Music

This year's month of September was not only placed under the auspices of a late summer's sun but also under those of a music event of exceptional amplitude. Bucharest hosted for the 20th time the George Enescu Festival, a mega music event irradiating on the entire territory of Romania, due to tours taken by internationally acclaimed artists to many cities in the country.

Enescu did not write music with popularity potential, with the exception of his two rhapsodies. And yet, at the 20th edition and after an existence of 52 years – in spite the fact many believe that the festival is 20 years old only – the “Enescu” Festival became a social phenomenon.

Visiting one after the other the floors of the Haus der Musik in Vienna, I discovered new and new stories woven among the lives of composers whose fate was common at some point with that of Vienna. A museum telling the history of music so that it is attractive to young people who are more familiar or less familiar with classical music is something we lack in Romania at present.

Present for the third time consecutively at the “George Enescu” International Festival and for the second with Orchestre de Chambre de Laussane, pianist and conductor Christian Zacharias has become one of the representative participations in the festival, the most significant reference in the midnight series of concerts at the Romanian Athenaeum.

Let us randomly take one day from the beginning of the 20th edition in the “George Enescu” International Festival up to the day. Let's say, the 5th of September.

There's a common expression today (which has been around for more than fifty years) saying that an exceptional pianist no longer says much. Wanting to synthetically express a fact related to the large number of very valuable pianists, it is assumed that at least technically; this finding is confined to a type of quantitative assessment.

Alexandru Tomescu's fourth Stradivarius tour brought the largest number of spectators in the concert halls, with recitals resumed at the request of audiences in Iasi and Bucharest, and with unprecedented media promotion.

One of the most famous movies where classical music has a huge impact on a person is Pretty Woman (with Richard Gere and Julia Roberts), when Edward invites Vivian to the Opera, to see La traviata. The effect is overwhelming, due to both music and subject.

This story can be told both ways, because two rare musical events took place during the past 10 days: The Moscow Philharmonics was in Bucharest and the Bucharest Philharmonics was in Moscow.

Since Saturday, music goers may attend the 2011 edition of the most iportant festival of contemporary music: Săptămâna Internațională a Muzicii Noi - SIMN (The New Music Week), organized by the Romanian Composers Society.