Attila Weinberger (aka AG Weinberger, born August 30, 1965 in Oradea) is a Romanian blues guitarist, singer, and producer.
In the mid eighties, Weinberger made the transition from rock to blues, then promoting this genre. In 1986 he began his career as a bluesman, setting up with Harry Tavitian (piano), Corneliu Stroe (drums) and Cătălin Rotaru (bass) the first blues band in Romania - Transylvanian Blues Community. Ignoring the communist censorship, the four managed to make tours in the country with a great success.
After 1990, Weinberger toured in Germany, Switzerland, Israel, Turkey, Hungary (where in 1992 sang in the opening of the concert of the famous guitarist Al Di Meola). In 1991, he established his own blues band - Weinberger Blues Machine. He released the first blues album in Romania - Good Morning, Mr. Blues (1996), followed in 1997 by Standard Weinberger. The release of this album concert was televised and had the merit of removing the blues from underground, giving it public. However, the album won the prize for Best Jazz Disc of 1997.
A.G. Weinberger - I Heard It Through The Grapevine
A.G.Weinberger - Take Me To The Highway
A.G. Weinberger - Spoonful
AG Weinberger - Break The Man
Further, the musician produced and presented two weekly radio shows, on radio stations Radio Contact and Romania Youth. In 1998, he established the foundation BlueSylvania and he sang at the festival Bluestock in Memphis, Tennessee (being the only non-American singer accepted). At the end of 1999, Weiberger released his 3rd album - Transylvania Avenue. Between 2000-2004 he was in a "cultural exile" in the U.S., singing in Chicago, New-York (at Decade, Bitter End, Red Lion), Las Vegas, and touring over 30,000 miles across U.S. In July 2006, Weinberger released the 4th album, Nashville Calling, a first for the music market in Romania: the first blues album by a Romanian artist recorded and produced entirely in the U.S. Followed Guitar Man vol. 1 & 2. For now, Weinberger produces and presents a successful show on a Romanian public TV channel, The Lollipop.
Myriam Marbé (April 9, 1931, Bucharest – December 25, 1997, Bucharest) was a Romanian composer and pianist, considered one of the most valuable international contemporary music composer.
She received her first piano lessons from her mother, Angela, who was a pianist. Between 1944-1954 she studied at the Bucharest Conservatory - piano with Florica Musicescu and Silvia Capăţână, and composition with Leon Klepper and Mihail Jora. From 1953 to 1965, she was a film director in Bucharest. She taught counterpoint and composition at the Bucharest Conservatory from 1954 to 1988, where her refusal to join the Romanian Communist Party prevented her from reaching the rank of Professor. After the collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe, she was awarded a working grant from the German city of Mannheim for the year 1989-90.
Besides being a composer, Marbé worked as a journalist and musicologist. She coauthored a monograph on George Enescu and also wrote critical essays and analysis on musical style.
Eugen Doga or Evgheni Doga (born March 1, 1937) is the most famous Moldovan contemporary composer.
Eugen Doga was born on March 1, 1937, in in Mocra village, Rîbniţa district of Moldova. After graduating from the Conservatoire in Chişinău, he performed as violoncellist in the Orchestra of the State Committee of the Soviet Moldavia for television and radio (1957-1962), taught at the Music College "Ştefan Neaga" from Chişinău (1962-1967), and worked from 1967 to 1972 at the repertory-editorial Board of the Ministry of Culture of Moldova.
He made his debut in the composition art in 1963, with a string quartet, later becoming the author of many priceless musical compositions, film and theater soundtracks. He is the author of many cantatas, composed a symphony, instrumental music, romances, a symphonic poem, many songs for children etc.
Eugen Doga wrote music for over 200 films, spectacles, ballets. He composed music for many prominent films, including "My Sweet and Tender Beast" which is known under its International title "A Hunting Accident"; "Lăutarii" (The Fiddlers); Şatra (after Maxim Gorky); Anna Pavlova.
On December 30, 1992, composer Eugen Doga was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Sciences of Moldova. He is Doctor Honoris Causa of the International Institute of Cinematography in Moscow. 2007 was declared by the Republic of Moldova as "Eugen Doga Year". He was awarded the Order of the Republic (1997), Order of Merit to the Fatherland (provided by Russia in 2008), Order Dinamo Romania in the rank of Commander, Medal "Mihai Eminescu", and Gold Medal "Man of the century XX"(USA, 1998).
He received the titles of Honored Master of Art in Moldova, People's Artist of the MSSR (1967), People's Artist of USSR (1987), Prize Boris Glavan of Moldova, the State Prize of the MSSR (1980) and the State Prize of USSR (1986). On August 26, 2008, Moldovan President awarded the State Prize for 2008 and the title "Laureate of State Prize" for 2008, for "outstanding contribution to the development of national and world musical art".
Mihai Creţu, also known as Michael Cretu or Curly M.C. (born May 18, 1957, in Bucharest, Romania), is a Romanian musician best known as the creator of the Enigma project.
Cretu was born to a Romanian father and a mother of Austrian ancestry. His uncle, Ion Voicu, a famous Romanian violinist and the director of the Bucharest Philharmonic, told Michael's parents that he had talent in music and as such, he studied classical music at Liceul Nr. 2 in Bucharest in 1965 and in Paris, France, in 1968. He later attended the Academy of Music in Frankfurt, Germany, from 1975 to 1978, attaining a degree in music. Cretu was taken on as a keyboard player and producer for Frank Farian, the German mastermind behind successful acts of the 1970s and 1980s such as Boney M and Milli Vanilli.
In the 1980s, Cretu took over production for the pop quartet Hubert Kah and started writing songs with the band leader Hubert Kemmler, achieving a number of hits. Among his other work, Cretu was also one of the producers of Mike Oldfield's 1987 album "Islands", and the producer of Peter Schilling's 1989 album "The Different Story (World of Lust and Crime)". In 1998, Cretu teamed up with Jens Gad (they previously worked together on "Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!") and created the album "The Energy of Sound" under the name Trance Atlantic Airwaves. Cretu and Gad also worked with Jamaican singer Andru Donalds, achieving some success in Europe with a cover version of the song "All Out of Love" (1999).
Cretu met his future wife, Sandra Lauer, when he was playing keyboards on the band Arabesque’s live touring show. In collaboration with several Hubert Kah band members, he co-wrote and produced several successful albums and singles for her, beginning with the song "Maria Magdalena" which topped the charts in 21 countries. The band was simply called Sandra, although Sandra's full name is now often used for filing and identification purposes. Cretu married her on 7 January 1988. They have twins named Nikita and Sebastian, who were born in July 1995. Michael and Sandra divorced in November 2007, citing "personal and professional differences". Another band of Cretu's was called Moti Special ("Cold Days, Hot Nights"), which Cretu produced and performed with in the mid-1980s. He owned the first A.R.T. Studios in Ibiza.
Sandra - Loreen
He has worked with many producers, musicians, and artists in his long career. These include Sandra Cretu, Frank Farian, Boney M, Goombay Dance Band, Peter Cornelius, Manfred "Tissy" Thiers and Mike Oldfield in his pre-Enigma days, and Jens Gad, Frank Peterson, David Fairstein, ATB, Jam & Spoon, Peter Ries, Ruth-Ann Boyle and Andru Donalds during the course of the project.
After Cretu's marriage to Sandra in 1988, he had an idea, following suggestions made by David Fairstein, for a musical new-age dance project under the name, presented by Fairstein, of Enigma. Cretu worked with Frank Peterson and David Fairstein to create their ground-breaking first single "Sadeness," which became a surprise hit. MCMXC a.D., the album, which was released in 1990, was hugely successful. It is believed to have sold about 20 million copies worldwide. One of the aims of Enigma was to present music that has never been heard before and is not being produced anywhere, which also forced Cretu to continually move in new musical directions and to stay ahead of imitators.
Enigma - Sadeness
MCMXC a.D. stayed on the charts for 282 weeks on the Billboard charts and dropped off two years after its second album, "The Cross of Changes", was released in 1993. Prior to this, Frank Peterson had some disagreements with Cretu and he left the project in 1991. Cretu changed Enigma's direction from Gregorian chants to tribal chants for its second album, and this led to "Return to Innocence", which became a worldwide hit. Cretu was approached by Paramount Pictures to write the soundtrack of the movie Sliver and he came up with another 1993 single, "Carly's Song", the title of the track based on the character of the leading actress in the movie.
Enigma - Return to Innocence
In 1996, Enigma's third album, "Le Roi Est Mort, Vive Le Roi!" was released. Stylistically, it sounded like a combination of the first and second albums, but it failed to achieve the same level of success. For the fourth album, Cretu steered the project in another direction by using samples of Carl Orff's "Carmina Burana" for the album "The Screen Behind the Mirror". Andru Donalds and Ruth-Ann Boyle first appeared on this release. Although Jens Gad had been working with Cretu on the earlier albums, this was the first time that he had been given actual credits.
Enigma - Mea Culpa
Deciding that the first chapter for Enigma was closed, Cretu released two sets of compilation albums: "Love Sensuality Devotion: The Greatest Hits" and "Love Sensuality Devotion: The Remix Collection". By then Cretu was undecided if he should continue with the project, but eventually he came up with "Voyageur" in 2003. Familiar sounds of the Shakuhachi flute, tribal, or Gregorian chants were replaced with more pop-oriented tunes and beats. In March 2006, a new single called "Hello & Welcome" was released in anticipation of another album. "A Posteriori" was the sixth Enigma studio album. It was released 22 September 2006. "Seven Lives Many Faces" became the seventh Enigma studio album. It was released 19 September 2008.
In 2001, Crocodile-Music, Cretu`s management stated that a total of 100 million Cretu-produced records had been sold. By the year 2007, Michael Cretu`s Enigma project had sold over 40 million studio albums.
Ovidiu Lipan 'Ţăndărică' (b. 1953, Iaşi) is the greatest Romanian drummer and percussionist. He is also an appreciated composer.
Ovidiu Lipan started his musical career at 9 yo, with his own group - 'Crystal', followed by a collaboration with 'The Dragons'. He attended the Negruzzi High School and the School of Music in Iaş. At 14 yo, he was considered an outstanding instrumentalist and in 1969, at 16 yo, he participated at the Pop-Rock Music Festival, where he won first prize with one of the most elevated bands of the moment - 'Roşu şi Negru' (Red & Black).
In 1970 he settled in Bucharest, where he had the opportunity to work with brand names such as Richard Oschanitzky, Peter Werthaimer, Marius Şeicu, Radu Goldiş and with the 'Romanian Radio Orchestra' led by Sile Dinicu. In 1974 Ovidiu Lipan joined the most valuable Romanian rock band, 'Phoenix', and released the LP Cantafabule (1975).
Lipan Connection Waiting 4 U
He left Romania in 1977, along with his band mates, establishing himself in Germany. He continued his musical work collaborating with international artists: Eruption, Yloi, Herman Rabbit from 'Scorpions', Ginger Baker. With his group 'Madhouse' he released in 1979 From the East and Giacca de Blue and with 'Phoenix' the LP Transsylvania (1981). With 'Rated X' he released Rock Bolded and Forbidden for the Youth. Meanwhile he toured in Germany and worldwide.
Ovidiu Lipan Ţăndărică - Rhythm Introduction
After the fall of communism in 1989, Lipan returned to Romania, with a mega-tournament 'Phoenix' in the largest Romanian cities. He released Symphoenix - Timişoara (1992), Aniversare 35 (1997), Ora-Hora (1999), Baba Novak (2005) with 'Phoenix', Excalibur (1997) and Transilvania (1998) with 'Lipan Connection' and some solo projects Visul Toboşarului (Drummer's Dream, 1999, 2005), Renaşterea (Rebirth, 2001), Aniversare (Anniversary, 2003), Bachiţa (2004), Getica (2004), La Passion (2006), Iskender (2007). Now he has solo projects and also plays with 'Phoenix'.
Valentin Gheorghiu (born March 21st, 1928) is a great Romanian classical pianist and composer.
Gheorghiu was born in Galaţi, Romania in 1928, where he started studying piano when he was very young. He studied first at the Royal Musical Academy in Bucharest, as a disciple of Mihai Jora (theory-solfeggio, harmony, counterpoint, fugue, composition), Constanţa Erbiceanu (piano), Mihail Andricu (chamber music) and Constantin Băloiu (history of music), then, between 1937-1939, the talented and successful young man was encouraged and supported to go to the High National Music Conservatory in Paris, where he studied under the following teachers: Lazare Levy (piano), Marcelle Mayer (theory and solfeggio) and Noël Gallon (harmony).
His career began brilliantly at the age of 15, under the baton of George Georgescu and gradually evolved towards complete fame. In 1950 Gheorghiu became soloist of the George Enescu Philharmonic. He made successful tours in all European music capitals, in the Middle East, USA and Canada, being recognized worldwide as a prestigious musician and recital performer. Valentin Gheoghiu is a perfect partner in several chamber groups, among which one of the most famous was the Bucharest Trio, where performed along with his brother, the violinist Ştefan Gheorghiu and the cellist, Radu Aldulescu). Gheorghiu has cooperated with maestros as Antal Dorati, Kurt Masur, Sergiu Commissiona, George Prêtre, Kiril Kondraschin and joined orchestras as the Dresdner Staatskapelle, the Suisse Romande Orchestra, the Bayerisches Rundfunk, the Gewandhaus in Leipzig, the Symphony Orchestra in Baltimore, Leningrad, Montreal, Tokyo, and Moscow etc. As a solo player he took part to important festivals such as those of Salzburg, Prague, Dubrovnik, Bucharest and he played a recital for the UN members in New York. Gheorghiu has done many records for His Master’s Voice, Deutsche Grammophon, Pathé Marconi, RCA, Supraphon, Electrecord and Eterna. He was a member of the jury in all the most famous international piano competitions among which we can mention the Leeds, the Van Cliburn, the Tchaikovsky, the Margherite Long, the Santander, the Chopin in Warsaw, the Beethoven in Vienna, the Busoni.
As an exemplary pianist, won important prizes, including the First Enescu Mention in 1946 for the Piano Sonata; as a composer, won the “George Enescu” prize of the Romanian Academy for his Piano Concerto. Recently, Gheorghiu has been awarded the honorary degree by the National Academy of Music of Bucharest.
Modest, much too modest, Valentin Gheorghiu is a man of perfect moral conduct: "he remains in his place", he does not enjoy being in the light spot, he rather leaves this to his younger colleagues, as he is too shy to assert himself. Knowing his value, let us proclaim him as a first class and authentic musician: for over half a century, the complex musician, pianist and composer, Valentin Gheorghiu, has honestly and impressively represented the Romanian spirit.
Dan Grigore (born August 6th, 1943) is a great Romanian classical pianist and composer.
Dan Grigore was born in Bucharest, Romania in 1943. He was first a pupil of Mihail Jora and then of Florica Musicescu, who had both been teachers to Dinu Lipatti. He also studied in Saint Petersburg with Tatiana Kravcenko and in Vienna with Richard Hauser. He made his debut playing Enescu's Burlesque, Choral and Carillon Nocturne in first world audition and ever since the artist has been constantly including Enescu's music in his programs, all over the world.
Grigore is winner of the George Enescu National Music Competition (1960), laureate of George Enescu International Music Competition (1961, 1967) and Montreal International Piano Contest (1968). After 1966 his reputation is spread due to enthusiastic articles written by Cella Delavrancea. Together with Valentin Gheorghiu, Dan Grigore is one of the leading Romanian pianists of the second half of the twentieth century.
Dan Grigore was professor at the Music University in Bucharest between 1967-1979 and 1990-2001 - this time at the student's request. His activity for promoting young musicians is well-known and many of his former students have now successful international careers. He has given master-classes and held conferences in Great Britain, Japan, Italy, he is a member of international juries and frequently invited to prestigious international festivals. His career in Romania and abroad was severely restricted because of his steady opposition to the Ceauşescu regime. However, his reputation continued growing and he had many prestigious invitations being enthusiastically received by the audience. He has a growing discography and also a rich, steady publishing activity - essays, chronicles, interviews in cultural journals as well as Radio and TV talk- shows. He has an extremely wide repertoire, covering the whole range of styles and two constants in his entire artistic life are well-known: the high exigence towards himself and the careful choosing of the invitations to perform that he accepts. Surrounded by a mysterious aura, abandoning himself completely when he plays, he has been praised as belonging to the highest elite of pianists.
In February 1999 he was decorated by the French Government with the Order "Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres" and in 2000, by the Romanian State, with The Great Cross of the Order "Devoted Service". Since July 2000, the Romanian Government has appointed him as a member of the National Council of the Audiovisual.
Marius Mihalache (born May 27, 1974, Bucharest), is a well-known musician, composer, maybe the best ţambal (cymbalo or dulcimer) player in the world.
Born in a Gypsy family with rich musical tradition (his great-great-grandfather was a dulcimer player, his grandfather was one the greatest violin player of the interwar period, his mother was a piano player), he started playing at 6 yo. As a child and teenager he played at Şarpele Roşu (The Red Snake), a restaurant famous as a meeting place for the Bucharest bohéme. He won at 10 (1985) the second prize at the International Festival in Athens, interpreting Rachmaninov and Chopin. In 1988 Mihalache won the first prize at the International Youth Festival in Paris (Rachmaninov, Chopin, Liszt). By 17, in 1991, Marius was already storming Scala in Milano performing Rahmaninov, Chopin, Schuman, Schubert and Mozart in front of a stunning audience. Marius Mihalache is graduate of the Faculty of Music of the University "Spiru Haret" and applied at Berkeley to study music and composition.
He shared same stage with Gloria Gaynor (1992, in Palermo) and Nina Simone (1993, in Rome), Teodora Enache, Ovidiu Lipan-Ţăndărică, among others. He toured in Italy, Spain, Germany, Turkey, Belgium, Holland, USA and others.
Marius writed some movies and tv soundtracks (Asfalt Tango, California Dreamin', Filantropica, The Bastards, La vie en rose) just before his debut album Eclipse in 1998, followed by others, all cult-albums from jazz to gypsy music, and of-course classical stuff (Roots, Performance, Ges Romano (Gypsy Life), La Passion, Best Years, Love and Fire, World Symphony).
Marius Mihalache - Jelem, jelem
Gypsy Life (Ges Romano) album includes music influences from Gypsies in Yugoslavia, Hungary, Russia, Bulgaria, Spain and even Azerbaijan, which Mihalache collected during his project Gypsies in the Balkans. Late 2007, he released his latest production: World Symphony - a mixture of jazz, ethno, roots and lounge - this new musical experiment that amazingly mingles cembalo with flute, harmonica and solo-vocal of both beautiful and gifted Irina Sârbu, among others instruments. His latest project is named Ethnotize (ethno + hypnotize), a world-music masterpiece that includes DJ and black-music beats, all fusion, and ethno-jazz, of-course!
Marius Mihalache - Love of Corea
But his most important self-declared moment was the meeting with his mentor Chick Corea (1998), who offered him the honor of opening a few shows; Marius signed a 5-years contract with Time Concerts, one of the most important management agencies in US, and will release also an album together with his master. "At 17 years I have listened Chick Corea for the first time and the first impulse was to quit music. It was and is a God for me".
Marius Mihalache - Oci Ciornie
Get this experience at least once in a lifetime - see and listen Marius Mihalache!
Jovan Ivanović (alternatively, Ion Ivanovici, Iosif Ivanovici, Josef Ivanovici, Josef Ivanovich), (1845, Timişoara - September 28, 1902, Bucharest) was a Romanian military band leader and composer.
He first learned to play the flute given to him as a child, and on growing up he enrolled in the 6th Army Regiment based in Galaţi where he also learned to play the clarinet under Alois Riedl. His gift and passion for music soon led him to become one of the best musicians in his regiment. Encouraged, he continued to study in Iaşi under the renowned Emil Lehr, one of the outstanding musicians of the second half of the 19th century. He rose to become a bandmaster and toured around Romania. He conducted several different military bands before finally being appointed as Inspector of Military Music in 1900, a position he held until his death in 1902.
Today he is known only for his waltz Valurile Dunării (Waves of the Danube, Donauwellen, Flots du Danube), first published in Bucharest in 1880, but he wrote over 350 dance pieces and marches, and his works were published by no less than 60 publishing houses around the world. He won the coveted march prize to mark the World Exhibition in Paris in 1889 out of 116 entries by other outstanding composers of the time.
In 1946 its distinctive main theme gained renewed familiarity when adapted by Al Jolson and Saul Chaplin as the 'Anniversary Song' ('Oh! how we danced on the night we were wed') in the film The Jolson Story.
His musical talent put him into the category of the major dance composers of the time, and his subsequent obscurity was the result of both the isolation of the country and his ethnic background which put him out of favor with the authorities after his death. His music is very much is the style of Johann Strauss and his contemporaries, but is strongly influenced by Romania's own musical traditions which makes it refreshingly different. (from http://www.johann-strauss.org.uk)
Béla Viktor János Bartók (March 25, 1881, Sînnicolau Mare – September 26, 1945, New York) was a Hungarian composer and pianist, regarded, along with Liszt, to be his country’s greatest composer. Through his collection and analytical study of folk music, he was one of the founders of ethnomusicology.
Béla Bartók was born in the town of Sînnicolau Mare (Hungarian: Nagyszentmiklós) - at the time when the Romanian province of Banat was part of Austria-Hungary - into a Hungarian ethnic musical family and received good pianistic training from his mother. He was something of a prodigy, and began composing at the age of ten. In 1898 he was accepted at the prestigious Vienna Conservatory, but chose instead to stay in Hungary at the Budapest Academy. There he met Zoltán Kodály, who influenced him greatly and became his lifelong friend and colleague. His early work was influenced greatly by Strauss and Liszt, but his first major work, the symphonic Kossuth (1903), also stands out for its telling of a nationalist story.
In 1904 Bartók began collecting folk music by recording musicians on wax cylinders. He collected first in the Carpathian Basin (the then Kingdom of Hungary), where he notated Hungarian, Slovakian, Romanian and Bulgarian folk music. He also collected in Moldavia, Wallachia and in 1913 in Algeria. This had a profound impact on his compositional style, for in these pieces he found elements that he began to incorporate into his own writing. The melodies of these folk tunes, removed from the traditional major/minor tonality of Western music, provided new melodic and harmonic resources, and the powerful and often asymmetrical rhythms (often freely mixing groupings of twos and threes) became a hallmark of Bartók's rhythmic style.
In 1907 Bartók was appointed professor of piano at the Budapest Academy and he continued his compositional activity, creating works of greater complexity. Among his notable students were Fritz Reiner, Sir Georg Solti, György Sándor, Ernő Balogh, Lili Kraus, and, after Bartók moved to the United States, Jack Beeson and Violet Archer. In 1911, Bartók wrote what was to be his only opera, Bluebeard's Castle. By the early 1920s his music was verging on an atonal style. He gained international success with a less challenging work, The Wooden Prince (1917), and by the late 1920s his music started to take on more of a neoclassical approach.
The crises leading up to World War II forced Bartók to flee Hungary and settle in the United States. The move caused both financial and personal difficulties, and failing health heightened these. Nonetheless, in his final few years he created a group of important pieces, including the Concerto for Orchestra. For several years, supported by a research fellowship from Columbia University, Bartók and his wife worked on a large collection of Serbo-Croatian folk songs in Columbia's libraries. Bartók's difficulties during his first years in the US were mitigated by publication royalties, teaching, and performance tours. While their finances were always precarious, it is a myth that he lived and died in poverty and neglect. There were enough supporters to ensure that there was sufficient money and work available for him to live on. Bartók generally refused outright charity. Bartók died in New York from leukemia on September 26, 1945 at age 64. Bartok's body was initially interred in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York, but during the final year of communist Hungary in the late 1980s, his remains were transferred to Budapest for a state funeral on July 7, 1988 with interment in Budapest's Farkasréti Cemetery.
In his own words... "Many people think it is a comparatively easy task to write a composition on found folk tunes... This way of thinking is completely erroneous. To handle folk tunes is one of the most difficult tasks; equally difficult, if not more so, than to write a major original composition. If we keep in mind that borrowing a tune means being bound by its individual peculiarity, we shall understand one part of the difficulty. Another is created by the special character of folk tune. We must penetrate it, feel it, and bring out its sharp contours by the appropriate setting... It must be a work of inspiration just as much as any other composition".
Dimitrie Cantemir (October 26, 1673 – August 21, 1723) was twice ruling Prince of Moldavia (in March-April 1693 and in 1710–1711). He was also a prolific man of letters – philosopher, historian, composer, musicologist, linguist, ethnographer, and geographer. His name is spelled Dimitrie Cantemir in Romanian, Dmitri Konstantinovich Kantemir in Russian, Dimitri Kantemiroğlu in Turkish, Dymitr Kantemir in Polish and Demetre Cantemir in several other languages.
Born in Silişteni (renamed Dimitrie Cantemir and now located in Vaslui County, Romania), Dimitrie was the son of Moldavian Voivode Constantin Cantemir (and brother to Antioh Cantemir, himself Prince), of the low-ranking boyar Cantemireşti family. His mother, Ana Bantăş, was a learned woman of noble origins. (Cantemir never forgot his paternal ancestry, but while in Constantinople because of his name similarity locals inspired him to pretended to descend from Khan Temir, an early 17th century khan of the Budjak Tatars). His education began at home, where he learned Greek and Latin and acquired a profound knowledge of the classics. Between 1687 and 1710 he lived in forced exile in Istanbul, where he learned Turkish and studied the history of the Ottoman Empire at the Patriarchate's Greek Academy, where he also composed music.
In 1693, he succeeded his father as Prince of Moldavia – in name only, as the Ottomans appointed Constantin Duca, favoured by Wallachian Prince and, despite many shared goals, forever rival of the Cantemirs Constantin Brâncoveanu; his bid for the throne was successful only in 1710, after two rules by his brother (whom he represented as envoy in the Ottoman capital). He had ruled only for less than a year when he joined Peter the Great in his campaign against the Ottoman Empire and placed Moldavia under Russian suzerainty, after a secret agreement signed in Lutsk. Defeated by the Turks in the battle of Stănileşti (July 18–July 22, 1711), Cantemir sought refuge in Russia, where he and his family finally settled (he was accompanied by a sizeable boyar retinue, including the chronicler Ioan Neculce). There, he was awarded the title of Knyaz (Prince) of the Russian Empire by Peter the Great and received the title of Reichsfürst (Prince) of the Holy Roman Empire from Charles VI. He died at his Dmitrovka estate near Oryol in 1723 (on the very day he was awarded the Roman-German princely title). In 1935, his remains were carried to Iaşi.
In 1714 Cantemir became a member of the Royal Academy of Berlin. Between 1711 and 1719 he wrote his most important creations. Cantemir was known as one of the greatest linguists of his time, speaking and writing eleven languages, and being well versed in Oriental scholarship. His oeuvre is voluminous, diverse, and original; although some of his scientific writings contain unconfirmed theories and inaccuracies, his expertise, sagacity, and groundbreaking researches are widely acknowledged. The best known is his History of the Growth and Decay of the Ottoman Empire. This volume circulated throughout Europe in manuscript for a number of years. It was finally printed in 1734 in London, and later it was translated and printed in Germany and France. It remained the seminal work on the Ottoman Empire up to the middle of the 19th century – notably, it was used as reference by Edward Gibbon for his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Afterwards, the work was largely contested, for some of its sources were doubtful.
In 1714, at the request of the Royal Academy in Berlin, Cantemir wrote the first geographical, ethnographical and economic description of Moldavia, Descriptio Moldaviae. As many of his books it circulated first in manuscript and was only later published in Germany (first in 1769 in a geographical magazine, and then in 1771 the first edition as a book). Around the same time he prepared a manuscript map of Moldavia, the first real map of the country. It contained a lot of geographical detail as well as administrative information. Printed in 1737 in the Netherlands, it has been used by all cartographers of the time as an inspiration for their own maps of Moldavia. Other writings: the first critical history of Romania as a whole, under the name of Hronicul vechimii a romano-moldo-valahilor – aprox. "Chronicle of the durability of Romans-Moldavians-Wallachians" (1719–1722); the first Romanian language novel, the cryptic Historia Hieroglyphica (1705), to which he furnished a key, and in which the principal persons are represented by mythological beasts; A philosophical treatise, written in Romanian and also in Greek, translated into Arabic, under the title Divanul sau Gâlceava Înţeleptului cu lumea sau Giudeţul sufletului cu trupul (Iaşi, 1698) ("The Divan or The Wise Man's Parley with the World or The Judgement of the Soul with the Body"); an introduction to Islam written for Europeans, and a biography of Jan Baptist van Helmont. Due to his many esteemed works he won great renown at the high courts of Europe. His name is among those who were considered to be the brightest minds of the world on a plaque at the Library of Sainte-Genevieve in Paris, next to those of Leibnitz, Newton, Piron, and other great thinkers.
George Enescu (August 19, 1881, Liveni – May 4, 1955, Paris), Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher, preeminent musician of the 20th century, and one of the greatest performers of his time.
Enescu was born in the village of Liveni, Romania (Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County), and showed musical talent from early in his childhood. At the age of five he received his first musical instruction from his local teacher and at seven his father sent him to Vienna to study at the Conservatory where, only four years later, he was awarded the grand medal of honor. His violin teacher was Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., he also studied composition and harmony with Robert Fuchs. At the age of 14 he went to Paris to study at the Conservatoire National with Jules Massenet, André Gédalge, Gabriel Fauré and Armand Marsieck.
In 1898, Enescu's Op. 1, the Poème Roumain (Romanian Poem), was performed for the first time in Paris at the Concerts Colonne, becoming a huge success; the same year, George Enescu had his first public appearance as a conductor, performing his own Poème Roumain at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest. This year also marks the beginning of his outstanding career as violinist, that will lead him through Europe and America.
During World War I Enescu stayed in Romania. Before and after that war he made numerous concert tours in Europe and traveled to the United States. He played Beethoven with Felix Weingartner, conducted the Philadelphia Orchestra and the Orchestra of the New York Philharmonic Society, and appeared together with Béla Bartók.
From 1927 on he choose France as his second home. He appeared with many musicians. He conducted the Paris Symphony Orchestra and the Orchestre de l'association des concerts Colonne. He also performed and conducted in other European countries. In those years Enesco taught both in Romania and in France. He again travelled to North America to appear in front of the New York Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1936-37 season, not long after the premiere of Oedipe, the opera on which Enesco worked for merely ten years, leaving hardly any time to write other music, except for Symphony No. 2. During World War II the maestro stayed in Romania, but after the war and the Soviet occupation of Romania, he remained in Paris. On January 21st, 1950, George Enescu gave a farewell-concert in New York, performing as a violinist, as a pianist and as a conductor. After that his health did not allow him to play the violin any longer, but he still was able to conduct from time to time. He died on May 4th, 1955 in Paris.
Perfection, which is the passion of so many people, does not interest me. What is important in art is to vibrate oneself and make others vibrate. (George Enescu)
This blog represents the work of a team of students and teachers from Secondary School no. 1 Luduş, Romania. Join us to an imaginary trip through people, facts, and places from Romania...
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