Serial and Aleatoric Music in the Discussion of “National and Universal” in Post-War Romania: The Solutions of Miriam Marbe and Dan Constantinescu
Serial and Aleatoric Music in the Discussion of “National and Universal” in Post-War Romania: The Solutions of Miriam Marbe and Dan Constantinescu

Summary/Abstract: I have often spoken and written about the Romanian post-war landscape, more precisely about the period between 1950 and 1989, which was strongly influenced by socialist realism, communist nationalism, but also by synchronisation with the Western avant-garde. Romanian composition took off like never before thanks to the musicians born around 1930, who gave birth to a unique generation of Romanian composition. Among them, the voices of Miriam Marbe and Dan Constantinescu make themselves felt with discretion and elegance in two already established directions of new music: serialism and aleatorism, both proposing new and convincing solutions to these techniques. In this paper, I will discuss how these two avant-garde composers, who grappled with the spirit of their times, used intelligence, tact and an inclusive culture to try to overcome the ideological ills of the regime in which they lived and wrote music. For them, openness to the universal, to themes that circulated beyond the Iron Curtain, was vital, because they knew that the sealing off of borders led to a provincial mentality that was completely alien to them.

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