Dimitrie Cuclin
Dimitrie Cuclin (April 5 [O.S. March 24] 1885 – February 7, 1978)[1] was a Romanian classical music composer, musicologist, philosopher, translator, and writer.
Biography
Early life
Dimitrie Cuclin was born in the city of
Studentship
The young composer applied first at the Conservatory (1903), where he was rejected for being above the age limit, and then at the Royal Academy of Music (1904), where he was accepted at the section of Theory and Harmony. After three years of studentship in Bucharest, Cuclin obtained a scholarship for Paris. He failed to get into the Conservatory (he was not a brilliant violin player, although he was an acceptable one), but he was admitted at
Professorship
Once back in Romania, he was mobilised during the
Retirement
At the beginning of the
Awards and distinctions
- 1913 - The First Prize for Composition at the First Edition of the International Festival "George Enescu" from Bucharest
- 1934 - The Prize of the Romanian Academy for the Treatise of Musical Aesthetics
- 1939 - The National Prize for Composition
- 1955 - The State Prize
- 1969 - The Order "Meritul Cultural"
- 1978 - The Great Prize of the Union of the Composers from Romania
Music
Cuclin created a symphonic corpus containing 20 symphonies, and he was a representative of the monumental in symphonic writing. Some of his symphonies last the length of a whole symphonic concert (the twelfth, which is the longest, lasts 6 hours).
Operas:
- Soria (1911)
- Ad majorem feminae gloriam (1915)
- Trajan and Dochia (1921)
- Agamemnon (1922)
- Bellerophon (1925)
- Meleagridele (1958)
Symphonies:
- Symphony no. 1 (1910)
- Symphony no. 2 (1938)
- Symphony no. 3 (1942)
- Symphony no. 4 (1944)
- Symphony no. 5 (1947) with soloists & chorus
- Symphony no. 6 (1948)
- Symphony no. 7 (1948)
- Symphony no. 8 (1948)
- Symphony no. 9 (1949)
- Symphony no. 10 (1949) with chorus
- Symphony no. 11 (1950)
- Symphony no. 12 (1951) with soloists & chorus,[3]
- Symphony no. 13 (1951)
- Symphony no. 14 (1952)
- Symphony no. 15 (1954)
- Symphony no. 16 (1959) Triumph of Peace
- Symphony no. 17 (1965)
- Symphony no. 18 (1967)
- Symphony no. 19 (1971)
- Symphony no. 20 (1972) Triumph of the Peoples Union
Concertos:
- Violin Concerto (1920)
- Piano Concerto (1939)
- Clarinet Concerto (1968)
Other works:
- Romanian Dances for Orchestra (1961)
- Tragedy in the forest (1962), ballet
He is also the author of 3 string quartets & numerous other chamber, piano pieces, sacred choruses & songs. In addition to these, Cuclin composed sonatas, madrigals, melodies of folkloric inspiration, etc. A detailed list of his works & bibliography is contained in Viorel Cosma's "Muzicieni romani" (Bucharest 1970).
As a composer, Cuclin is an exponent of the French school, following the line of
Literature
Cuclin wrote a lot of poetry, of which only a small part is published, and was also a translator of poetry.
Original works
Cuclin wrote in Romanian, English, and French. His literary works comprise theater plays, opera librettos, and poems. Among his published volumes, the following are the most important:
- Destinée mystique. Poésies diverses, Bucarest : Imprimeries Independența, 1919 (in French)
- Poems, Bucharest, Tiparul Oltenia, year unknown (in English)
- Doinas and Sonnets, Bucharest, Tiparul Oltenia, 1932 (in Romanian)
- Sofonisba: Versified Tragedy in One Prologue and Three Acts, Bucharest, Tipografia Presa, 1945
Cuclin's poetry follows the antebellic paradigm of the
Translations
As a translator, Cuclin made himself remarked by his translation of Eminescu's poems in English: Poems, Bucharest, I.E.Toroutiu, 1938.
He translated also from
Philosophy
Works
Cuclin had a permanent preoccupation for metaphysics all his life and he wrote several versions of a work called A Treatise of the Metaphysics. The earliest such treatise that is available in manuscript is entitled La théorie de l’immortalité (1931), and an abridged version in Romanian, realised by Cuclin himself, was published only in 1990. The latest integral version of a Traité de la métaphysique dates from the ’50, most probably after Cuclin’s release from the labour camp. There are indications that Cuclin wrote at least four versions of the treatise, in French and Romanian, but those could not be found, as they are buried in the private collections.
This last book-length treatise has two subtitles, namely, “A theory of nothingness” and “Towards a new aspect of Marxism”. Cuclin had the naivety to think that the official Marxism could incorporate his philosophy. We have several published compressed versions of his metaphysical system, some being to his disciples which noted them after a lecture or oral exposition of the master, and one being written by Cuclin himself (in Cuclin 1986), thus more reliable .
Other published works with philosophical content are Musique: science, art et philosophie (Cuclin 1934), in the documents of the Eighth International Congress of Philosophy from Prague and his innovatory Treatise of Musical Aesthetics (Cuclin 1933). The first part of this treatise is a partial exposition of his metaphysical vision, the foundation of his aesthetics.
Ideas
General overview
The system of Cuclin is a form of
Concept of metaphysics
Cuclin's explications concerning the title of his Traité de la métaphysique are of great value for the understanding of his vision. Thus, we have “a treatise” and not “the treatise”, because metaphysics can be exposed in many treatises; and we have “of the metaphysics”, and not “of metaphysics”, because there is but one “metaphysics”. “The metaphysics” is, in fact, more like “the metaphysical realm” for Cuclin, or the domain of the transcendence. Thus, he proposed to produce one of the possible surveys of this domain.
Method of metaphysics
The method of Cuclin is the logical enquiry, followed up to an absurdity, or violent contradiction. The contradiction is the sign of reaching the truth, because the truth is found in logical reasoning, not in reason. An absurdity is the sign that the reason does not agree with the results of the logical reasoning, but is not a sign of unreality or falseness. Rather the opposite is true, that the point of view of the reason is unreliable and many times false. With this almost
But firstly we will note another methodological aspect of Cuclin's metaphysics, namely the contribution of the “
Categories
His central category is that of essence, which constitutes the ultimate ontological ground. Equated by Cuclin with the pure
Cosmology
The process of degradation that commences with the pure essence and ends with the pure substance is called by Cuclin “the separation of essence”. In this process of separation are generated diverse entities which are a mixture of substance and essence, where one of these aspects is prevalent. Actually, every extant thing is a mixture of essence and substance in different proportions. The first element into which the essence separates is the magnetism (or
Artistic creation and immortality
The human being is a culmination of the substantialisation of the essence; from here the reverted process can begin, that of the re-essentialisation of the substance. The first process, the separation of the essence or its substantialisation, was also called analysis. The process of the re-essentialistion of the substance is called synthesis. Through this synthetic process which is the human creation, the re-essentialised substance can be transposed as a magnetic double in a great harmonic system, which is the image of the pure essence, regarded as re-essentialised substance. Thus, the essence stand in front of itself and, with the help of the human creation, takes consciousness of itself. This implies an ethics of creation and a theory of immortality. Through his creations the man constitutes a magnetic double of his personality, which is integrated in the great harmonic system which is the Essence. Thus, by contributing through creation to the becoming self-conscious of the Essence, the man becomes also immortal.
Influence
Although isolated from the community of the philosophers, Cuclin had private disciples which assimilated his philosophy (e.g. Ion Bârsan). One of his students, Alexandru Bogza, wrote in solitude a philosophical system, called "the critical realism" (no connection with the homonymous American philosophical movement), published posthumously. This system bears the traces of a certain Cuclinian influence (Cuclin is quoted several times by Bogza), but the depth of this influence is yet to be assessed.
References
- ^ "Dimitrie Cuclin". www.icr.ro. Retrieved 2021-12-26.
- ^ "MusicSack". Retrieved April 15, 2013.
- OCLC 757617767.
Works by Cuclin
- (1933) Treatise of Musical Aesthetics (in Romanian), Bucharest, Tipografia Oltenia
- (1934) Musique : science, art et philosophie (in French), paper delivered at the Eighth International Congress of Philosophy from Prague
- (1983) A Polemical History of Music (in Romanian), Iași, Junimea
- (1990) The Theory of immortality (in Romanian), Galați, Porto Franco
Secondary literature
General
- Bârsan, Ion (1995) Conversations with Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), Galați, Porto Franco
- Bârsan, Ion (1997) „Dimitrie Cuclin – Landmarks of his Biography and Creation” (in Romanian), Revista de etnografie și folclor, nr. 5-6
- Istratty, Ella and Smântânescu, Dan (1985) Conversations with Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), Bucharest, Editura muzicală
- Moldovan, Nicolae (2001) Dimitrie Cuclin. The Man, the Thinker, and the Composer (in Romanian), Galați, Alma
Musicological
- Brâncuși, Cristian (2006) The Musical Aesthetics in the View of Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), Bucharest, Editura Universității Naționale de Muzică
- Ticulescu, I. (1933) Dimitrie Cuclin – Critical Study on his Life and Works (in Romanian), Bucharest
- Tomescu, Vasile (1956) The Creative Path of Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), București, Editura muzicală
Philosophical
- Matei, Dumitru (1985) “Some Observations concerning Dimitrie Cuclin's Metaphysics: the Theory of Existence” (in Romanian), Revista de filozofie, nr. 6
- Matei, Dumitru (1986a) “The Cuclinian Theory of Man” (in Romanian), Revista de filozofie, nr. 5
- Matei, Dumitru (1986b) “Dimitrie Cuclin on Immortality” (in Romanian), Revista de filozofie, nr. 6
- Rusu, Bogdan (2002) “An Outline of Dimitrie Cuclin's Metaphysics” (in Romanian), Eidos, nr. 2
- Surdu, Aexandru (2002) “Dimitrie Cuclin's Urge for Philosophy” (in Romanian), in Confluențe Cultural-filosofice, București, Paideia
- Tănase, Al. “An Original Philosophical and Aesthetical System of Music” (in Romanian), foreword to Istratty and Ștefănescu (1985)