Oldenburg, 24–26 October 2008 Download flyer and programme (PDF)
There are places where a multicultural world view is inevitable. They lie at the crossroads of the most diverse influences and thrive on the coexistence of contradictions. One such place is the capital of Transylvania, a city with four names: Cluj, Napoca, Kolosvar and Klausenburg.
Cluj’s culture has been shaped in equal measure by Romanians, Hungarians and Germans for centuries; it was in Cluj that the West and the East met.
This fusion of cultures also shapes the scholarly and artistic work of Sigismund Toduţa, who was born in Klausenburg in 1908. His compositional work navigates between extremes that could scarcely be further apart: the unpredictability of folk and church music passed down orally, and the strict rules of the European Baroque. Toduţa combined musical elements from different eras and worlds, thereby founding the Cluj School of Composition. He combined archaic forms with chromatic soundscapes, Byzantine and Catholic church chant with polyphonic structures and neoclassical ideas, and, by integrating these components, created a synthesis of his own. As a musicologist, he devoted himself to the study of both the Romanian musical tradition and German Baroque music, and in the 1970s published a study of over 1,200 pages on ‘The Musical Forms of the Baroque in the Works of J.S. Bach’ (Formele muzicale ale Barocului în operele lui J.S. Bach). Through his ongoing teaching work in Cluj – a contribution comparable only to that of Mihail Jora in Bucharest – Toduţa also made an extraordinary contribution to a European culture that is only now gradually coming together. His pupil Hans-Peter Türk writes: ‘
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“Even at first glance at his work, it is striking that he uses the fundamental elements of the European musical tradition to create contrasts in pieces that appear as a succession of independent images… Added to this is a constant dialogue between national and universal music.”

Cluj has never abandoned its multicultural worldview, not even during the difficult years of socialism. Even as part of the EU, the city of Cluj has remained a place of cultural diversity. Sigismund Toduţa, who would have celebrated his 100th birthday this year, was its representative in the fields of composition and musicology.

To mark the start of the symposium, an evening featuring Cornel Ţaranu will take place on Friday 24 October as part of the ‘Music of Our Time’ composers’ colloquium at the University of Oldenburg. This will be followed by a performance by musicians from Romania of works by Ţaranu and his teacher Toduţa. Following the symposium on Saturday 25 October, a round-table discussion is scheduled for the following Sunday morning. 24 October 2008, 6.00–8.00 pm
Concert-talk with Cornel Ţaranu
University of Oldenburg, Chamber Music Hall (A11) 25 October 2008, 09:00–18:00
Symposium
Federal Institute for the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe 26 October 2008
Round Table
Federal Institute for the Culture and History of Germans in Eastern Europe

contact

Prof. Violeta Dinescu ()
Jörg Siepermann ()