 The age-old artistic tradition of the Romanian musical culture has its roots and specific features in the great European Latin culture of Daco- Thracian essence.Two essential sources are the basis of the native music, namely the folk music of the Daco-Roman ancestors and the Christian religious creation of Byzantine origin. Within the framework of international exchanges (1720-1820), that led to the passage of foreign musicians through Transylvania, the Banat, and Moldavia, including Michael Haydn, Karl Ditters von Dittersdorf, Daniel Speer, Giuseppe Sarti, a number of other personalities such as J.S. Bach, G.Fr. Handel, W.A.Mozart, Joseph Haydn, Ludwig van Beethoven began to be interested in the Romanian song. The 1824 and 1848 revolutions opened the way for Romanian artists to distinguish themselves far and wide. Romanian musical life experienced a radical detachment from the Oriental and Balkan cultures. The Italian Opera of Bucharest is inaugurated (1844), and the National Theatre of Bucharest is also inaugurated (1852), the first vocal music books in Romanian are printed by Macarie Ieromonahul and Anton Pann, the first folcklore collections are initiated. The national musical school came into life in this climate of national cultural upsurge. The period between the national Independence War and the First World War (1914-1918), was dominated by artistic personalities of international fame, chief among them being George Enescu (1881-1955). Composer, violonist, conductor, pianist, and pedagogue, George Enescu assembled about him all forces capable of inspiring the native musical life with an air of modernity. Today, Romanian and foreign concert halls still reverberate with the applause won by geniuses of Romanian music: George Enescu, Ciprian Porumbescu, George Georgescu, Constantin Silvestri, Ionel Perlea, Sergiu Celibidache, Ion Voicu, Dinu Lipatti, Hariclea Darclee, Nicolae Herlea entered the international constellation of music thanks to their art of interpreting the noble language of music. |