Authors

Discussion

              After the 1848 Revolution, and especially in the period leading up to the First World War, there was a lot of debate in Romania about its ‘indigenous national music’. While there have been various studies on the actual works composed during this period, particularly on the composer George Enescu, there are very few studies on how the musical ideas surrounding the ‘national music’ developed.

This presentation will firstly examine how the musical environment in Transylvania, which was not integrated into the Romanian Principality, differed in the mid-19th century from that in Wallachia and Moldavia, which were included in the Principality. In other words, it is the difference in assumptions in Transylvania and Wallachia, Moldavia at the beginning of ‘Romanian national music’. Next, the paper looks at the development of musical thought in Transylvania and the United Principality (Wallachia and Moldavia), respectively, from the mid-19th century onwards. In addition, it examines the kind of musical thought exchange and interaction that existed between the two regions in the founding of ‘Romanian national music’.

However, when examining the founding process of ‘Romanian National Music’ from the above perspective, it is not enough to focus solely on the musical environment of each region and the musical ideas that emerged there. Naturally, the musical movements in the regions concerned are linked to national, political and social movements. In particular, Latinism and the Daco-Roman continuity theory in the Transylvanian school, the influence of Greek Catholicism, and the movement in Wallachia and Moldavia to deny Byzantine Easternness and position themselves in the ‘West’ cannot be ignored in relation to the Romanian national music movement at this period.

This presentation will also point out a historiographical perspective that has been overlooked in previous studies of Romanian music history. Traditionally, most studies of Romanian music history have been conducted within Romania. Furthermore, most of these studies were conducted in Romania during the Socialist Republic. In the last few years, there has been a movement within Romania to revise the assessment of ‘Romanian national music’ during the Socialist Republic, but there are still only a few published studies. This presentation will incorporate the latest research on the history of Romanian music and, at the same time, examine musical thought in ‘Romanian national music’ from the mid-19th century onwards, with national, religious, political and social movements in mind.