sweden in 1979. In 1975, he was elected chairman of the European Centre of the Latvian Restoration Committee.

He has written a considerable number of compositions for various performers - solo and choral songs, cantatas, oratorios, chamber music and symphonies: funeral songs, the cantata “Latviesu Dievs” (Latvian God), “Kingiras rekviems” (Kingira Requiem) and other works. A planned opera “Jersika” with a libretto by Guna Ikona remained unfinished after the author suddenly passed away. Although Apkalns was a rather mysterious personality and is considered one of the most radical composers in the family of European Latvian composers, he successfully assimilated modernist constructivism and a 12-tone technique so popular in Germany – dodecaphony with romantic base sounds – in his musical handwriting.

Already a widower, the composer passed away on 30 March 1999 in Hovelhof, Germany. He was reburied in Cesis Cemetery, Latvia, on 11 May of the same year.


Information sources

Apkalns, Longīns. (b.g.). https://www.musicabaltica.com/lv/komponisti-un-autori/longns-apkalns/

Ko dzirdēsim, ko redzēsim Ķelnē. (1973, 28. aprīlis). Latvija, 17, 3. Latvija, Nr.17 (28.04.1973) (periodika.lv)

Longīns Apkalns ASV. (1977, 15. oktobris). Latvija, 38, 5. Latvija, Nr.38 (15.10.1977) (periodika.lv)

Mūzikas nodaļas redaktors Longīns Apkalns. (1976, 1. janvāris). Treji Vārti, 50, 5. Treji Vārti, Nr.50 (01.01.1976) (periodika.lv)

Tallat-Kelpandscaron;a, S. (2016, 1. februāris). [Genealogy profile for] Marga Apkalne. https://www.geni.com/people/Marga-Apkalne/6000000039888793140

Žilinska, I. (2018, 17. decembris). Radikāls skaņradis, noslēpumaina personība... Longīnam Apkalnam 95! https://klasika.lsm.lv/lv/raksts/vakara-autorprogramma/radikals-skanradis-noslepumaina-personiba...-longinam-apkalnam-9.a112891/