Dimitrie Cuclin (1885-1978)

[JollyRoger]

Dmitrie Cuclin symphonies ........ wonderful music EVERYONE SHOULD HEAR...
BEETHOVEN LIVES  IN 13 AND 16

[semloh]

A lot of Cuclin was posted in the downloads section, under the old remit (now archived), and much was subsequently loaded at the Art-Music Forum, but would you regard them as "romantic" works, according to the current UC definition? I think not.

[Alan Howe]

Cuclin clearly rejected all forms of musical avant-gardism:
http://www.icr.ro/bucharest/freaks-outlaws-25-2005/dimitrie-cuclin.html
Some of his music therefore fits quite comfortably within the stylistic framework of UC - as one might expect of a composer who held that music had come to an end with d'Indy at the beginning of the 20th century.
The issue for me is not necessarily Cuclin's style, but whether his music - with all its quasi-philosophical huffing and puffing - is really worth listening to. To me it all sounds very worthy, but the spark of true inspiration is missing.
There: that'll start a debate, no doubt...

[Mark Thomas]

Hmm, interesting. I ignored Cuclin the first time around and can't comment now as I have no time in the next few days when I can listen to music properly. Definitely a case of listen first and talk afterwards, but he does seem to have been a doggedly conservative character.

[Alan Howe]

The music's caught in a Schola Cantorum time-warp - absolutely no threat whatsoever. However, it's just dull, dull, dull...

[Mark Thomas]

Oh, we'll that's encouraging! 

[petershott@btinternet.com]

Doubtless the response of an unadventurous soul, but from what I've read there doesn't seem much here to make the heart skip a beat. Besides, if there is anything likely to firmly put me off a composer it is being told (in capitals) that Beethoven lives on.

[eschiss1]

Hrm. The fellow who sent me the tapes years ago was of an at least slightly different opinion, finding in each work by Cuclin he heard at least something very surprising (I think I can hear what he means, some of the things in the first movement of the 11th symphony, 2nd theme group, say), but while I enjoy and am taken with the music more than the growing consensus, that statement is not in itself an unusual recommendation

(I remain curious about that lengthy choral symphony- if only to first see some of it in ms or in synthesized sound, as has been done with another large choral symphony perhaps unlikely to be performed soon "live" with effects that I at least have liked very much...)

[eschiss1]

Haven't heard his first symphony, so couldn't comment on that one.

[Alan Howe]

Doubtless the response of an unadventurous soul, but from what I've read there doesn't seem much here to make the heart skip a beat. Besides, if there is anything likely to firmly put me off a composer it is being told (in capitals) that Beethoven lives on.

Personal slams are childish and unwanted here, but yes, I'm a stogy old fool, unadventurous and boring is exactly what I am about.  I suggest you should not listen to any more of Cuclin's music, cheap thrills are quite abundant to make your heart beat wildly...

This is all quite unnecessary. There was no 'personal slam' at all in Peter's post. And it is quite unwarranted to suggest that it might be a good idea to stop listening to Cuclin's rather dogged music and seek cheaper thrills elsewhere.

Let's pursue this debate without recourse to personal remarks; let's also not be surprised  - or offended - when someone disagrees with our opinion.

[Gauk]

I had a listen to No. 1. It's not well served by the performance: tempos are pulled about horribly, especially in the first movement, and the playing is rather insecure, particularly the brass. But beyond that, I do not get the impression of a composer in command of his material. The orchestration is frankly rather poor, and he doesn't seem able to develop his ideas organically. There is too much "here's an idea ... Oh and here's another one".

All the same, I'll try the later ones as well.

[eschiss1]

I still thought the earliest one we even _had_ was no.9 (1949, but the recording is -seriously- cut), preceded maybe by the piano concerto (1939, but maybe revised). We do have symphony no.11 of 1950, but there's no mistaking that for symphony no.1 of 1910 (which again I haven't heard, I admit .

The idioms would likely sound 40 years apart, at a guess. Even for Cuclin. Even Myaskovsky in 1950 sounds a lot different from Myaskovsky in 1908 (original version of his symphony 1, I think; some other works) (though in different ways than those in which other composers do!)

[semloh]

Well, to me, Cuclin is a mystery. Despite all the evidence of his intellectual and artistic ability, every time I listen to his symphonies I can't help thinking that he was devoid of any real musical creativity (like a chef who can only follow a recipe). Now that I need to explain! 

To me, his symphonies (I have listened to Nos.1, 9, 11, 13 and 16) sound as if he sat down and thought "now what shall I get the orchestra to do next? I know, I'll put in a Beethoven-like passage with lots of timpani and drama – we can let that run and repeat itself a few times; OK that's five mniutes done, now what next – ah some soulful strings in unison – OK that's another minute or two gone....ooh, now, I haven't had a plaintive flute passage yet so I'll do that next...." and so on, and on, and on. The result is that they sound like sound bites glued together, masquerading as whole works.

Perhaps not surprisingly, I'm not convinced that he is really a romantic. Rather, he uses and abuses the romantic idiom in order to create musical effects, and at times does the same with post-romantic idioms. Take, for example, the sweeping section for violins and violas in the middle of the first movement of the 13th symphony – heard in isolation it's attractive, conventional romanticism – but in the context of the symphony it's just another transient passage that has no relationship to the music which surrounds it; it disappears under a welter of fugue-like writing which suddenly stops for another dose of romantic writing led by the horns – which repeatedly stops equally suddenly in favour of more fugues; it goes nowhere and seems to serve no purpose. Later in mid-symphony there's an extended romantic section reminiscent of Walton's Shakespeare writing, it meanders along in the same vain for some time but suddenly (in a brief show of avant gardism ) the strings interject with some violence – but it's just another 'effect'. The final movement crashes along, "huffing and puffing", in quasi-Brahmsian finale mode.But it's all very superficial and meandering. These passages seem to me to say nothing but "listen, I can write passages like this! ... and this! ... and this!  You want a Brahmsian crescendo or some Beethovenian storminess  –well  listen to this!" To be brutal, for me the result is a rather childish pastiche, the romantic and post-romantic elements connected only insofar as they happen to appear in the same manuscript. Fortunately, I can't imagine what it would be like to sit through his 6-hour long 12th symphony!

Maybe his style in some of them is in part due to the expectations of the communist authorities in Romania, with which he had come into conflict. Nos 5-20 were all composed post-war, and the date given for his 13th coincides with his detention in a labour camp. It might be why his pre-war piano concerto is a different matter altogether. It's far less conventional  than his symphonies, unequivocally a twentieth century work, with extensive (and I imagine difficult) passages, often for piano alone, characterised by powerful, often unpredictable, rhythms, and repeated and extended dissonances. There are dabs of derivative romanticism here and there, but for me this is by far the most imaginative and effective work of Cuclin's that I've heard.

[Alan Howe]

It seems to me that there is far less to Cuclin than meets the eye.

[Gauk]

Semloh pretty well describes what I felt about the first symphony.