Anatol Vieru was the first Romanian after World War II to receive an international composition prize, the Prix International Reine Marie-José, in 1962 for his First Cello Concerto.
Compositional Technique
Vieru's Symphony VI is a work of enormous dimensions, with its four movements each lasting a full hour in performance and representing a self-contained symphonic work.
Composer Biography
Anatol Vieru survived the Iași pogrom at age 15, one of the cruelest chapters of Romania's involvement in the Holocaust, where over 13,000 men were murdered.
Compositional Technique
In his symphonic writing, Vieru abandons the traditional unified instrumental gesture in favor of a simultaneity of contradictions, where musicians act together but do not articulate a uniform idea.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Vieru opposed the isolation of sound, viewing it as merely the surface of music, and instead focused on a well-conceived structure of objective quality.
Composer's Artistic Vision
Vieru conceived the image of exodus as an emblem of the turbulent 20th century, reflecting both mental and physical departures he observed around him.
Composition History
Anatol Vieru's Symphony VI, titled Exodus, was composed between 1988 and 1989, a period influenced by the atmosphere just before the collapse of Nicolae Ceaușescu's regime in Romania.
