Cornel Țăranu

Biography

Early life and neoclassical debut

Țăranu was born in the Transylvanian city of Cluj (now Cluj-Napoca), and, into his thirties, represented the "Cluj outlook on music", with its blend of neoclassicism, national folklore, and modernist music. In 1998, Țăranu's colleague Ferenc László praised him as one of the few Transylvanian composers, whether Romanian or Hungarian, who chose not to leave their "rural" region for success abroad: "As a flexible mind, he succeeded in what few Transylvanians manage: while he lives in Cluj, his work travels around the world." He came from a musical family: "My parents were genuine aficionados, they frequented Cluj's musical milieu, my father played the violin and had a great ear for music. I began to study music at a very early age, then, in the most spontaneous way, I started to improvise, to work on my very own tiny essays in composition."

Țăranu studied at the local Conservatoire (later the Gheorghe Dima Academy) from 1951 to 1957—piano with Romeo Ghircoiașiu and composition with Sigismund Toduță. The latter is credited as Țăranu's first master by fellow composer Doru Popovici. Fifty years later, Țăranu noted that Toduță, as the son in law of the political prisoner Ioan Suciu, was especially fragile and cautious, for being easily blackmailed by the communist authorities. Lacking a "balance between sincerity and diplomacy", he publicly spoke of his teacher as the Romanian Brahms, unaware that such praise of the classics would make Toduță even more exposed to persecution. His other early mentors were professors Marțian Negrea, Eliza Ciolan, and Antonin Ciolan; the latter, a conductor, nurtured his talent—even though Țăranu did not yet take up conducting as a specialization. He ignored his piano studies and skipped class "whenever I could", mainly because piano and mandatory lessons of Marxism-Leninism left him little time to work on his musical scores. Popovici was present for Țăranu's debut as a composer, in spring 1955, with the Trio for violin, viola and cello. In a 1962 retrospective, he reports: "Though written down during his years as a student, the work carried the seal of authentic sensibility and had its lyrical content [...] concealed by a concise format, wherein melodies created in the folk style would blend into each other masterfully, evidencing his affinity with the polyphonic style."

According to Popovici, Țăranu's first works, including his arrangement of anti-war poems by Nicolae Labiș, came to be deeply influenced by Enescu and Béla Bartók. His and Toduță's works of the period, like Labiș's poems, were also indebted to Socialist Realism, as "songs for the masses"—including a "programmatic and descriptive" piece that Țăranu wrote for Liberation Day 1959. In 2006, Țăranu spoke of his non-publicized clashes with the Romanian Workers' Party (PMR) and its cultural dogma. As he notes, the troubles started in April 1957, when, as part of his academic assignments, he composed a piece based on Cetini negre, by the poet-philosopher Blaga. It was performed by the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra just days before Blaga was officially blacklisted by communist censors as a "mystical" poet, with Țăranu himself being kept under close watch, for alleged political deviation, until 1959. Țăranu, who was still on friendly terms with former members of the anti-communist Sibiu Literary Circle, also kept contacting Blaga. He offered to write an opera based on Blaga's Învierea, being unaware that the poem had already been scored by Blaga's own brother-in-law, Tiberiu Brediceanu. His faux-pas caused a conflict between Blaga and his wife Cornelia, both of whom shunned Țăranu.

Paris studies and Ars Nova

Țăranu studied music theory at the Conservatoire de Paris with Nadia Boulanger and Olivier Messiaen. The two figures disliked each other, but they also mutually resented Țăranu: among the Eastern Bloc students, Boulanger only appreciated the Poles, while Messiaen saw all Eastern Europeans as assets of the KGB. Țăranu eventually managed to obtain Messiaen's affection by showing him that he had learned Turangalîla-Symphonie by heart. Țăranu also attended the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1968, 1969 and 1972, studying analysis with György Ligeti, conducting with Bruno Maderna and percussion with Christoph Caskel. He completed his studies with a doctorate in 1969; his thesis about "Enescu in the consciousness of the present" was published in Romanian that year, and in French in 1981. According to László, the contribution also functions as "an excellent stylistic textbook".

Țăranu soon returned to his passion for literature. As noted in 2008 by Apostrof magazine, he "knows contemporary poetry as good as any literary historian, and loves it the way poets do". He still identified Blaga, alongside the modernist doyen Tristan Tzara (whose love poetry was adapted by Țăranu into five pieces of music) and 1960s poet Nichita Stănescu, as his most treasured mentor. He credited Stănescu, Ana Blandiana, Marin Sorescu and Cezar Baltag as his dear friends, who provided him with a sense that "something was moving" in Romanian art. Around that time, he translated Blaga's poem Întoarcere into French, which was republished in 2008 (according to the staff writers at Vatra, his version was "admirable"). His work as a composer focused on bridging music and literature, for instance with a series of lieds inspired by Blandiana's verse, first performed for the public in February 1969. In tandem, he contributed several interpretations of novels by his more senior friend, Camil Petrescu. He also scored lyrical fragments from Petrescu's Patul lui Procust, which fascinated him as "strange poems", and which were taken up by the Gulbenkian Orchestra at the Royan Festival of 1972.

On 20 June 1968, taking his inspiration from France's Domaine musical, Țăranu founded the Ars Nova chamber orchestra, that he directed and conducted—including during their first appearance at Toamna Muzicală Clujeană (TMC) festival in October of that year. In a 1969 conversation with Iosif Sava, he mentioned "the widespread echos that the youthful ensemble has stirred among the composers in both Cluj and Bucharest, who have stated their wish to provide a permanent stream of new works for [its] repertoire." As Vasiliu writes, the new institution carried significance for "the entirety of Romania's musical realm, given that Cluj's instrumentalists were frequently featured on the country's stages, recorded albums, distributed works of national provenance by means of international tours." Already in 1970, the group spent a week performing in London, including at Queen Elizabeth Hall. It was during this tour that their star singer, Hungarian Ágnes Kriza, was discovered by Gennady Rozhdestvensky, who helped her build an international career. Ars Nova and its conductor reportedly enjoyed resounding success at the Warsaw Autumn of 1973. In June 1981, Țăranu himself noted that Ars Nova's live performances had been recorded in London, Paris, Brussels, Mannheim, Zagreb, and Budapest.

Postmodernism and historicism

As Kováts notes, Țăranu's music had come to reject traditionalism during the early 1960s: like Olah and Anatol Vieru, "Cornel Țăranu completely renounced the old, tested—and quickly successful—creative methods. We have to say that his new work is neither catchy nor attractive, as much as it is modern and contemporary." As time progressed, he embraced postmodernism, for both score and philosophical themes. Experimentation was central to his 1970 opera, Secretul lui Don Giovanni ("Secret of Don Giovanni"), done from a libretto by Ilie Balea (with Tamás Deák credited as the intellectual source), and choreographed by Éva Maksay. The composition was subtitled "three lyrical sarcasms"; it ignored operatic conventions, using jazz and dance music as its standards. In a 1975 piece, done from Eminescu's "Ode in Ancient Meter" and recorded with baritone Ion Budoiu, Țăranu closely adhered to Enescu's standards—as argued by critic Radu Stancu, he was in succession to Œdipe. Similarly, the 1981 piece Prolegomenes II is written for the Enescu centennial, and is strongly influenced by his music.

Also in 1975, Ars Nova recorded his Tombeau de Verlaine, to a text by Stéphane Mallarmé, during a series of "debate-concerts" hosted by the Romanian Television; it was done for piano, percussion, and two female voices—Kriza and Edita Simion. According to Stan, it marked a peak in that collection: "very singable, very Latin, very well put together." The 1983 Cîntece nomade ("Nomad Songs"), which put to music Baltag's poetic work (and, through it, the staples of Romani folklore), is regarded by critic Virgil Mihaiu as stylistically undefined, an "open work" of "cultural synthesis". Mihaiu argued that it contained "ancestral echoes" filtered through Blaga's philosophy, but also hints to James Joyce's Finnegans Wake. Musicologist Zoltán Farkas sees Țăranu and Baltag as having created a new narrative genre (the "Gypsy opera"), but also notes that Cîntece nomade is at core a belated contribution to expressionist music.

Țăranu received the prize of the Romanian Composers' Union several times (1972, 1978, 1981, 1982 and 2001). His Ghirlande ("Garlands"), a work of children's music, was issued as an LP by Electrecord. It won him the Koussevitzky Prize for 1982; jury president Alfred Hoffman offered praise to Țăranu's "vigorous style" of "firm conviction, expressed in a lapidary, contemporary and yet specific manner". In 1984, art critic Oliv Mircea noted that Țăranu had moved away from the classical line with its "strong inserts from folk songs", and was one of the composers embracing "serialism, post-serialism, and aleatoricism", veering into electroacoustic music. Other Romanian innovators, cited by Mircea, included Glodeanu, Moldovan, Nicolae Brînduș, Adrian Enescu, Adrian Iorgulescu, Myriam Marbé, and Fred Popovici. In the four symphonies that he authored over three decades, and which were only published together in 2002, Țăranu adhered more strictly to the neoclassical canon, with subdued national influences. In a 1985 retrospective for Scînteia, Doru Popovici assessed that, like Olah, Vieru, Remus Georgescu and others, Țăranu had introduced "new means of expression" to the "songs for the masses"; these were positive examples, fitting the ideological mold of "Socialist Romania": "We require that songs for the masses have a lyrical content, that highlights the country's beauties, the spiritual bliss one gets from harmony with all of Earth's lovely creatures, the generosity of decent men, namely those who do not live merely for their personal satisfaction, but, first and foremost, for the advancement of society".

Old age

After the December 1989 Revolution toppled Romanian communism, and before the ethnic turmoil in Transylvania, Țăranu spoke out in support of peace with the Hungarian community—his January 1990 article in Szabadság called for a restoration of the Bolyai University as a regional Hungarian center of learning. He was receiving accolades for his work as an educator, and specifically for his contribution to fostering intercultural understanding. As noted by László, Țăranu was fluent in Hungarian (as well as English, French, German and Russian), and could establish permanent links with his students. These "did not have to suppress their Hungarianness in the class of a Romanian teacher, and Țăranu even support[ed] their affirmation." Reportedly, Țăranu was also the first person to advocate for the erection of a Christian cross on Cetățuia Hill—a previous such symbol had been destroyed by the communists in 1948. He wrote the music to another Mărgineanu film, Somewhere in the East, which premiered in 1991; based on a novel by Augustin Buzura, it told the story of communist crimes during the collectivization of agriculture. His wife Dana became involved with the effort to recover information about the communist imprisonment of civilians such as her father, joining the Cluj branch of Memoria Cultural Institute.

On 31 January 1990, the Union of Romanian Composers, affiliated with the National Salvation Front, elected Bentoiu as its leader, with Țăranu and Iorgulescu as his two vice presidents. Țăranu continued to serve as such for more than two decades. In May 1993, he and Ars Nova appeared at the Romanian Atheneum in Bucharest for the International Music Week. This concert was described as "fascinating" by composer Sorin Vulcu, who was impressed by the "consummate refinement" of Țăranu and his pupils in performing complex works by Herman and Octavian Nemescu. His Cîntece nomade was showcased by Ars Nova at the 1991 Contemporary Music Festival in Budapest—featuring performances by Anton Tauf, Geta Orlovschi, and Călin Forlea. In the mid-1990s, his works, including his Prolegomenes and his homages to Bartók, appeared on Hungarian–Romanian anthology CDs (one put out by the Cluj Academy, the other by Magyar Rádió). Also in 1993, Țăranu became a corresponding member of the Romanian Academy, and a full member in 2012. In 1995, he created a new festival in Cluj-Napoca, as Cluj Modern, thereafter serving as its art director. In 2002, Țăranu was named a Chevalier of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Alongside French poet Olivier Apert, Țăranu wrote an opera about the Orestes and Oedipus myths, titled Oreste-Oedipe and first performed by the Cluj Conservatory in January 2001; Țăranu was also the conductor, and Ars Nova the performing orchestra on its premiere. Scholar Ion Pop reviews Oreste-Oedipe as a postmodern work with a "difficult score", noting that it borrowed motifs from Enescu and from Greek musical folklore. Țăranu and Tauf reunited for a 2005 production of Blaga's Ivanca, by director Anca Bradu. From 2000, Țăranu's work on Strigoii was continued by Sabin Pautza, who provided an orchestral arrangement and published the completed piece in 2018. Țăranu himself continued to perform into his seventies and eighties. In 2008, Ars Nova celebrated its ruby jubilee with a concert at the Cluj Academy—described in Apostrof as the 40th year of Țăranu's "avant-garde music", or "extreme-contemporary music". In 2013, Țăranu completed the oratorio Lăutarul, which is based on parts of Camil Petrescu's Un om între oameni. In 2015, he appeared at events marking Petrescu's 120th birthday—on 9 April, he directed Petrescu-themed Ars Nova performance at the Art Museum of Cluj. In early October, Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra celebrated Țăranu by premiering Lăutarul; actor Cristian Hodrea appeared as Cezar Bolliac. Also featured were a capella pieces based on poems by Eminescu and Matei Călinescu.

Selected works

Alongside orchestral work, film scores, chamber music, and his two operas, Țăranu composed vocal works for soloists and choirs. In addition to Baltag, Blaga, Blandiana, Celan, Eminescu, Labiș and Tzara, his compositions used poems by, among others, Nichita Stănescu and Vladimir Streinu.

His compositions include: