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Dumitrescu, Iancu: Ansamblul Hyperion (Corbett vs. Dempsey)

Recorded in 1980 under Ceausescu's dictatorship, this groundbreaking document of Romanian avant-garde music features Iancu Dumitrescu conducting his Ansamblul Hyperion ensemble in radical works by Dumitrescu, Octavian Nemescu, Stefan Niculescu, and Corneliu Cezar, blending acousmatic philosophies, Balkan resonances, and electronic experimentation in an unprecedented exploration of sound and structure.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Mihai Tanasila-bassoon

George Georgescu-cello

Aurelian-Octav Popa-clarinet

Iancu Dumitrescu-conductor, percussion, piano

Stefan Thomasz-double bass

Voicu Vasinca-flute

Costin Petrescu-percussion

Alexander Graur-trombone

Mihai Sofonea-viola


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UPC: 759624575721

Label: Corbett vs. Dempsey
Catalog ID: CVSD115
Squidco Product Code: 35627

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2025
Country: USA
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1980, by Vladimir Plopeanu.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Recorded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1980 by Vladimir Plopeanu, Ansamblul Hyperion stands as a testament to artistic resilience during Ceausescu's ultra-repressive dictatorship. Composer Iancu Dumitrescu, one of the most iconoclastic figures in contemporary music, assembled this groundbreaking compilation featuring works by himself and his Romanian colleagues Octavian Nemescu, Stefan Niculescu, and Corneliu Cezar. Against all odds, Dumitrescu formed the chamber ensemble Ansamblul Hyperion in 1976, bringing together adventurous young musicians to explore radical new approaches to sound.

The album opens with Dumitrescu's "Movemur et Sumus" (1978), one of his most significant works, whose title translates from Latin as "move and exist." Centered around strings, the piece exemplifies Dumitrescu's acousmatic philosophy and phenomenological approach, penetrating the core of sound until it is entirely exposed. Nemescu's Combinatii In Cercuri (1965), composed for the ensemble, integrates an electronic component added in 1980, enhancing its circular structures with contemporary textures.

"Niculescu's Sincronie" (1979) features Dumitrescu himself on piano and conducting, guiding an ensemble of nine performers through a score that blends fixed elements with open improvisation. Anchored by a vibraphone core, the piece expands into an ecstatic meditation on stasis and motion. "Cezar's Rota" (1976) merges Romanian, Balkan, and Eastern melodic resonances with electronics and prepared instruments, incorporating natural soundscapes of wind, waves, and seagulls, evoking a sonic journey through diverse cultural landscapes.

Originally released in 1981 by Romania's state record company Electrecord, this historically charged document was previously available only within Romania. Now gorgeously remastered from the original tapes, the album appears with its original cover design, preserving the raw energy and innovative spirit of its first pressing."-Corbett vs. Dempsey


Artist Biographies

George Georgescu (September 12, 1887 - September 1, 1964) was a Romanian conductor. The moving force behind the Bucharest Philharmonic Orchestra for decades beginning shortly after World War I, a protégé of Artur Nikisch and a close associate of George Enescu, he received honors from the French and communist Romanian governments and lived to make recordings in the stereo era.

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Georgescu?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
2/24/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Iancu Dumitrescu is one of the leading personalities of contemporary music, embracing both composition and interpretation. He centers his work on the phenomenological principle, which Sergiu Celibidache made him to discover, and which Dumitrescu applies to the composition itself, and on the idea of acousmatics. Acousmatics represents for Dumitrescu not only " the art of disguising a sonic source " in a concrete approach, but the very metaphor of the sound, infinite, cryptical alchemy applied to the sound material.

Iancu Dumitrescu has born the 15th of July 1944 in Sibiu, Romania, son of Gheorghe T Dumitrescu (1904-1982), University Professor, philosopher and psychologist, author of numerous volumes, and of Maria Dumitrescu, a Mathematics teacher. Around four, probably in 1949 he witnesses the general search and arresting of his father with tragic consequences for the entire family. Three years of kept into custody without any awareness from the family, until the death of Stalin, with unforgettable consequences. 1950-1963: Elementary school and college. 964-1969. Musical studies at the Musical Academy in Bucharest. It was the first year after WW2 when admittance in high school happened without the censorship of the " political file of the family ". The vigilance however remained complete and its effects increasingly harmful. He later followed, beginning with 1978, systematic studies of conducting and musical phenomenology with Sergiu Celibidache. 1964 Depressing atmosphere, with serious political pressure, harassing, when modern art was denounced and condemned to disappear, as well as those frequenting it. However those young years are full of impetus, of challenge and even some unexpected artistic success. The encounter of few extraordinary colleagues, enthusiastic and talented opened the opportunity of a new and real stimulation. From 1966, for two decades he launches into a fervent musicological and journalistic activity, trying, under difficult conditions, to engage his writing through the construction of an axiological, selective dimension of the Romanian musical culture of that time. He writes permanent editorials for important cultural magazines and newspapers such as "Luceafarul", "România Literara", than Radio broadcastings, articles in "Scânteia tineretului", "România libera", "Saptamâna Culturala" etc.

In 1967 he is awarded with the Prize for journalism of the LUCEAFARUL magazine for his " originality and sharpness ". In the same dreadful period, by its harsh ideological limitations, its dogmatism and sclerosis the musicological interventions of Dumitrescu quickly attracted the attention of officials who were preparing to attack. But it was necessary to reject to any risk the cultural repression. Firstly by drawing attention to other aesthetic attitudes, other names, and the marginalized ones - against those became the taboos, the untouchables "skills" of the time. It was necessary to propose another professional ethics, a new elite, imposing a new generation of composers. Thus, disarticulating one week after another the Establishment of the time, he became the official choice of the attacks, controversies, and charges in the official press, but could not be silenced. The activity as a musicologist, composer and performer (conductor) intersects from the very beginning. Febrile period 1964-1970: the young student is attracted and finds himself in the avant-garde movements. He desperately looks for scores, recordings, unpublished, innovative ideas: Stravinsky, Bartok, Webern, Schoenberg, Berg, Stockhausen, Boulez, Berio, Nono, Cage, Lutoslawski, Penderecki ... Frenetic Revelation of the modernity. The avant-garde. The atonalism, dodecaphony, Stochastics, the Aleatorism. First systematic explorations in composition. The unique role of Professor A. Mendelssohn, who during an important meeting expressed as " from all his students having made ​​progress, only for Iancu Dumitrescu composition represents the very life! " 1967 to 1969. As still a student, he realizes his first original compositions invested with an opus number thereafter: Diachronies "(I-II-III-IV) for piano, published in 1970 by" Gerig Musikverlage " recorded by WDR-Köln, Radio Madrid, Radio Brussels etc.). "Metamorphoses" for solo clarinet and 'Alternances (I-II) "string quartet, works later recorded by Radio România and Radio France. First discoveries of the sound core, the natural harmonics, the microscopic approach of the sound world etc. The idea of ​​acousmatic. The Spectralism - ideas that will remains central in his composition since. First presence of his works at Radio France - Grand Auditorium. World Premiere of "Multiple" for three percussion groups. The work was engraved little after for CBS Harmonia Mundi.

1974 to 1976. Dumitrescu configures the Hyperion Ensemble, an artistic group of performers and composers who will occupy for 40 years, one of the most important and dynamic role in Romanian music 1978 - He received a Scholarship from Sergiu Celibidache in Germany, after examinations, repeated interviews and extensive theoretical discussions with the Master. Since June 1978, systematic studies of general and musical phenomenology, and also conducting at the University of Trier and Munich. Sergiu Celibidache became for him the Master has always sought, to whom he always relates. He since joined the Husserlian Phenomenology - perspective that has led to important theoretical crystallization and to fertile creative conclusions, re-placing in question the principles of academic composition, petrified and deprived - as we can easily see - of any genuine creative impulse. After extensive explorations, he finally foresees his own vision on sonic world he has pursued since. Thus, the essential concepts of "phenomenological reduction" and "pure intuition" became functional in composition. According to Dumitrescu, it is the first time phenomenology is utilized as a true method of composition, which re-poses in question essential concepts, nevertheless hidden at that time: inspiration, vision, creativity, imagination.

1991 - Inauguration of the EDITION MODERN CD Label in collaboration with "RER Megacorp" - London. Until 2011 26 CDs with the music of Iancu Dumitrescu and Ana-Maria AVRAM were released, and distributed in United States, Canada, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Italy, Austria, Japan, Brazil, South Africa, Korea.. . Iancu Dumitrescu is considered one of the leaders of the spectral music trend at a worldwide level. In 1976 he founded the HYPERION Ensemble, proposing a new aesthetic in today's music, hyper-spectral, based on the radiant power of sound, within its microcosmic complexity - which is questioned, analyzed, re-composed ​​from a spectral perspective. Dumitrescu is also Founder and Artistic Director of the International Music Festivals of Computer Assisted Music Acousmania, Musica Nova, Musica Viva and the International Spectral Music Festival SPECTRUM XXI - held annually in three European capitals. His creation counts more than 200 works, chamber music, electro acoustic, orchestral music, computer music, etc.

His work is edited by Salabert (Paris), Editura Musicala (Bucharest) Gerig Musikverlage-Schott-Schöne (Köln). The LPs and Cds of his music are published by Edition RZ (Berlin) Generation Unlimited (United States), Escargot-Harmonia Mundi (France), Electrecord (Bucharest), Artgallery (Paris), ReR Megacorp (London), Bananafish (Los Angeles) Edition Modern (London-Bucharest). The musicological contributions of Iancu Dumitrescu have concretized in numerous articles such as "Structure & Freedom" (London, Resonance magazine), "Writing: Iancu Dumitrescu" in "Revue et Corrgiée " , Grenoble, "Iancu Dumitrescu: On The Inside Looking In" (Bananafish, Los Angeles ) "In the land of ninth sky : Iancu Dumitrescu Ana-Maria Avram" (Musicworks, Toronto) and in the book "Iancu Dumitrescu, Acousmatic Provoker" (ReR Megacorp, London)."

-Spectral Music (http://www.spectralmusic.org/Iancudumitrescu/Biography.html)
2/24/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Movemur Et Sumus (II + V) 13:35

2. Combinatii In Cercuri 11:53

3. Sincronie 9:10

4. Rota 12:31

Related Categories of Interest:


Compositional Forms
Avant-Garde
Electro-Acoustic
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Large Ensembles
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