Vlad Văidean | National University of Music Bucharest (original) (raw)

ENESCIANA by Vlad Văidean

Album of the George Enescu International Competition, 2024

Tangențe și intersecții. România și Germania în dialog componistic, 2024

Until his old age, whenever he was invited to define his own compositional style, George Enescu l... more Until his old age, whenever he was invited to define his own compositional style, George Enescu liked to portray himself as a modest apprentice at the school of the classical masters. He did not even hesitate to diminish his own creative merits and to declare at one point that „a combination of Wagner’s and Brahms’ influence” had „deeply imbued” him not only as a „flagrant manner” during his adolescence, but that it persists „even today” in his mature works.

Of course, read through the lens of the most overpowering aesthetic demand – originality resulting from the anti-romantic rebellion – which reigned in the music of the first half of the 20th century, such preferences, quite blatantly assumed, have a rather disorienting, if not downplaying, effect. One can, however, speak of a hidden radicalism, inherent in Enescu’s style, which consists precisely in the specific interaction that he brought about through this affective assimilation, at first, of the standard of the classical-romantic tradition, according to whose criteria (which he never abolished) not only did he subsequently take over, at the Parisian school, all the enrichments, nuances and „updates”, but he also gradually became aware of the conditioning produced by the folkloric identity. Thus, from the interaction of these great stylistic-cultural layers, a game of contradictions resulted (the quasi-obsessive aspiration towards the dialectical musical movement – an aspiration of academic origin, learned through Viennese schooling – versus the predilection for contemplative dwelling, for the paradoxical fullness of the movement on the spot, a predilection which in fact imposes itself as an intimate conformation of the Enescian temperament), as well as a high level of complexity, comparable to that achieved (but of a completely different semantic charge) in atonal-dodecaphonic music.

Musicology Today: Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest, Volume 14, Issue 1(53), 2023

Noi istorii ale muzicilor românești, vol. I (ed. II), 2023

Muzica, nr. 8, 2023

Short voyage into the aesthetics of Enescian lyricism I plead for interpreting the idiom of “Ene... more Short voyage into the aesthetics of Enescian lyricism

I plead for interpreting the idiom of “Enescianism” in a trans-stylistic key, that is, through the prism of a “constellation” of aesthetic categories – memory, reverie, “dor” (longing), evening and/or nocturnal pastoral, the sound of bells – that imprint a unique, typical Enescian model on the sense of musical time and space. They form a “constellation” because they never appear in isolation, but call upon and enhance each other. And the most conducive to the emergence of this “constellation” are the slow parts or sections in Enescu’s music.

Album of the George Enescu International Festival, 2023

Revista Festivalului George Enescu, nr. 1, 2023

Short essay about some of George Enescu's lesser known works (i.e. youth works, or mature unfinis... more Short essay about some of George Enescu's lesser known works (i.e. youth works, or mature unfinished works, without opus number, which were discovered and completed by other composers posthumously).

Muzica, 2023

Into the world of Enescu’s piano music, with Raluca Știrbăț The recent publication of her 2014 P... more Into the world of Enescu’s piano music, with Raluca Știrbăț

The recent publication of her 2014 PhD thesis (as ''George Enescu – Creația pentru pian'', Editura Muzicală, Bucharest, 2022) is but the most recent achievement in what, for the pianist Raluca Știrbăț, seems to have meant an attempt to knowing, highlighting and even salvaging the George Enescu’s heritage from all angles and with all possible means. This is because the book can be seen as part of an impressively laborious and extensive research, including also an important 3-CD album of George Enescu’s complete works for solo piano (2015), the first volume of a new edition of Enescu’s piano works (2016), the coordination of the German translation of Pascal Bentoiu’s ''Capodopere enesciene'', the main Enescian exegesis (2015), and the years-long administrative efforts for the restauration of the house of Enescu’s mother in Mihăileni (inaugurated in 2021).

The book is remarkable for its numerous documentary recalibrations and rectifying or even innovative analytical propositions, all having a declared practical purpose, aiming towards a better comprehension of the performance-related act. Știrbăț even has at times a polemical dialogue with long-time-established approaches or conclusions in the Enescian literature, demonstrating an erudite familiarity with an immense (for many, intimidating) knowledge. Thus, her book acquires a well-established place in the tradition of Enescu specialists; it both possesses the virtues of the shaping landmark and constitutes a starting point, one which all equivalent endeavour, be it musicological or performance-related, will need to take into account.

Album of the George Enescu International Competition, 2022

Musicology Today. Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest, 2021

In a controversial interview in 1912, George Enescu – already the author of the emblems of sonoro... more In a controversial interview in 1912, George Enescu – already the author of the emblems of sonorous “Romanianness”, the Romanian Poem and the Romanian Rhapsodies – disarmed with the naive sincerity with which he admitted his inability to distinguish, in all the myriad foreign influences that he himself identified as predominant in many areas of traditional Romanian music, the element of “specifically national” authenticity. “What is Romanian and what is not Romanian? It’s so hard for me to say…” – such a nebulous positioning, precisely from one already elevated to the rank of national composer, caused a stir at the time. It was, however, only the first of a long series of interviews in which Enescu was questioned on the same burning issue; the answers he gave over the years eventually came to convey some favourite terms, considered defining of Romanian sensibility: “sadness even in joy”, “this uncertain but deeply moving longing”, “that inexpressible nostalgia”, “the weeping string”, “a strange melancholy”. He has also attempted some explications of the concrete ways in which this ineffable yearning is reflected in Romanian traditional music. In fact, by expressing his extremely general and subjective opinions about Romanian traditional music, Enescu shed an additional and decisive light on his own music. The enescian exegesis has repeatedly reiterated the centrality of the ethos of dor in George Enescu’s Romanian works, i.e. the Romanian version of that affective binomial – melancholy and nostalgia – which has been embodied in versions that are just as “specifically national” and untranslatable in the self-consciousness of any other nation (Sehnsucht and Heimweh in the German version, spleen and maladie du pays in French, añoranza in Spanish, saudade in Portuguese, etc.). The present paper aims to briefly revisit the more or less clichéd ways in which Enescu’s creation has been linked to this ethos.

Musicology Today. Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest, 2021

For the Romanian post-war composition, Enescu’s music has long been a reference point: rediscover... more For the Romanian post-war composition, Enescu’s music has long been a reference point: rediscovered with much emotion and admiration in the light of the late first Romanian auditions of his last works, the profile of the national composer proved to be not only a propaganda symbol manipulated by the communist state, but also a real creative ferment, particularly fertile at least for that “golden” generation (which is why it is also called the “post-Enescu” generation) of composers who came to the fore at the end of the 1950s. Thoroughly theorised on an analytical level and variously continued on a creative level, the most specific features of the Enescian style – the melodism of tonal-modal synthesis, the parlando rubato type of rhythm, the technique of continuous micro-variation and, above all, the heterophonic syntax – have come to guide the understanding of the “Romanian specific” in music.

The Enescian model has not ceased to inspire even beyond the members of that generation, a fact that is amply proved by the oeuvre of Doina Rotaru, who rose to fame in the 1980: its unmistakable character could be explained partly as a possible instance of how Enescian lyricism would have sounded, had it been detached from the matrix of Classical-Romantic tradition, and transplanted instead in the pastel-coloured tissue of extended instrumental techniques specific to the avant-gardist musical idiom. Of course, this is only one of the components of her personal style. It is, however, much valued and assumed by the composer, sometimes even in the form of symbolic references to Enescian quotations, as is the case at the very end of one of Doina Rotaru’s most recent work – the concerto for violin and orchestra Himere [Chimeras].

Booklet of George Enescu Festival, 2021

Noi istorii ale muzicii românești, vol. I, 2020

Album of the George Enescu International Festival, 2019

Papers by Vlad Văidean

Noi istorii ale muzicilor românești, vol. I (ed. II), 2023

Noi istorii ale muzicii românești, vol. I , 2020

A Tribute to György Ligeti in His Native Transylvania Nos. 1-2, 2020

It has been demonstrated that the boundary between speech and music can be very fragile. For exam... more It has been demonstrated that the boundary between speech and music can be very fragile. For example, a renowned experiment led in 1995 by the psychologist Diana Deutsch found that speech can be heard as song, without transforming its sound structure in any way, or by integrating it in any musical context, but simply by identically repeating a spoken phrase several times over. Of course, it can be identified as a strong tradition of western music in which composers like Monteverdi, Mussorgsky or Janáček struggled to elaborate the melodic content of their vocal music on the intonational contour and rhythm of ordinary speech. But it can be said that, benefiting from technological means to which the aforementioned composers didn’t have access, Steve Reich was the one who concretized in the most direct manner the ideal of speech melody targeted by his predecessors. Namely, the efficacy and the elemental power of musicalisation possessed by the repetitive process was first grasped by Reich through the experimenting with pre-recorded speaking voices and through manipulating the speed of those tape recordings, for example in It’s Gonna Rain from 1965 and Come Out composed in 1966. After he transferred, developed and refined in his instrumental music from the 1970’s the minimalist technique of gradual and audible process found in the tape loop pieces, Reich regained his interest in the capacity of speech to generate melody and rhythm, composing a rich series of works (Different Trains, The Cave, City Life, Three Tales, WTC 9/11) in which he did not just incorporate musically suggestive fragments of recorded voices, but also structured the entire musical discourse according to the musical qualities of the spoken phrases. Furthermore, he uses the speech melody not only as a skillful technique, but especially in order to imbue his works with emotional power, making them similar to artistic documentaries, capable of finding meaning in the tragedies of history and in the religious, political or scientific controversies.

Muzica, 2020

Positioned at the initial and also at the final extremity of the musical phenomenon, silence cont... more Positioned at the initial and also at the final extremity of the musical phenomenon, silence contributes to the demarcation of musical works out of their natural environment, giving them distinct identity and aesthetic autonomy. No way one may say that this is merely a conventional or even ornamental element; on the contrary, the silence is an intrinsic part in the definition of a work of art, in a way that it produces their de-fin(AL)ing, it gives them steadiness and finite character. Furthermore, if one considers silence from the audience’s perspective it becomes obvious that the silence that frames classical music performance is the one responsible with the transition from the passive and daily “to hear” up to the active and ritualized “to listen”. I have analyzed, from this perspective, the two sides of the silent frame: the one in the front, that precedes the beginning of the music is characterized through an intense psychological tension, vibrating at the listeners’ expectations, and the one in the back that seals the music, is emptied dry by any expectation, vibrating instead with the spiritual essence of the recently ended music. There are mentions of some particular cases of musical works that well out and slowly dissolve in silence, therefore they internalize symbolic silence at the beginning and at the end of the music, turning it into an active and creative element.

Album of the George Enescu International Competition, 2024

Tangențe și intersecții. România și Germania în dialog componistic, 2024

Musicology Today: Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest, Volume 14, Issue 1(53), 2023

Noi istorii ale muzicilor românești, vol. I (ed. II), 2023

Muzica, nr. 8, 2023

Short voyage into the aesthetics of Enescian lyricism I plead for interpreting the idiom of “Ene... more Short voyage into the aesthetics of Enescian lyricism

Album of the George Enescu International Festival, 2023

Revista Festivalului George Enescu, nr. 1, 2023

Muzica, 2023

Into the world of Enescu’s piano music, with Raluca Știrbăț The recent publication of her 2014 P... more Into the world of Enescu’s piano music, with Raluca Știrbăț

Album of the George Enescu International Competition, 2022

Musicology Today. Journal of the National University of Music Bucharest, 2021

Booklet of George Enescu Festival, 2021

Noi istorii ale muzicii românești, vol. I, 2020

Album of the George Enescu International Festival, 2019

Noi istorii ale muzicilor românești, vol. I (ed. II), 2023

Noi istorii ale muzicii românești, vol. I , 2020

A Tribute to György Ligeti in His Native Transylvania Nos. 1-2, 2020

Muzica, 2020

Muzica, 2019

This study aims to illustrate the discrepancies between Cage's aesthetical and philosophical clai... more This study aims to illustrate the discrepancies between Cage's aesthetical and philosophical claims and theirs actual artistic materialization. In this respect, the notorious 4 minutes and 33 seconds are described as the culminating stage of Cage's desire to erase the boundaries between art and nature. More precisely, it is shown that the “silent piece” can be understood as an abolition of two socio-cultural paradigms in whose logic has come to function the music of Western civilization: formalism (which isolate the ideality of artworks from the commonplace of the everyday world) and intentionalism (which gives sovereignty to the creator's subjective individuality). At the same time, it is shown that, precisely in order to be able to question these two paradigms in an aesthetical manner, Cage was nevertheless forced to satisfy the minimal aesthetic requirements imposed by a third paradigm – that of institutionalism. Namely, Cage abandoned the organization of sounds, bu not controlling the people. Traditional artistic content is missing, but not the gesture of framing the absence of such content.

Tiberiu Olah, Liviu Glodeanu_Schițe de portret, 2018

Claude Debussy is probably the first modern composer who emphasized silence as an active element,... more Claude Debussy is probably the first modern composer who emphasized silence as an active element, of meaning and value, in his music. What specific meaning and value, however, is far from clear. It has even been said that precisely the imprecision and enigmatic character are the most typical traits of the semantic behaviour of debussyste musical silence. For example, we can distinguish the speculative breath of the interpretations proposed by Vladimir Jankélévitch and Lydia Goehr; both treat the debussyst musical silence as an ideal mean for evoking a certain sense of mystery. On the one hand, L. Goehr considers this sense of mystery belonging to a typical symbolist tendency: that of creating works of art which evokes more than they can express, thus referring to a type of intangible transcendence, capable of opening a generous imaginative space for endless interpretation. On the other hand, the French philosopher believes that the inner musicality of silence in Debussy’s creation does not in any way signify the intention of representing some occult reality, but precisely the reality of the existing world as it is. In other words, Debussy’s music succeds in evoking the supreme mystery of existence, namely its instantaneity and transience, the amazing and deeply inexplicable fact that there is something rather than nothing.

Musicology Today, 2013

The present paper was awarded with the first prize at The National Musicology Competition of the ... more The present paper was awarded with the first prize at The National Musicology Competition of the "Dinu Lipatti" Festival (Bucharest, 2013). Following the requirements of the contest (the comparison between three different performances of the same piece – Frédéric Chopin's Waltz op. 69 no. 2, played by Alfred Cortot, Dinu Lipatti and Arthur Rubinstein), the author gradually came to observe a broader perspective. First of all, the performances painted three different "personas" of Chopin: the romantic, the classic and the aristocrat, the latter being the perfect melting pot of the first two. Then, the chronological order of these performances made way for an assumption of a possible evolutional chronology of the emotional aspect in playing Chopin. Above all, the presence of a crystal-clear objectiveness of the subjective side in musical performance (and interpretation in general) turned out as an indisputable element. This leaves us without the possibility to decide about a hierarchy of value among the three pianists, or to pinpoint the special and objective character of the ideal Chopin player. Finally, the same objective subjectiveness is decided to be the single existing element able to "excuse" the insufficiency of every remark, in the mirror-illusions of the composer-performer-audience-reviewer relations.