Corneliu Cezar

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Corneliu Cezar in 1980. Photo by Petru Toader

Corneliu Cezar (b. December 22, 1937 , Bucharest - d. February 13, 1997, Bucharest) was a Romanian composer. Along with other well known Romanian composers and intellectuals with whom he shared cultural, philosophical and political tendencies, such as Octavian Nemescu, Tiberiu Olah, Ștefan Niculescu, Aurel Stroe, Anatol Vieru, Dumitru Capoianu, Pascal Bentoiu, Theodor Grigoriu and Lucian Mețianu ^[1], he was an important representative of Postmodernist Romanian music. ^[1] He was also important in the development of Romanian Spectralism. ^[2][4][5]

Biography

Corneliu Cezar in 1983. Photo by Petru Toader

Corneliu Cezar started his musical studies at the Music High School no. 1 from Bucharest (1951-1957), with Cella Delavrancea (piano) and Viorel Cosma (music history), among others, continuing them at the Bucharest Conservatory (1957-1962) with Victor Iușceanu (theory-solfeggio), Marțian Negrea and Mihail Jora (composition), Alfred Mendelsohn and Anatol Vieru (orchestration), Gheorghe Dumitrescu (harmony). ^[6]. He was the Musical Secretary of the Romanian Opera in Bucharest during the 1963-1966 period. He was a member of the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania, a piano teacher at the Art High School in Bucharest (since 1966) and, in his last years of life, professor at the Bucharest Academy of Theater and Film. He has given lectures, concerts/lectures, and hosted radio shows, and published articles in specialized magazines and publications of the time (Music, Spark, etc.). He became Doctor of Musicology in 1996, with his doctoral dissertation "Treatise on Sonology - Towards a Hermeneutics of Music" ^[7] being published posthumously by Anastasia Publishing House in 2003, in the collection "Exceptional Doctorates". He was married between 1964-1978 to the choreographer Adina Cezar. He had three children, the result of two marriages (Yvonne, Emanuel and Sorina).

"In 1965 the first studio of electronic music in Romania was born. It was imperfect. Corneliu Cezar was the first one there, he was a fascinating, complex and universal personality. He was a composer, poet, painter, astrologer, a kind of Romanian Jean Cocteau. He made the first electronic Romanian song; it was called "Aum". He was one of the pioneers of the music avant-garde from Romania." -Octavian Nemescu

Distinctions

• Composers' Union Prize (1984)

Books

• Introduction to Sonology, The action of sound waves on the physico-chemical, biological and psychological levels; Music Publishing House 1984
• Treatise on Sonology - Towards a Hermeneutics of Music, Bucharest, 2003 Anastasia Publishing House, Exceptional Doctorates collection.

Selected works

Cornelius Caesar in 1979. Photo by Petru Toader

* Stage music, opera: Galileo Galilei (op, 1, after Bertlot Brecht ) Bucharest Opera 16 Dec 1964; Youth without old age 1975 directed by Cătălina Buzoianu ^[8] , Pinocchio (1983), musical theater for children, in two acts (libretto by Corneliu Cezar after A. Collodi ^[9] ;) Marioneta senza sfori (1985), opera in two acts, the libretto by Cornelius Caesar.

• Choral Music: Cant. I: Baritone, choir and orchestra, 1960; Cant. II: Baritone, choir and orchestra, 1961; Circuits: Baritone, choir and orchestra, 1961; Cant. III: Baritone, choir and orchestra, 1965; Flames and Wheels: Choral Suite ^[3]
• Vocal solo: Aphorism, Blue Fountains, Flints, Dream 1961; My house, The feeling of time, Beautiful night, Bar 1963; Alpha Lyrae 1983
• Orchestra: Chronicle-1964; AUM, 1965; Taaora : Polynesian text, clarinet, orchestra, magnetic stripe - 1968; Endless Day: orchestra, magnetic stripe - 1972; Rota -1977 ^[10]
• Film music: Seasons (1963) - director Savel Stiopul ; Our Bread (1967) - director Gabriel Barta; Too small for such a big war (1969) - director Radu Gabrea. Madrigal in the UNESCO Constellation (2013) with the choral suite "Flames and Wheels" (in presentation of Sighișoara Fortress, Prejmer Fortress and Voroneț Monastery) - director Laurențiu Damian
• Others: The Prague Clock (Nazim Hikmet text) 1968; Golem (text by H. Leivik) 1968; Storm (Ostrovsky text) 1971; Pantonime year 1971; Nathan the Wise (GELessing text) 1973; Pericles (text W.Shakespeare) 1973; Hieroglyphic History (text by Dimitrie Cantemir) 1973; Zamolxes (text by Lucian Blaga) in 1974; Cornada (text by Alfonso Sastre) in 1973; The discovery of Romania (text by Adrian Păunescu-1974); Man, keep asking questions (text Ada D'Albon) 1977; Aristofan, The Frogs (radio theater) - director Cristian Munteanu ^{[11] [12]}

Notes

1. http://cimro.ro/corneliu-cezar/
2. http://nemescu.ro/ro/biografie.php
3. http://sorinadavid.wordpress.com/2011/12/26/flacari-si-roti/

References

• http://books.google.ro/books?id=h3KFtgAACAAJ&dq=Corneliu+Cezar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=niZIVIPGDOTgywPn9YCoCg&redir_esc=y
• http://books.google.ro/books?id=PdALGwAACAAJ&dq=Corneliu+Cezar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=niZIVIPGDOTgywPn9YCoCg&redir_esc=y
• http://books.google.ro/books?id=qU_TPgAACAAJ&dq=Corneliu+Cezar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=niZIVIPGDOTgywPn9YCoCg&redir_esc=y
• http://books.google.ro/books?id=j0gcEPkzKGIC&pg=PA474&dq=Corneliu+Cezar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=niZIVIPGDOTgywPn9YCoCg&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=Corneliu%20Cezar&f=false
• http://books.google.ro/books?id=mDpLAAAAYAAJ&q=Corneliu+Cezar&dq=Corneliu+Cezar&hl=en&sa=X&ei=niZIVIPGDOTgywPn9YCoCg&redir_esc=y
• MGG, Music in Past and Present, General Encyclopedia of Music, Supplement, Editura Bärenreiter, Kassel, Basel, Londra, New York, Praga, ISBN 978-3-7618-1139-9 ; Editura Metzler, Stuttgart, Weimar, ISBN 978-3-476-41033-7 ; 2008

External links

• Recordings of Corneliu Cezar's music, on the website of the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania (mp3 format)
• The modern radical of Prof. univ. Dr. Valentina Sandu-Dediu
• Ideological accents 1977-1989 Prof. univ. Dr. Valentina Sandu-Dediu
• The Guardian - Stewart Lee: "Well, like many people, Johnson included, I should imagine, say the word Romania to me, and I think instantly of Stefan Niculescu, Octavian Nemescu and Corneliu Cezar."

Text adapted from the Romanian Wikipedia