THE GENERATION OF LYSENKO'S ROMANIAN CONTEMPORARIES: STEPHĂNESCU, DIMITRESCU, MUSICESCU, DIMA, CAUDELLA

31 https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.13769479 Valentina Sandu-Dediu (Бухарест, Румунія) THE GENERATION OF LYSENKO’S ROMANIAN CONTEMPORARIES: STEPHĂNESCU, DIMITRESCU, MUSICESCU, DIMA, CAUDELLA Abstract Валентіна Санду-Дедю. Покоління румунських сучасників Лисенка: Стефанеску, Дімітреску, Мусіческу, Діма, Кауделла. Висвітлено покоління румунських сучасників Миколи Лисенка у Східній та Південно-Східній Європі, які мали вагоме значення у заснуванні румунської композиторської школи, з‟ясовано їхні спільні риси та паралелі творчої діяльності, визначено естетичні ідеали того періоду. Після розриву зі східною (османською) типологією, деякі румунські композитори увійшли в національну історію завдяки тому, що написали першу румунську симфонію, перший румунський струнний квартет, першу румунську національну оперу. Як і Микола Лисенко, румунські композитори отримали освіту в різних європейських центрах та, повернувшись до румунських міст, присвятили себе композиції, педагогіці, організації та координації музичних установ. Ключові слова: М. Лисенко, румунські композитори, музичний романтизм, національна опера. In order to broaden the picture of musical Romanticism in Eastern and South-Eastern Europe from different perspectives, this article presents some Romanian composers who were contemporaries of Mykola Lysenko (1842–1912) and, like the Ukrainian musician, played different roles in the foundation of the Romanian school of composition. Some commonalities emerge from this account, especially the emphasis on Europeanization; we attribute them to the Zeitgeist, since we have no documentary evidence that Romanian and Ukrainian composers knew each other across borders. But it is now a common fact that the national schools which were beginning to emerge in Central and Eastern Europe were 32 driven by the same ideals of predominantly German Romanticism (Herder‘s ideas of nation and Volksgeist). 10 The period that begins in 1859 (year of the Union of Wallachia with Moldavia) in the history of Romanian music is obviously more interesting than the first half of the 19th century, from the point of view of native composition in the European style. Thanks to the diffusion of instruments (especially the piano), to the rise in the general level of musical culture, to the establishment of the state conservatories in Bucharest and Iași (1864), of the first permanent symphony orchestra (in the 1860s), and of the first string quartet ensemble (in the 1880s), instrumental, chamber, and symphonic creation will also emancipate in the last quarter of the century. The choral art, for its part, was supported by the first concert associations (also around 1880). After a timid but coherent break with an oriental (Ottoman) typology, some Romanian composers enter the national history precisely for the merit of having written the first Romanian symphony, the first Romanian string quartet, the first Romanian opera. They will lead to the constitution of a "national language", adapted to genres borrowed from the European music of the time. Often, the results lag behind laudable intentions formulated theoretically by the Romanian musicians, and the progress of the Romanian composition "remains for a certain time synonymous with technical accumulations" 11 . The situation is also due to the lack of musical life maturity, to musical education in its early stages of professionalization. Just as Lysenko absorbed classical-romantic compositional techniques and concepts during his years of study in Leipzig and then returned to Kiev to shape Ukrainian musical culture, several Romanians born in the 1840s were educated in various European centers: 10 See Valentina Sandu-Dediu, „The Beginnings of Romanian Composition: Between Nationalism and the Obsession with Synchronizing with the West‖. In Nineteenth-Century Music Review, Volume 14, Special Issue 3 (Music in Nineteenth-Century Romania), December 2017, pp. 315-337. 11 Clemansa Liliana Firca. Direcţii în muzica românească, 1900–1930 [Directions in Romanian Music, 1900–1930], Edit. Academiei Române, Bucureşti, 1974, p.7. 33 Gheorghe Dima (1847–1925) also in Leipzig, George Stephănescu (1843–1925), Eduard Caudella (1841–1924), Constantin Dimitrescu (1847–1928) in Paris, some of them completed training periods in Vienna, Berlin and other German cities. Then they returned to the Romanian cities from which they had started (Bucharest, Iași, Brașov) and devoted themselves to composition, pedagogy, to organizing and coordinating musical institutions. In Romanian music historical writings before 1990, which were inevitably influenced by the prevailing ideology of communist nationalism, it is cautiously mentioned that through this Western education our composers "did not assimilate a particular musical culture, but maintained a certain neutrality, taking from everywhere what was valuable. This is perhaps one of the factors that ensured that our composing developed along its own autonomous path." 12 Beyond such statements that cannot actually prove the so-called neutrality of the 19th century Romanian composition, it is true that the four composers cited, along with other colleagues, strove to find a distinct Romanian voice, just as Lysenko created one for Ukraine. A fifth, Gavriil Musicescu (1847–1903) did the same, but returned to Iași after studying in Sankt Petersburg. In an overall perspective, all these composers are included by Romanian historians in the "golden period of the precursors of our music", which means two decades before George Enescu‘s first opus: 1878–1898. 13 Undoubtedly, Enescu (1881–1955) constitutes the main figure, the composer who really introduced Romanian composition to world‘s concert life. The designation "precursors" applied to all composers of his time, but of previous generations, does not seem appropriate, however, as it points to a dialectic that does not do justice both to the intentions of the "precursors", who were not aware that they were Enescu‘s predecessors, and to Enescu himself, who does not seem to have been influenced by them. 12 Octavian Lazăr Cosma, Hronicul muzicii românești, volumul IV, Romantismul. 1859–1898 [The Chronicle of Romanian Music, Volume IV, Romanticism. 1859–1898], Editura Muzicală, București, 1976, p. 305. 13 Ibidem, p. 306. 34 Synchronisation with Western music and the promotion of a national character remain the two guiding lights of compositional mentalities, present in unequal doses in Romanian scores. The first Romanian symphony (1869) belongs to George Stephănescu 14 who wrote this Symphony in A major while he was still a student at the Paris Conservatory, practising with the Haydn-type orchestral apparatus. Later, his symphonic discourse in the National Overture (1876) looks more evolved, the epic character and folkloric nuances of the melodies being integrated into a carefully crafted sonata form. George Stephănescu also had a founding vocation, becoming involved around 1900 in the establishment of the Romanian opera society, distinct from the Italian opera and other companies that coloured the institutional landscape of Bucharest. First attempts in the field of chamber music and concertos with the cello as the protagonist belonged to Constantin Dimitrescu 15 , who was also inspired by Joseph Haydn and early German Romanticism, and was the only composer of concertos from this period. His three cello scores (written between 1885–1890) echo Camille Saint-Säens, Antonin Dvořák, Romanian dance rhythms, and the Peasant Dance for cello and piano (1893) is still a part of the repertoire of young cellists today: a successful miniature because of its folkloristic, lively rhythms and melodies. Stephănescu, in turn, experiments with the genre of instrumental sonatas and chamber ensembles, and Dimitrescu proposes his own series of seven string quartets (1883– 1923). While instrumental music gains acceptance only slowly, choral music is in vogue. Miniatures, madrigals, choral poems, choral 14 Stephănescu studied in Bucharest, then at the Conservatoire Imperial de musique, Paris, 1867–1871, with Ambroise Thomas and Daniel Auber: see Viorel Cosma, Lexicon, vol.8, Editura Muzicală, București, 2005, p.296. 15 Dimitrescu studied in Bucharest and completed his studies at the Conservatorium der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde, Wien (1867–1869), with Carl Schlessinger (cello) and at the Conservatoire Imperial de Musique, Paris, 1870, with August Franchomme (cello), see Viorel Cosma, Lexicon, vol. 2, Editura Muzicală, București, 1999, p. 194. 35 concerts reflect historical events or describe native landscapes. When Gavriil Musicescu 16 introduced a new type of choral singing in Iași, he processed peasant folklore, which is especially visible in the modal harmony. The Russian influence of the Group of Five is evident in his efforts to collect, transcribe, and appropriately harmonize Romanian folk songs. The geographical-zonal profile will be reflected in the vocal and choral works of Transylvanian composers, such as George (Gheorghe) Dima 17 , who is considered the creator of the Romanian madrigal and of a rich production of choruses and songs (the latter in a convincing Schubertian and Schumannian idiom). In these works, the composer‘s solid training in Western schools is evident in his technique of harmonic and polyphonic construction. On the other hand, his statements in the press of the time reveal the nationalist mission he had assumed: "I believe that those composers who want to create superior Romanian music must live in contact with the people, they must know every fibre of their soul, they must be imbued with the genuine spirit of the people, for only in this way will they succeed in being the artistic expression of their nation". 18 The establishment of the national opera – as an institution and as a musical genre – becomes a real obsession towards the end of the 16 Musicescu learned the Russian method of harmonizing folk songs in St. Petersburg between 1870 and 1872, after studying in Iasi, 1864-66. 17 Dima studied in Brasov, then Karlsruhe (1866–1869), Vienna (1869– 1870), Graz (1870–1871) – mainly singing, but also harmony and counterpoint with Ferdinand Thieriot. Further training at the Leipziger Konservatorium (1872–73, 1878–80) with Carl Reinecke (piano, composition), Salomon Jadassohn (harmony, counterpoint) and others, see Viorel Cosma, Lexicon, vol. 2, pp.186–187. 18 Octavian Lazăr Cosma, in Hronicul muzicii românești, vol.V, Epoca enesciană. Viața muzicală [The Chronicle of Romanian Music, vol. V, Musical Life], Editura Muzicală, București, 1983, p. 57, quotes from Codru, T., „Muzica românească, de vorbă cu dl.Gh.Dima‖, Luceafărul XI, 5, Sibiu, 16 march 1913, p.294. 36 19th century, as the newspapers of that period tell us. 19 There were plenty of opera projects, many were lost, others were never completed. Only Eduard Caudella‘s historical drama Petru Rareș (written in 1889 and performed in 1900), which combines the style of grand-opéra with the symphonism of German opera and echoes of fiddlers („lăutari‖), manages to issue the "birth certificate" of Romanian opera. Romanian musical historiography of the second half of the 20th century glorified this achievement (which "sums up most of the attributes of the crystallization of Romanian opera, both in terms of musical treatment and poetic background grafted on the healthy trunk of the historical past" 20 ) and compared this creation with other pioneering operas from Central and Eastern Europe: Ivan Susanin, Halka, Dalibor, The Bartered Bride or Bank Ban. Moreover, it has been argued that although Eduard Caudella remains an unknown in the European area, there are no notable differences between him and Franz Erkel or Stanislav Moniuszko. 21 National music in Romantic Europe usually has a prominent figure as its initiator, either Mikhail Glinka or Bedrich Smetana or (indirectly) Frédéric Chopin and Franz Liszt. This was not so in Romania, at least not until George Enescu, whose work was predominantly 20th century. The composers before him all tried to tick off Western genres and forms as best as they could: Musicescu and Dima excelled in the choral realm; Stephănescu and Dimitrescu favored instrumental, chamber, and symphonic discourse; Caudella and Stephănescu cemented their reputations with theatrical works. But none of them towers above the others on the musical stage. They all participate, in one way or another, in debates on national music. Some use the attribute ‗national‘ in the titles of the music they write simply because they resort to folk quotations, obviously insufficient to validate the distinct voice of a national musical school. Others, supporters of universal music, propose the Italians as models, as being 19 O.L. Cosma quotes the question of a columnist: "who will become the Glinka of the Romanians and when?", in Hronicul muzicii românești, volumul IV, p. 501. 20 O.L. Cosma, vol. IV, p. 523. 21 O.L. Cosma, Ibidem, p. 534. 37 closer to Romanians through their Latin heritage than the Germans. Historical chance seems to contradict this prejudice, it made Romania step towards Europe in this century: as a state, thanks to a king from a German house, Charles I; as music, thanks to the pioneering efforts of musicians also from the Austro-German area. Romanian society, however, remained rather Francophile in the 19th century. References 1. Cosma, Octavian Lazăr. Hronicul muzicii românești, volumul IV, Romantismul. 1859–1898 [The Chronicle of Romanian Music, Volume IV, Romanticism. 1859–1898], Editura Muzicală, București, 1976. 2. Cosma Octavian Lazăr. Hronicul muzicii românești, vol.V, Epoca enesciană. Viața muzicală [The Chronicle of Romanian Music, vol. V, Musical Life], Editura Muzicală, București, 1983. 3. Cosma, Viorel. Lexicon. Vol. 2. Editura Muzicală. București, 1999. 4. Cosma, Viorel. Lexicon. Vol.8. Editura Muzicală. București, 2005. 5. Sandu-Dediu, Valentina, „The Beginnings of Romanian Composition: Between Nationalism and the Obsession with Synchronizing with the West.‖ In Nineteenth-Century Music Review. Volume 14. Special Issue 3 (Music in Nineteenth-Century Romania). December 2017. РР. 315–337. 6. Firca, Clemansa Liliana. Direcţii în muzica românească, 1900–1930 [Directions in Romanian Music, 1900–1930], Edit. Academiei Române, Bucureşti, 1974.