The Polyphony Between Image and Music in the Crafting of National Myths: Theodor Grigoriu’s Music for Dacii and Columna
The Polyphony Between Image and Music in the Crafting of National Myths: Theodor Grigoriu’s Music for Dacii and Columna

Summary/Abstract: A major focus in communist Romania in the 1960s was the construction of the so-called “national epic” using cultural and artistic tools. So what better theme could be found for an international super production than that of the forging of the Romanian people in the wars between the native Dacians and the invading Romans? I will present some musical highlights from Theodor Grigoriu’s scores for two of these blockbusters, Dacii (1967) and Columna (1968), to see how the sound contributes to the atmosphere of the film, in conjunction with the script (in both cases by Titus Popovici) and the direction (Sergiu Nicolaescu and Mircea Drăgan respectively). Grigoriu, who comes from a moderate modernist background in the context of Romanian post-war composition, has a great deal of experience working with Romanian cinema (some 25 film scores), which he also theorizes in interviews and essays. The composer’s voice in these two historical movies favors sparse and evocative interventions instead of large symphonic pages, maintaining a certain balance between dissonant modal language and suggestions from the realm of Romanian folklore.

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