"One of the most important orchestras in Europe". This is how a Spanish newspaper described the Romanian Radio-Television Orchestra after a concert when it opened the 1993 Santander festival, an international get-together "rounded off" this year by the Scala Orchestra under the baton of Riccardo Muti. This was not a complacent assertion but one expressing a deep truth, which we all corroborated in mid 1993 after a few concerts of the National Radio Orchestra.Horia Andreescu was appointed director of the Radio-Television formations in 1992. He managed – at a time when the RT orchestra underwent considerable changes (triggered by the replacement of a generation of instrumentalists) – to revive, and modernize the Bucharest ensemble. With a great experience acquired in the organization and management of the Ploiesti and Bucharest Philharmonics, in collaboration with great German formations, Horia Andreescu brought over Conservatory graduates, make spectacular changes, and ran rehearsals with an iron fist. He enriched the repertory, being constantly preoccupied with the organization of events bound to rivet the attention of the public, and to gain access to international contests. The representatives of musical inertia stood in his way, trying to cramp his style. Happily, Horia Andreescu is too talented, and not at all drawn by plushy posts. By the new formula of the Orchestra, and also by its concerts and recordings, Horia Andreescu emerges as one of the most brilliant musician-radiomen that we have had over the Radio's 65 years of life.Born in Brasov, on October 16, 1946, he began to study the piano as a child (he was a colleague of C. Mandeal), and was a student of Constantin Bugeanu and S. Niculescu, at the Bucharest Conservatory. He went for special studies to Vienna with H. Swarovki, taking the international classes of Celibidache, and on a brilliant study trip to the United States. A laureate of important conducting contests (Copenhagen, Geneva) he approached a wide range of works (from Bach to contemporary Romanian creators), and conducted orchestras in big artistic centers of the world (from Lisbon to Paris, from Berlin to Vienna), also recording an important number of CDs (with the Bucharest Philharmonic, the Radio Orchestra, the Dutch Chamber Orchestra, Collegium Musicum of Copenhagen, the Radio Orchestras of Berlin and Leipzig). He organized for Romania one of the best chamber formations – Virtuozii – based on the all-star criterion. Horia Andreescu is cherished and admired everywhere for the depth of his concepts, his style, stamina, elegance, and capacity to communicate his versions. Horia Andreescu is now at the height of his career, the test period at the helm of the Radio-Television formations having been passed with flying colors. I am persuaded that the history of artistic life will put down his name among the most outstanding and most efficient radiomen of the time.
Panoramic TRTV, 4, no 44, November 1, 1993
by Iosif Sava
