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Constantin SILVESTRI (1913-1969)
Piano Suite Op. 3 No. 2 Children's Games
Hide and seek. Sleeping Doll. Clown. Slumber.
In Grandma's crinoline. Little Imp. The Bogeyman. Spinning Top.
Romanian-born Constantin Silvestri - conductor, composer and pianist - is best remembered
in Britain for elevating the Bournemouth Symphony into an orchestra of international repute
when he was its principal conductor from 1961 until his death in London aged 55 in 1969.
Born in Bucharest, he became a piano pupil of Professor Florica Musicescu in whose
class was also the legendary pianist Dinu Lipatti. While still at the conservatoire Silvestri
gained a reputation for his brilliant public improvisations. People flocked to his performances
where they would hand him themes, sometimes on scraps torn from newspapers, and he
would improvise in the style of famous classical and contemporary composers. George Enescu
attended one of these sessions and is said to have remarked to the young performer: "And
now, what about doing something in the style of Silvestri ?" In one day Silvestri is supposed
to have then composed two sonatas.
At 19 he is on record as stating: ‘My ultimate aim is the baton’ and at 27 he was
conducting the Bucharest Philharmonic in his own work, Prelude and Fugue (Toccata). After
becoming the philharmonic’s principal conductor in 1945 his reputation in Eastern Europe
soared. In 1953, Silvestri became artistic director of the Romanian National Opera and of the
National Radio Symphony Orchestra.
His ‘discovery’ by a Scottish music critic on a visit to Bucharest led to his UK début in
1957 with the London Philharmonic Orchestra and to many concerts and recording
engagements. Immediately afterwards, he left his homeland and for three years lived in
Paris. Here he won the Charles Cross Academy first prize for his recording of Dvorak’s
Symphony From the New World and the Grand Prix du Disque for Enescu’s Wind Dixtuor.
He conducted and recorded with the world’s finest orchestras. The ongoing reissues of
his superb recordings testify to his quality of sound and style which at that time were unique.
In 1967 he became a British citizen.
As a composer of some 40 works in pre-war Romania - before conducting absorbed all
his time - Constantin Silvestri was considered avant garde. As a student, he wrote in 1931
two piano suites, Children’s Games, as early experiments in harmony and polytonalism. He
dedicated them to the boy-Prince Michael who became King of Romania but was forced to
abdicate after the war and because of the dedication the new regime prohibited their public
performance.
In spite of their easy-sounding titles the suites are not written for beginners;
in fact, they present considerable difficulties of execution and interpretation and
the pianist must possess an advanced technique. They are based on Romanian folk
material and written in Bartokian style, with diatonic as well as intensely chromatic
tunes and bi-tonal chords. Some of the themes sound as if they were spontaneous,
almost accidental creations of his fingers on the keys while others are thoughtfully
worked out.
Charming miniatures and effectively descriptive, the pieces are evocative of
Romanian children’s way of life; for example, their fascination with Grandma’s
crinoline and secretly dressing-up in it: one can picture the dress moving right
and left as it would in a gavotte, and the child looking at herself in the mirror, both
thrilled and coquettishly delighted at her appearance.
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In the fast pieces, virtuoso-sounding patterns and effects - reminiscent of the
brilliance and vigorous rhythms of some Romanian folk dances - are achieved with
simple ideas such as: the five most elementary notes Do-Re-Mi-Fa-Sol played with
both hands in contrary motion (Hide and seek); staccatissimo bi-tonal chords and
quick ornaments (Clown); finger-passages switching rapidly from white keys to
black keys and ending in jumping chords (Little imp); parallel octaves and
syncopations (Bogeyman);broken octaves, broken chords, arpeggios and glissandi
(Spinning top).
The two slow pieces are beautifully atmospheric. Silvestri uses pedal points
and inverted pedal as well as indications of dolce, dolcissimo, tranquillo, calmo,
molto piano and ben pp (pianissimo), arriving - at the end of the Sleeping doll at
five ppppp! Whereas in Slumber the flow of the music meanders quietly, in
Sleeping doll it advances by the obsessive repetition of an upper octave,
simulating Maa-ma! Maa-ma! and depicting the unique sound heard at secluded
Romanian monasteries at sunset, when nuns announce the service tapping a small
wooden board in a specific secular rhythm.
Doyen of Romanian music critics Alfred Hoffman wrote about Silvestri’s
works in general: ‘What a passionate and fantastic musician he was, how skilfully
he handled instrumental timbres and ingeniously interwove them!’
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Silvestri’s only biography in English:A Musician before his Time by John Gritten,
with a foreward by Yehudi Menuhin, published by Kitzinger, ISBN 1-900496-12-7.
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