Sunday, September 14, 2025 Bucharest and the Enescu Festival
Today was the event which precipitated this trip to
Romania, the concert at which Avner Dorman’s Tanyaderas was played in
the Romanian Athenaeum.
We slept late, had a late breakfast, and spent almost
three hours wandering Bucharest, especially the old city, where there is a vibrant
life of cafes, galleries and shops. The George
Enescu International Festival includes over 95 concerts and performances taking
place over about 29 days, and the concert by the Berlin Academy of American
Music began at 10:30 PM on this Sunday night.
Amazing. We had a dinner
reservation for 8 PM at a lovely restaurant about halfway between our hotel and
the Athenaeum, and as we were leaving a bit before 10:00, people were still
arriving to sit down.
We arrived at the venue a little after 10:00. At the entrance is a bust of Enescu:
The lobby is lovely:
The concert hall is round and has a capacity of about
800:
It is covered by a dome with incredible decoration:
The hall was about ¾ full (at 10:30 on a Sunday night),
and the concert was quite wonderful, with a Romanian violinist, Mihaela Martin,
playing the Barber Violin Concerto beautifully.
The Dorman Tanyaderas opened the second half of the concert, and
was very enthusiastically received by the audience.
The concert ended at about 12:40 AM on Monday morning,
after a rousing encore by the orchestra of the Bernstein Candide Overture,
and we went backstage to congratulate Garrett Keast, the conductor, before
taking an Uber back to the hotel.
Up Monday morning to travel, Kathy to England to visit
her sister and ailing brother-in-law, and Victor to Toronto via Warsaw.
So, that’s the end of this adventure in Romania. Thanks to all who sent notes and comments!
What a beautiful building and concert hall! I imagine the acoustics were good, given what looks like hard surfaces all around, and the circulate shape (like Royal Albert Hall in London). Very different from the usual shoebox shape that has been praised as ideal (in Leipzig and Boston), and often does work well. How wonderful that Dorman's piece pleased in a very different land! What devoted music lovers, to show up for a concert so late in the evening.....! It's I suppose like a jazz festival in that regard--one concert after another. And then presumably nothing the next morning, so players and listeners can recover. In general, I love having events at night, with people streaming down the sidewalks in the dark. We used to experience that in Brighton, after Fourth of July fireworks in the football field next to the high school. (In Madrid I experienced crowds on the sidewalk every night....) Anyway, thanks for sharing so generously your adventures with us!
ReplyDeleteWonderful posts. Thanks for sharing. Safe travels home. (And avoid those annoying Russian drones!)
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing, actually I found the attendance was better this time than it is often at the 4:30pm concerts. I just loved it when BAAM was checking into the hotel as they ran into other musicians from the London Phil, the Phil de Monte Carlo, the Danish National and many others. Incredible festival, thanks for joining us Victor! Avner is already asking for a recording!
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