Grigoraș Dinicu

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Grigoraș Dinicu

Grigoraș Ionică Dinicu (Romanian:

Romanian Roma and was made honorary president of the "General Union of the Romanian Roma".[3]
Other well known compositions are: Hora mărțișorului (Mărțișor, literally "little March", is a major Romanian seasonal holiday on March 1), Ceasornicul (The Clock) and Căruța poștei (The Post Wagon).

Early life and education

He was born in

Vienna Conservatory
, but he was not allowed to go there because he was Romani, an episode that he never forgot.

Career

External audio
audio icon You may hear Grigoras Ionică Dinicu's Hora staccato as performed by Jascha Heifetz accompanied by the pianist Emanuel Bay in 1938 Here on archive.org

After graduation he played violin with the Orchestra of the Ministry of Public Instruction, and also performed as a soloist. Hora staccato dates from the beginning of this period; he wrote it as a graduation exercise. For forty years, from 1906 until 1946, he directed popular music concerts. He also toured abroad as a soloist and conductor, and he also played a great deal of light music in nightclubs, hotels, restaurants, and cafés in Bucharest and throughout Western Europe.

His music is mostly for violin and piano, though some pieces (such as Hora staccato) have later been arranged for other combinations of instruments (for example, trumpet and piano, as well as violin and orchestra and a popular arrangement by Russian mandolin virtuoso Dave Apollon).

He died in Bucharest on March 28, 1949, of laryngeal cancer.[4]

Miscellanea

The jazz manouche violinist Stéphane Grappelli was a great admirer of Dinicu and of the way that the violin was played in the lăutarească music.[5] A nice compilation of his violin artistry was issued by the Romanian state record company Electrecord EPE 01491 (LP) in the early 1960s. On it he may be heard playing his original version of Hora Staccato.

References

Further reading

External links