When the Word Finds a Person – While Awaiting A. Martinaitis’s Oratorio “The Altar of Mercy”

Not only once, I have heard the saying: “Where the words end, the music begins.” It used to sound like an excuse – that the language is too poor, too shallow – yet when trying to express the message of God’s mercy, there are as many words as ever! Saint Faustina left us quite a few of them, though we repeat and remember only a portion of them in our prayers. In June, at the World Apostolic Congress on Mercy in Vilnius, we will have the opportunity to hear the oratorio “The Altar of Mercy” composed by Algirdas Martinaitis. In this work, the words written by St. Faustina are placed like the cornerstone blocks of the sanctuary of Divine Mercy, carried by the orchestra, choir, and soloists – and it is these words that convey the message of mercy. I am speaking about this with the author of the work, composer Algirdas Martinaitis, and opera soloist, soprano Gunta Gelgotė.

Algirdas Martinaitis

Legend has it that while walking down the street, you met a young man – the future priest Mozė Mitkevičius – who asked you to create a piece based on the texts of Saint Faustina. What was your reaction? Had you had read those texts?

I knew about Faustina, about her life, but I had not yet read “The Diary”. Twenty years ago, it had just been newly translated into Lithuanian. After receiving the order for the piece, I read this book many times. I thought of what and how I could do it: how to arrange the texts so that I could express them in a musical language? From the entire diary, I selected countless words of Saint Faustina that have an evangelical meaning. I know for sure that it wasn‘t me who selected those words. There was help from above. I remember that after the premiere of the work in St. Catherine’s Church, Cardinal Juozas Bačkis came up to me and asked how I had written such a piece. I answered: “Out of fear. Out of fear that I don’t know anything.” That’s how it is for me with religious works, I write without knowing anything. It’s a similar story with the texts of Saint Francis and Saint John of the Cross. At first –  complete obscurity. It was very kind that by chance, while walking down the street, Mozė commissioned this work (laughs).