The String Music of Iancu Dumitrescu: Reflections on Musical Phenomenology

Abstract

Romanian composer Iancu Dumitrescu began writing music in the late 1960s and early 1970s and has enjoyed a successful career in his home country, albeit one with limited exposure in the English-speaking world. The collapse of communism and the fall of the Romanian regime in 1989 sparked a new and revitalized era in Dumitrescu's career that has culminated in numerous features in prominent music magazines such as Musicworks and The Wire. Until now, however, there has been no serious analysis of Dumitrescu's music and his philosophically inspired techniques of composition.

Often described as a member of the Romanian spectral school alongside the likes of Horatiu Radulescu and Octavian Nemescu, Dumitrescu is also known for his interest in the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl. In this thesis I analyze two of Iancu Dumitrescu's chamber works for strings, Alternances (1&2) (1967) and Movemur et Sumus (3) (1977).