Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Bra şov Series VIII: Art • Sport • Vol. 4 (53) No. 2 – 2011 EXPRESSIONIST TENDENCIES IN PAUL CONSTANTINESCU’S CREATION R. PEPELEA 1 Abstract : Expressionism (Balkanism, Orientalism) represents for Paul Constantinescu, a modality to express a folkloric background. Adapting this universal tendency to the autochthonous specificity and framing it within the Carpathian-Danubian space outline the so-called Balkanism or Orientalism. One of the features of this direction is the comic which, for Paul Constantinescu, depicts differentiated expressions: the humor, the grotesque, the transcendent comic (directed towards philosophical spheres), each nuance being musically underlain by certain procedures, detached from the sphere of the modal. The works inscribing in this direction stand for music with text, or, at least programmatic. Keywords: Paul Constantinescu, expressionism, comic direction, modal language. 1. Introduction orientation, the tendencies of artistically enhancing the attributes of the popular Adapting this universal direction to the chant may be doubled by a more lucid, autochthonous specificity and enhancing it more realistic perception modality. in the creation outline the second facet of The composer who instituted within the Romanian spirituality, beside the Romanian music, the autochthonous smothered feeling. Framing within the expressionist orientation, expression of the aesthetical limits specific to the Balkanic- humor, sarcasm, grotesque, is deemed to Danubian space, the denomination of be Mihail Jora. This orientation was taken Balkanity or Balkanism was conveyed to it over and carried on by his disciples: [1]. The specific category of aesthetic Constantin Silvestri, Dinu Lipatti, Paul Balkanism is the comic, as the artist’s Constantinescu. detached, observing attitude towards its own human condition. Most works 2. Facets of the comic in Paul inscribing within aesthetic Balkanism Constantinescu stand for music with text or, at least, based on a literary support or on a programmatic Considering the critical message of argument. The originality of these works Caragiale’s oeuvre to be of maximum mainly resides in the manner of sonorously actuality, the musicologist Clemansa appareling the literary text. Through this Liliana Firca perceives and records its 1 Transilvania University of Bra şov, Dept. of Musical Pedagogy. 70 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Bra şov. Series VIII • Vol. 4 (53) No. 2 - 2011 capacity to allow being “not only programmatic argument, are: humor, «discovered», but also acquired” [3]. There grotesque and transcendent comic. Each of is about creating an entire literary, musical, them, however, will illustrate personalized plastic vein, which, both for literature nuances, with slight shifts towards related (Filimon, Caragiale, Barbu, Urmuz, expressive spheres. Ionescu, Sorescu), and for music (Otescu, Mihalovici, Jora, Constantinescu), started, 2.1. Humor at the beginning of the 19 th century, from the same forerunner – Anton Pann. The There looms in the portrait sketch – Four source of inspiration merges with a certain Fables for Piano (1929-1932), the layer of folklore, town-like, strongly Arghezi-type miniature – Songs on lyrics colored by the Greek-Oriental influences by Tudor Arghezi (1929-1932), Mice of the time. Therefore, the creators having Round Dance on lyrics by Arghezi (1962), stylistically perpetuated this source were Songs on lyrics by D. Ciurezu (1935). framed by the researchers within the so- Pre-eminently cultivating this expressive called Orientalism . The musical sphere (mostly bent towards caricature and implications of this orientation can be irony than towards grotesque) likewise detected on the level of a melodic language pertains to Mihail Jora, as regards the inspired (or even quoted) from the vocal or miniature piano style, being obtained instrumental-fiddler’s town-like folklore: through special techniques of musical romance, fanfare music, funeral march scoring. The caricature style is the effect of motives, oriental-coloratura melodies or the musical contradictions, of the pertaining to the soft and entertainment mismatches generated by the false music following the epoch’s trends, relations, surprising scordaturas, accord musical portrayals, ostinato motor layers etc. Modal vision is, here, placed at rhythms, orchestration stridencies, tension the service of a clearly expressed of chromatic harmony. programmatism. If Jora, under the auspices As Cl. L. Firca notices, the aesthetics of of this aesthetics, also conceived musical the creations of this orientation is pre- works wherein the Romanian folkloric eminently achieved in the sphere of the element is, in general, absent – Joujoux caricature-like, comic-grotesque pour Ma Dame and Cortège (1925), some representations and, consequently, Pictures and Pranks (1948, 1959, 1963), musically manifests on the level of the we cannot say the same about Paul technical modalities [3]. In Paul Constantinescu. As far the latter is Constantinescu’s creation pertaining to this concerned, beside neoclassical tendencies, orientation, the comic embodies several the expressionism is a modality of nuances, each of them being musically expressing a folkloric basic fund. Fables underlain by certain procedures; detached for Piano, Songs for Voice and Piano have from the sphere of the modal, they a Romanian resonance, being constructed manifest themselves in the melodic, on a melody created in folkloric spirit. harmonic language (chromatic advanced), Deviating this melodic spirit towards the or polyphonic-linear (where poly- comic, humoristic factor is achieved modalism may be noticed as avant-garde through specific procedures: procedure). - Jamming formulas that create Consequently, the expressions that the disequilibria (scordaturas, comic embodies in Paul Constantinescu, in decomposition of the internal close correlation with the literary- R. PEPELEA : Expressionist Tendencies in Paul Constantinescu’s Creation 71 equilibrium of the accord, modal searches for equilibrium, also present in complementariness). the Romanian creation. One of the - Portrayals with musically specific materializations of this tendency consists procedures. in adding the ajoutées elements, meant to - Comical use of some attack color, to dissimulate, to refresh the basic manners. sonorities. Places above or beneath the The apparition of the scordatura in the basic layer, these elements often convey to melody, in contradiction with the static the accord, a percussive effect (ex. 3 – harmonic plan, may result in the false Fable nr.4 for Piano). relation, as it appears in the example Ex. 3: below, extracted from the Fable no.4 for Piano. Ex 1: We subscribe, here, to the remark uttered by the musicologist Gh. Firca: “What was Sometimes, its sudden apparition in the recognized in tonal harmony as melodic harmony results in almost instantaneously note, consequently as transient second changing the mood – a phenomenon between the functions of the accords, was pertaining to the world of childhood, treated as foreign from these accords. The characterized through psychological reverse is valuable for modal instability (ex. 2 – Mitzura’s Sleeping harmonization, [...] which proves, once Song). more, the determination from the melody Ex. 2: of the modal harmony.” [2]. The portrayals achieved with musically specific procedures resort to rhythmical- harmonic entities with pronounced characterological sense. For instance, the lied The Bugler (lyrics by Al. O. Teodoreanu) is constructed on the opposition of the two basic elements: the motive-signal (the bugler) versus the dancing figure (the princess). Ex. 4: Decomposing the internal equilibrium of the accord is one of the 20 th century’s 72 Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Bra şov. Series VIII • Vol. 4 (53) No. 2 - 2011 The special use of some attack elements, it appears in the “fashionable” melodies) as staccato , becomes, sometimes, a and the harmonic chromatics (modal or, musical pretext for illustrating the comic still, tonal). “This violent and spectacular (ex. 5 Mitzura’s Sleeping Song ). music succeeds, however, on the level of a Ex. 5 shocking aesthetics and under the appearance of some language «extravagancies» which troubled their contemporaries, to appropriate, as national art, an aesthetic and technical set of issues, at the same time European and modern” – Cl. L. Firca posits [3]. Among the means used by Paul Constantinescu to mockingly materialize his intentions, there is worth noticing the 2.2. Grotesque enhancement of the antiquated character of some melodic typologies: waltz, romance, It is present in the works From the Army chansonette. The composer proceeds to (1933) , the lied The Bugler (1955) , modifying (altering) the initial character of partially in Seven Songs from Our Lane these circulation melodies, through (1959) and especially in the parody A artifices from the arsenal of the musical Stormy Night (1934) . parody. Hence the mechanistic nature of In guise of musical transposition of a some musical clichés, particularized playwriting of the closed space, of a petty through standardized marches (detached, world, deprived of signification, deprived for instance, from Zi Ńa’s waltz of slum, of ideals, Paul Constantinescu’s grotesque- suggesting, through returns, the monotony oriented creation will resort to comic and the inertia of the petty-bourgeois social procedures within the scope of bantering; environment of the oeuvre A Stormy Night,