Marti

Editor's Note - The Unsuspected Charm Of Confession

Is a diary sometimes tantamount to confession and, if so, is it, most often, a sincere one? Is it also a means of self-liberation? The most delightful diaries, although usually set off by outside shocks, by major events or dramatic situations, reveal above all the confidential

Christine Bastin - Interview, 1991

A complex cultural program begins this month in Bucharest: La danse en voyage, organized by France for Romania. Six contemporary dance companies from France will come monthly to Bucharest, Iaşi, Timişoara, Cluj and Constanţa. Mrs. Christine Bastin, you are the first choreographer

Marin Boeru

Once upon a time, the Choreography High School in Cluj was renowned for the quality of the dancers who graduated there, as if in Transylvania there were more handsome, gifted boys than elsewhere. For once, in 1973, the Bucharest Opera opened its doors to an exceptional generation

To Vote Or Not To Vote

Discussing the character of a nation is as complicated as describing a species of insects from prehistoric times. How can one enumerate its features? How can one analyze its morphology? How can one categorize its behavior? Any large-scale analysis will in fact reduce the

In The Mountains Of Transylvania

excerpt The authentic, unaltered Romanian population is to be found especially in the mountains of Transylvania. These vigorous mountain people, so beautiful in their lively colored national costumes, are very interesting in the eyes of those who want to study the customs

Dialogue With Composer Theodor Grigoriu About Ionel Perlea

Mihaela Marinescu: Did you know maestro Ionel Perlea before visiting him in New York in 1967?Theodor Grigoriu: No, I didn't, he had left the country a long time before. He was a legend to my generation, like Enescu, like Lipatti. Before my trip to the United States

The Conductor

The Romanian realm has given great creating spirits to the world, in all fields of activity: philosophers, historians, sociologists, scientists that made epoch-making discoveries, inventors, writers (poets, prose writers, and dramatists), brilliant musicians, painters, and

A Hero Without His Right Wing

Far from his country, across the ocean, in 1957, while he conducted Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in New York, conductor Ionel Perlea had a heart attack. He had the courage and most of all the strength to go on conducting until he finished the Ode to Joy, after which he

The Romanian School Of Conductors

It is no secret to anyone that in Romania every person who has a good voice and musical talent has sung at least once, in his or her youth, in a choir. People say about Banat, the western region on the boundary with Hungary and Yugoslavia that it is the land of choirs, because

Modernity Without Avant-Garde: B. Fundoianu (Benjamin Fondane)

excerptsFondane's interest in the psychological mechanisms of illusion did not come from a strictly neutral or intellectual curiosity. Deeper resources of his personality contributed, and his poetry is testimony to that. As a general rule, only the disillusioned are

Preface To Benjamin Fundoianu, Images And Books

excerpts Having begun when he was seventeen or even earlier, B. Fundoianu's activity as a publicist impresses by its intensity and diversity. Simultaneous and assiduous collaborator to many magazines, the author doesn't seem to have the prejudice of specialization:

B. Fondane's Exile Or Journey To The Centre

excerptsFondane's departure was the result of a personal choice, decision made in absolute freedom, without any pressure from the outside. And, because he was Jewish, we must add that his departure was not triggered by an anti-Semitic gesture against him or by any anti-Semitic