Dan Dediu (b. 1967) has a significant reputation as a contemporary composer in his native Romania, holding a professorial post at the National Music University in Bucharest. He has written many works in virtually every genre, several of which have been performed internationally. The discography of his works is comparatively thin, so for that reason alone Divine Art are to be congratulated on bringing some of Dediu’s compositions to a wider audience through this release on their Metier label. My first encounter with Dediu’s music was at a concert in Bucharest over 15 years ago. At the time, if I am really honest, I didn’t take to it as I found it somewhat impenetrable on a single hearing. However, I have long thought that Dediu would be a composer worth revisiting.
An introduction
to the recording is available on Youtube.
The works are
not presented in chronological order, but as Dediu’s voice is equally assured
across all the works, it’s not really a sense of development that this release
is aiming to convey. Rather, it’s that Dediu’s music plays with forms and
structures, often taking its starting points from disparate sources. Indeed, violinist Irina Muresanu’s booklet foreword
confirms this: “Dan Dediu is musical wizard who conjures styles and ideas from
different eras, moulding them into a cohesive musical discourse that is
unmistakably his own.”
The result is often
simultaneously arresting, earnest yet quirky and demands that any listener pay
it close attention. An initial play-through of this recording confirms that this
is not music to be approached lightly. Dediu’s own concise liner notes
helpfully introduce the listener to each of the four works on this disc, each
of which is a first recording.
Don Giovanni/Juan ‘SonatOpera’, Op. 53 (violin & piano) – Written in 1995 for Muresanu and Sandu-Dediu in two movements, it is intended as something larger than a standard duo sonata. Dediu hints at the almost operatic proportions of his ‘SonatOpera’ by calling the movements ‘Acts’. He fleetingly draws upon motivic elements from Mozart’s Don Giovanni and Strauss’ Don Juan within his compositional tableaux. Do not think that Dediu just moulds sources into a new structure, rather, he hints at his sources with sleight of hand in music that is entirely original. Just as you get even the slightest of grasps on what the sources might be, they are gone and Dediu has plunged headlong into the music’s next aspect. Both acts are dynamically varied and involving. Act 1 begins with a dramatic ‘overture’ before plunging through a sequence of linked expressive quasi-operatic episodes, of arias, recitatives and duets. The writing is fluid and possessing its own sense of momentum; this continues throughout Act II also. There is no mistaking the sweeping, virtuosic verve that both players imbue the music with, making a fully convincing case for it.
Sonata for solo violin, Op. 7 – Written in 1987, when Dediu was 19, is a work that keeps soloist and listener alike on their toes with the contrasts between the two movements and the many twists and turns that the composition takes. As in the other solo violin work included on this release – À la recherché de La Marseillaise de Stravinsky, Op. 134, written some 31 years later in 2008. The latter piece is another hybrid work: this time the tune of La Marseillaise as transcribed for solo violin by Stravinsky is given an imaginative contextual setting conceived by Dediu. Muresanu fearlessly meets the challenges posed within both works head on through a powerful technique tempered by her innate musicality.
The recording concludes with A Mythological Bestiary, scored for violin and piano in 2008 it was yet another work written for Muresanu. Comprising of musical portraits of six mythological beings drawn from European mythology – Griffin, Unicorn, Mandragora, Sphynx, Hippogriffin and Dragon – the composition encompasses a variety of styles, dramatic and inferences (or hints) towards the intended subject. As ever, Dediu’s writing can take sudden and subtle twists that amplify the portrait – the Sphinx’s riddle is portrayed through haunting, momentary shifts to the minor key. Impressive as Muresanu’s playing is, I find the pianism of Sandu-Dediu to be just as significant, her touch particularly in pianissimo passages is highly effective.
The recordings, made at the National University of Music in Bucharest, date from January 2014. Why it’s taken until now for them to be published is anyone’s guess, but better now than never. The recorded acoustic is relatively dry; Muresanu’s violin is forewardly placed against Sandu-Dediu’s piano in the duo pieces. There is no mistaking the dedication of both musicians in executing Dediu’s works and it is a testament to their longstanding professional association with the composer. So much so, that for the listener in search of new discoveries this release proves revealing of different aspects upon repeated listening. If you are feeling adventurous, why not give this a try.
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