Tag: Romania

For a country so steeped in music, George Enescu has done an awful lot of the heavy lifting. Regarded as Romania’s most gifted musical polymath, Enescu exploded onto the international scene at the age of 19 with his world famous “Romanian Rhapsody No. 1.” Perhaps even more impressive, his “Romanian Poem,” a half-hour expanse for chorus and orchestra, was composed four years earlier.

But Enescu was also a gifted violin prodigy, a pianist, a conductor, and a notable teacher. Although we are exposed to a shamefully small proportion of his compositional output, at least much of it has been recorded, and his name is secure in the classical music pantheon. This Sunday night on “The Lost Chord,” we’ll look beyond Enescu to hear music by three of his compatriots, only one of whom managed to achieve a reputation beyond the borders of his homeland.

George Stephănescu (1843-1925) was an important figure in the development of Romanian opera. He founded the nation’s first opera company in 1885. He is also credited with having composed the first Romanian symphony. Stephănescu conducted at the National Theater and taught at the Bucharest Academy of Music. His “National Overture” of 1876 reflects his patriotic concerns.

By contrast, György Ligeti (1923-2006) was destined generally to be a bit of an outlier. Born into a Jewish family in an ethnically Hungarian region of Transylvania, Ligeti went on to become one of the most important composers of his generation, but much of his music is in a style which would be deemed “avant-garde.” But he also had his playful side. In 1951, he wrote his “Concert românesc” (“Romanian Concerto”), a wholly accessible and little-known work based on actual Romanian folk tunes that he had studied at the Folklore Institute in Bucharest. Despite this being one of his most overtly delightful works, the piece was banned after a single rehearsal in Bucharest and was not heard publicly until 1971. “Totalitarian regimes do not like dissonances,” he observed ruefully.

Finally, Paul Constantinescu (1909-1963) was part of a generation of Romanian composers who came of age in the shadow of Enescu. He composed in most musical forms: opera, ballet, oratorio, incidental music, symphonic, chamber and choral music, and music for film, yet he remains little-known in the West. His concertante output includes works for violin, cello, piano and harp, in addition to a concerto for string orchestra. We’ll hear Constantinescu’s Piano Concerto, from 1952.

I hope you’ll join me for this neglected music from Southeast Europe. That’s “Romania Mania,” this Sunday night at 10:00 EDT, on WWFM – The Classical Network and wwfm.org.