Oldenburg, 24 - 26 October 2008 Download flyer and programme (PDF)
There are places where a multicultural world view is unavoidable. They are located at the focal point 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 Cluj-Napoca.
For centuries, Cluj's culture has been equally characterised by Romanians, Hungarians and Germans; the Occident and the Orient have met in Cluj.
This fusion of cultures also characterises the academic and artistic work of Sigismund Toduţa, who was born in Cluj-Napoca in 1908. His compositional work takes place between extremes that could hardly be further apart: the unpredictability of orally transmitted folk and church music and the rigour of the European Baroque. Toduţa combined the musical elements of different times and worlds and thus founded the Klausenburg school of composition. He combined archaic formulas with chromatic soundscapes, Byzantine and Catholic church chant with polyphonic structures and neoclassical ideas and created his own synthesis by integrating these components. As a musicologist, he studied both the Romanian musical tradition and German Baroque music and in the 1970s published a study of over 1200 pages on "Die musikalischen Formen des Barock in den Werken J.S. Bachs" (Formele muzicale ale Barocului în operele lui J.S. Bach). Through his constant pedagogical activity in Cluj - work that can only be compared to that of Mihail Jora in Bucharest - Toduţa also made an extraordinary contribution to a European culture that is only now gradually growing together. His student Hans-Peter Türk writes:

"Even at first glance at his work, it is noticeable that he uses the basic components of the European musical tradition to create contrasts in pieces that seem like a sequence of independent images... In addition, there is a constant dialogue between national and universal music."

Cluj-Napoca has never given up its multicultural world view, 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 as a composer and musicologist.

The symposium will kick off on Friday 24 October with an evening by and with Cornel Ţaranu as part of the composer colloquium "Music of Our Time" at the University of Oldenburg. Afterwards, musicians from Romania will perform works by Ţaranu and his teacher Toduţa. After the symposium on Saturday 25 October, a round table discussion will take place on the following Sunday morning. 24.10.2008 18:00-20:00
Conversation concert with Cornel Ţaranu
University of Oldenburg, Chamber Music Hall (A11) 25.10.2008 09:00-18:00
Symposium
Federal Institute for Culture and Historyof the Germansin Eastern Europe 26.10.2008
Round Table
Federal Institute for Culture and History of the Germans in Eastern Europe

Contact

Prof. Violeta Dinescu
Jörg Siepermann)