Dimitrie Cuclin (1885-1978)

[Alan Howe]

Rejection of the avant-garde doesn't necessarily make a composer suitable for discussion here, I'm afraid. Cuclin's PC, for example, would be beyond our remit...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jKX_9Xjp8es
...as well as being unrelentingly turgid!

So, before further discussion of his music is proposed, attention needs to be paid to date of composition and style, taking into account UC's stated remit - which we ask contributors to read carefully before posting:
http://www.unsungcomposers.com/forum/index.php/topic,3681.0.html

By the way: there has been a thread dedicated to Cuclin, so I'm merging the two...

[semloh]

Cuclin definitely had talent, though, Alan.
His music is ideal for accompanying television advertisements. 

[eschiss1]

Indeed. Some of those YT recordings may have been first posted over here.

[UnsungMasterpieces]

Guess I overlooked the old topic then.
I understand that perhaps his later works might not fall within this remit.

Interestlingly, yesterday I discovered a list of his works. I'll put it up here for analysis (it's in Romanian, but it's not always that hard to translate though.)
http://crispedia.ro/dimitrie-cuclin/

[Alan Howe]

Unfortunately McAfee tells me it's a risky site to visit - so beware!

[UnsungMasterpieces]

Just noticed that my Norton says the same, but it's not like I'm going to give passwords or things like that. It's probably because it's a Romanian website. Maybe they're not that advanced in secure internet connections as we are in this matter, but don't quote me on this.
Still, the list is quite interesting, as we can conclude he dedicated his 11th symphony to Mozart, and that the manuscript of his 12th symphony is 1235 pages, as mentioned earlier. He's composed a LOT of music, considering he was also a philosopher, poet, writer, etc.. And his 15th symphony is apparently a reworking of his Violin Concerto?
It's very interesting to browse it through.

[Alan Howe]

How much music had he written by, say, 1918?

[UnsungMasterpieces]

Around 1918, he's composed circa 25 pieces. He began composing his 1st symphony in 1910, but finished it in 1932, and around 1938 he started his career as a symphonic composer.

[Alan Howe]

Thanks. What did he write in his early years if not symphonies?

[UnsungMasterpieces]

By 1918, he had composed the following:

1903 - Theme & Variations (for piano)
1907 - Nitokris (Overture for Orchestra)
1907 - Semănători (for mixed choir)
1907 - Rodica (for mixed choir)
1907 - Villanelle (for violin & piano)
1908 - Prelude for Orchestra
1908 - Primăvara (madrigal-rondo for mixed choir)
1909 - Piano Sonata no. 1 (and 3 versions of the Allegro movement)
1910(-32) - Symphony no. 1
1910 - Lied-Scherzo for piano
1911 - Soria (opera-madrigal in 5 acts, with the libretto written by Cuclin himself)
1911 - Suite no. 2 for piano
1913 - String Quartet no. 1
1913-14 - Three Old Sonnets and an Epigram (for voice & piano)
1914 - Small Poem for Voice & Orchestra (with French text by Cuclin himself)
1914 - Minuet-Scherzo for String Quartet
1915 - Ad majorem feminae gloriam ('Spectacol Tragic' in 2 acts and a prologue, with libretto by Cuclin himself)
1916 - 12 Madrigals for Choir in popular style
1917 - '7 Doine din război' (for voice & piano)
1917 - Melodies on texts by Al. T. Stamatiad (for voice & piano)
1917 - Parlenza (for voice & piano, on texts by Ion Minulescu)
1918 - Suite no. 1 for violin
1918(-22) - Suite no. 2 for violin

[Alan Howe]

Thanks. Has any of this been recorded, apart from the 1st Symphony?

[eschiss1]

Yes. To recapitulate discussions that have probably been forgotten, there were LPs, some of which were uploaded -here- in days when this site allowed LP-uploading, of his 11th symphony in A-flat minor (1952) and I think his 16th in F major too among others (including his 3rd string quartet- not uploaded here), and a very cut radio broadcast of his C-sharp minor 9th symphony was uploaded here too. I had tapes of symphonies 9 & 11 from a friend which struck me very positively, and then got to hear the concerto and several other symphonies uploaded here (before this site became Unsung Romantic-ish Composers)*. They do often seem Myaskovsky-ish to me, but not consistently enough to pass the strictest new standard of this site (and of course neither does Myaskovsky himself, who had the bad sense to be an actual honest-to-goodness composer and not a self-caricature, so that some of his music is disallowed here too, poor fellow, tsk!)

*The friend pointed out some moments in both the 9th and 11th symphonies that were really surprising- the 2nd subject of the first movement of the 11th symphony, and its odd syncopated "wrong" conclusion, among them...

(ah, by "this" you meant the list of works composed before 1918. No clue. Fails the innocent ear test, but ... otherwise put, use the ear, not the eye. His violin sonatina from 1923(?) has been recorded, making it one of his earliest works after his first symphony to do so; it's post-1918 but one can try to track down that and give a listen at least.

[UnsungMasterpieces]

Yes, I am also aware of the existence of a recording of his Violin Sonatina released on LP (from 1970.)
I haven't managed to track it down though.

But what I have found is a pdf file (in Romanian) in which his view of musical esthetics is discussed.
http://www.cristianbrancusi.ro/images/ESTETICA%20MUZICALA%20IN%20VIZIUNEA%20LUI%20DIMITRIE%20CUCLIN.pdf

It mentions that his symphonies (at least the first 14) have 'spiritual trails'?

The following passage was originally in Romanian and I've put in Google Translate, and I've tried to fix grammatical errors in it:

Symphony no. 2 (Voice of Gentiles), nos. 3 and 5 form the "essential" universe, and the 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 11th and 13th evoke the "substantial" dimension.
The 5th symphony is also called "Birth" as it makes the transition between sub-cycles.
The opposite is Symphony No. 10, "Death," for the twelfth to be destined "Resurrection".
Symphony no. 11 is dedicated to Mozart and Symphony no. 13 is "the Church".
The 6th, 7th, 8th, and especially the 9th symphonies are based essentially on folk elements, and are categorized as "Pastoral."
Symphony no. 1 opens, and Symphony no. 14 ends the immense vault, completed later thanks to a huge creative force.

[Alan Howe]

You both misunderstood me (I think). I meant: Has any of his pre-1918 music been recorded, apart from Symphony No.1?

[UnsungMasterpieces]

Forgot to mention it I guess. No, nothing else of that era has been recorded.