Romania

The Romanian National Opera in Bucharest was built in 1953. There are 952 seats. In front of the building a monument to George Enescu.

Iași, Cluj and Timișoara also have branches of the National Opera.

 Main concert hall. Remarkable building from 1888 by the architect Albert Galleron. Annual Enescu festival.

In this hall, in 1919 the unification of the Romanian kingdom, Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia was declared.

Established in 1863 as Music and Declamation Conservatory, in 1931 Royal Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (of course that Royal was struck out in the communist era) and in 2001 it obtained the rank of University.

Built in 1901-03 for G.G. ‘Nabob’ Cantacuzino, mayor of Bucharest, and inherited by his son Mihail,† 1929. George Enescu was befriended with his widow Maruca and married her in 1937. They lived from 1944 in the more modest administrative building behind the palace until 1946, when they left their native country. Here a Enescu museum was established in 1956, but closed in 1977 (Ceauşescu!) and reopened in 1995.

The Romanian Union of Composers and Musicologists resides here too.

House of the great pianist and composer Constantin (‘Dinu’) Lipatti (1017-‘50). His recitals and the marvelous recordings he made during his short career – he died of Hodgkin’s desease – are legendary. As a composer, he wrote piano- and chambermusic, and at the age of 15 the remarkable tone poem Şătrarii (The Tziganes).

Today an art centre.

Birthplace of the great violinist and composer George Enescu, *1881, whose career mainly took place in France and the western world. Nevertheless he is a national hero in Romania. Next to his popular First Rumanian Rhapsody his oeuvre includes very interesting symphonies, piano- and chamber music and the opera Oedipe. The name of the village changed from Liveni-Virnav into George Enescu.

The Enescu family lived 1884-1916 in Cracalia, but this house is not extant, while after the war it was burned down by angry farmers. After the divorce of the parents in 1916, father Costache lived in Dorohoi. This house also became a Enescu museum.

House of Enescu’s grandparents and of his mother from 1916 on. The composer stayed here often and inherited the site. After his leaving for France the house was used as potato barn and gradually fell into disrepair. Recently a restoration has begun.

House of the family of Enescu’s wife, Maruca Rosetti-Tescanu. During a summer stay in 1931, Oedipe was finished. The composer wished to be buried here but since he was cut off from the country, this was impossible (he was interred at Père Lachaise in Paris). There is a cenotaph with statue in the surrounding wood.

The house is a cultural centre now, where musical performances are being held. One room is devoted to the composer Mihail Jora, a cousin of Maruca and a close friend of her husband.

In 1924, Enescu had the Vila Luminiş (The Glade) built in the high Carpathians. He used it as a summer residence until he left Romania forever. In 1928, his most famous pupil Yehudi Menuhin spent two months with him. The interesting exhibition was opened in 1995.

Opera theatre, built in 1896; architects were the famous Fellner & Helmer, who designed numerous theatres in the then Austrian Empire.

The concert hall was originally the chapel of a charitable institution ‘Sacré-Coeur’ from 1815. Franz Liszt gave a recital here in 1847. Today, extended, concert hall of the Moldavian Philharmonia. Bust of Enescu.

Ciprian Porumbescu (1853-83) was a choirmaster, composer, folksong collector, teacher and organizer of Romanian musical life. Memorabilia in his garden house (the main house was demolished). The village of Stupca was called after him.

Birthplace of the Greek avant-garde composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, *1922. He was the son of a rich merchant and lived in this beautiful house until the family returned to Greece in 1932. Xenakis died in Paris in 2001. 

Museum devoted to the composer Gheorghe Dima (1847-1925) and above all to eight members of the Mureşianu family, all journalists and instigators of the Romanian cultural life. Andrei M. was the author of the Romanian national anthem (1848). Large archive; collection of musical instruments and gramophones. 

Anton Pann (1796-1854) set to music Mureşianu’s poem Awake, Rumanians, which became the national anthem. He was musically educated and a folksong collector, but above all a printer, who established the first printer shop in Rumania. The town was a centre of paper industry. His house still exists amidst a modern ambiance.

Summer house of the parents of Dinu Lipatti, built in 1938-42. The pianist scarcely profited from it, as he left the country in 1943 and did never return. Nevertheless some memorial rooms are devoted te him.

Birthplace of the great avant-garde composer György Ligeti, *1923. The house lies in a courtyard, off the street. The former bilingual name of the village was Diciosânmartin/Dicsöszentmárton. Photo during a visit by Ligeti’s widow.

Like many Hungarian composers, incl. Bartók, Kurtág and Eötvös, Ligeti was born in Transylvania/Banat, formerly a part of Hungary.

The first opera from 1821 was replaced by the present building in 1906. Until 1919 it was a Hungarian opera, afterwards Romanian National Opera. There are 1000 seats.

Hungarian State opera. When the Romanians took over the opera building in 1919, the Hungarian opera moved to the Setateri Szinkör (Central Park theatre), built in 1910 and renovated in 1961.

The music academy was established in 1919 and named after the composer Gheorghe Dima. Departments of musical performance, composition, dance and musicology.

Romanian National Opera, built in 1875 by Fellner & Helmer, twice (1880 and 1920) partially burnt down and rebuilt in 1923 by Diulia Marcu; only the central façade remembers its original state. Also Hungarian and German repertoire.

This hotel was built in 1841. Jules Massenet and George Enescu were guests. In the party hall, now a movie theatre, were appearances by Liszt (1846), Strauß jr. (1847), Brahms (1879) and Casals (1912).

Location of the (demolished) birthplace of Béla Bartók, *1881; bilingual plaque.

On the central square is a Bartók monument.

Exhibition of Bartók memorabilia, mainly documents about his Romanian connections.

Plaque at the church, commemorating the fieldwork in this area by Bartók in October 1906.

House of the composer Filaret Barbu (1903-84). Until recently it was a Casa Muzicii with an exhibition about Barbu and his colleagues Ion Vidu and Tiberiu Bredicianu, but now it is a private house; the exhibits moved to an archive in Timișoara.

Birthplace of the pianist and composer György Kurtág, *1926. He lived here only from 1926 until 1928.

House of György Kurtág from 1928 until 1940. He was a pupil of Barbu and afterwards of Milhaud and Messiaen. His music explores the world between Bartók and Webern. Since 2013 Lugoj presents a yearly G. Kurtág Prize to young pianists, containing the nine volumes set of Kurtág’s main piano work Jatékok.

Photos: 1/ recent visit by the composer and his wife, 2/ G. Kurtág Prize. © c.t. stan, lugoj.

The conductor and composer Péter Eötvös was born here in 1944. To further information.

The composer and pianist Géza Frid was born here in 1904. He settled in the Netherlands in 1929, where he died in 1989.

House of the versatile composer Paul Constantinescu (1909-63). As distinct from Enescu, he didn’t strive after an international career; in all his music the Romanian roots are predominant, therefore he is very popular among his compatriots. He was born in Ploiești, where he spent his entire life; this museum is in one of his houses (1937-39).

This village in the Vaişca region is the homeland of a group of Gypsy musicians, Lâutari, becoming world famous since the 1990s as Taraf de Haïdouks.