Aspects related to the interconnection between music and the human brain. Scientific discoveries and contemporary challenges

A new scientific discipline, neuromusicology, connects the scientific research of music and that of the nervous system, in particular of the brain. It studies the effects of music on the brain; the present paper relates to this particular field. Initially, the right hemisphere was associated with the process of music reception and it was considered that the activation of the left hemisphere was the responsibility of language. Neuroimaging, however, demonstrates that the elements of musical language activate various brain areas in both hemispheres, simultaneously generating the perception of music and emotions. Research in the field of psychoacoustics has revealed that listening to music triggers the production of neurotransmitters in the body that relieve pain, reduce stress and anxiety. Another effect determined by listening and studying music is the structural changes that occur at brain level due to brain neuroplasticity. Pathological changes at brain level have consequences in perception and influence all human activities. Disease alters the artistic creativity of people suffering from various pathologies, biographies of many artists proving that neurological diseases influenced their artistic activity. Decoding the functioning of the brain in the presence of music and its effects on brain activity make it possible to use music therapy as a complementary method to medical treatment. The harmful effects of the current Covid-19 pandemic on the brain are obvious and are already reported in completed or ongoing research studies. The adoption of music as a therapeutic tool in the current global epidemiological crisis highlights its undeniable qualities in multiple pathologies and updates its mental and somatic benefits, complementary to medicine. All this provides an important drive in the reassessment and reconfiguration of the need to amplify the interference strategies between the field of music and that of medicine, implicitly that of neurology.

Verdian lyric theatre. Hermeneutics of the performance and contemporary challenges

Engaging the viewer in a dialogue with the opera of Giuseppe Verdi is an approach that involves him spiritually, culturally, morally. You can enter this universe of opera music through several gates. The wide path of science will walk through the portal of stylistics, aesthetics, philosophy or art history. On another road comes the profane, motivated by the love for the beautiful. The opera Nabucco was the first step in the evolution of Italian lyrical theatre – from melodrama to realistic drama – characterised by the unity and strength of artistic conception, the energy and simplicity of musical language. Verdi’s dramatic sense and affinity for realism propelled him over time into the role of composer- playwright, his name being closely linked to titles such as: Ernani, Luisa Miller, Macbeth, Othello, Falstaff. However, we can note in recent decades the lack or low presence of important titles among Verdian operas in the repertoire of lyrical theatres. Can the contemporary public still receive this composer’s authentic message? Can current performers wear the clothes of truthful characters and meet the composer’s requirements for the vocal approach? The mission of hermeneutics – this interdisciplinary science – is to discover, as far as possible, the mechanisms of the interpretation of a social phenomenon (as the opera of Giuseppe Verdi has been repeatedly perceived), and its reminiscences in contemporary society.

Discovering music cryptograms in the works of Viorel Munteanu through computer aided methods

This analytical approach aims to demonstrate the connection between music and technology in the creation of composer Viorel Munteanu. The purpose of this paper is to identify and analyse the music cryptograms in Symphony No. 1 “Glossa” using digital analysis tools. Viorel Munteanu is a modern composer characterised by avangardist tendencies, but with a desire to revive the past. In his creations, the composer uses folkloric themes and byzantine chant, while evoking important personalities of Romanian culture. In Symphony No. 1 “Glossa”, Munteanu uses the music cryptogram of poet Mihai Eminescu and composer George Enescu, these structures being used as thematic material and cyclic motifs. For graphical illustration of the music cryptograms we used the digital library LibRosa and for the identification process we use a musical software which identifies these structures in a MIDI score. Also, we would be analysing the cryptograms’ functions, rhetorics and aspects influencing the form and genre of the symphony.

Noi istorii ale muzicilor românești [New histories of Romanian types of music] – The most important editorial publication in the Romanian musicology of recent years

The vast work Noi istorii ale muzicilor românești [New histories of Romanian types of music]1 (816 pages), published by Editura Muzicală in 2020 was a project of the Romanian Composers and Musicologists’ Union, represented by composer and university professor Adrian Iorgulescu, a project meant to mark the celebration of a century of activity of the organisation. The two volumes of the New histories, coordinated by Valentina Sandu-Dediu and Nicolae Gheorghiță, reflect the fulfilment of a long research project, begun in the 1990s, with a view to reassessing the musical past of Romania, expressing ideas verified in time through repeated analyses. The coordinators’ vision is edified through the following directions: 1. the joining of all musical genres – Byzantine, folkloric, military, academic, jazz, entertainment – and creating a modern perspective on the types of Romanian music; 2. using the tools of modern musicology – interdisciplinary relating, archival and recent bibliography, an objective, critical, accessible style, efficient and orderly elaboration; 3. removing all influences of the communist ideology reflected by the writings about music in the second half of the 20th century by assimilating the ideas formulated by historians after 1990; 4. capitalising on foreign authors’ writings about Romania and about Romanian music, but also on last-minute research on international music for the synchronisation with the contemporary manner of historical research.

Voices of Edification Calls for Salvation – an Oratorio (Pilgrims to Saint Parascheva) by Viorel Munteanu

After the glorious reception of Voices of Putna – a key contribution to the genre – Viorel Munteanu makes now a new “offering of sound and letter”, a “different” sort of eulogy for the Orthodox Byzantine monody, meaning to encourage us to embark on the difficult journey of salvation together with the endless train of “pilgrims to Saint Parascheva”. It is, thus, a daring compositional effort that will be spiritually experienced by both its creator and its public, from the first contact with the graceful resonance of the title to the last shimmer of sound at the end of the final scene. If one considers the Orthodox art and its spirit, Viorel Munteanu’s Oratorio for Saint Parascheva is more than a creative act; it is an act of faith, of hope and of love, “a prayer to”, and “joy in”, Jesus Christ; it is living tradition and self-giving truth, by which we partake to one of the most memorable unions of Christian experiences and symbols.

Emotional and spiritual intelligence, aesthetical and semantic implications

Musical art is built on its semantics, in the absence of semantics – which is the main reason why a composer writes music, why a singer interprets it, but also the most important reason for the music listener as the receiver – music loses its meaning. Musical compositions can be problematic for interpreters and listeners at various levels of human sensitivity, intelligence and semantic ability, which are all fundamentally connected to conveying and receiving a message transmitted through music. These creations have emotional (psychological) implications, but also more profound ones, spiritual (religious), of which we are more aware and which are emphasized if we take into consideration the concepts of EMOTIONAL INTELLIGENCE and SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE.

Ancestrality – a fundamental concept in the works of the Romanian composer Tudor Chiriac

Originally from the Republic of Moldova, the composer Tudor Chiriac built his entire work of art on several key concepts such as ancestrality, identity, “music from notes” (a concept that belongs to him), ethos, modernity, tradition, etc., which we find both in his music and in his reflections, musical principles and beliefs assumed over time. Tudor Chiriac achieved in his creation what he set out to do, regardless of the public’s preferences or other opinions, an aspect that emphasizes once again his compositional “belief”, from which he did not abdicate. In this study we aim to highlight the technical and expressive means by which the author capitalises on the concept of ancestrality in the work Doinatoriu – Opus Sacrum Dacicum: from generating a new musical genre to exploring matrix symbols of Romanian culture. Connected to the universal ancestral inheritances, but especially to those belonging to the Romanian geographical space, the composer stands out by the originality of the musical construction, of the particular timbre associations, as well as through a unique ideational conception. Concerned especially with the meaning of the music he writes, the author explores sounds particularly “alive” and fresh in the context of Romanian musical culture, meant to complete his compositional vision, as well as to strengthen the perspective of the musical aesthetics he has adopted over time.

Impressions after reading a fascinating book: Bayreuth – Oraș al Festivalurilor. Prezențe românești [Bayreuth – City of Festivals. Romanian presences]

Published in 2019 by Ecou Transilvan Publishing House, the volume Bayreuth – Oraș al Festivalurilor. Prezențe românești [Bayreuth – City of Festivals. Romanian Presences] , signed by the musicologist Gheorghe Mușat has an immeasurable documentary value. From the challenge launched by the title, which is accentuated with the discovery of the differentiated perspectives for approaching the complex issue – Bayreuther-Festspiele and Internationales Jugend Festspieltreffen – to the precious details regarding the sessions, courses, seminars, concerts, conferences of artists from East and West, who had the extraordinary chance to collaborate in the last decades of the last century. In essence, the book focuses on the generation of musicians confident in the nobility of ideals to perfect themselves in the performing arts, to sing unique pieces from various stylistic repertoires and, especially, to listen, to learn from each other, to communicate at a high level about the multiple manifestation hypostases of the sound phenomenon.

Romanian-Greek manuscript inventory number 27 Anthology – An Account of the activity of the copyist Chiril Monahul from Bisericani Monastery (Neamt County)

This paper is a fraction of an ampler project aimed at classifying and studying the entire collection of musical manuscripts from the “Dumitru Stăniloae” Ecumenical Library of the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bukovina of Iasi. This documentary collection consists of a number of 32 musical manuscripts, in Chrysantine notation mainly originating from the 19th century. Manuscript 27 was created in 1846 by Cyril the Monk from the Bisericani Monastery (Neamt county) – he was a psalter, composer and copyist of great talent. He wrote other two manuscripts, ms. inventory numbers 23 and 31/49, which are in the “Dumitru Stăniloae” Ecumenical Library of the Metropolitan Church of Moldavia and Bukovina of Iasi. His own creation (with the mention “by the writer”) in Ms. 27 contains the first psalm, Blessed is the man in the plagal of the 4th mode, the troparia God is with us in the plagal of the 4th mode, the polyeleos Good word in the 4th mode legetos, the doxastikon of the Easter, The day of Ressurection, the plagal of the 1st mode and two heirmoi of the Holy Week. These are chants that are remarkable through their fluidity and expressiveness, as they retain the specific psaltic melodic formulas and reveal a balanced analytical musical writing. The liturgical music in Manuscript 27 consists of various chants, from those performed during the Vespers to the Matin and the Liturgy. Following analysis of the manuscript’s repertoire, I discovered that the main source of Ms. 27 is the first three volumes of the Anthology by Nektarios Frimu, published in Neamț (3rd volume, 1840) and Iași (1st and 2nd volume, 1846). Cyril the Monk, the copyist of Ms. 27, selected works from these sources, and introduced along the self-authored chants mentioned earlier, chants by other lesser-known authors, such as Nechifor (The Blessings of the Ressurection, the plagal of 1st mode in Greek) and Calinic (troparia from the chant Lord is with us, the plagal of the 4th mode in Romanian and the polyeleos The Lord’s servants, the plagal of the 2nd mode, in Greek). Besides, among the chants in Romanian, the manuscript records chants in Greek (by established Greek authors), which are proof of the continuous practice of the Greek chanting in Moldavia, long with that in Romanian, in the period before the Reforms (1863-1864) introduced by Alexandru Ioan Cuza, the ruler of the Romanian Principalities.

Ion Baciu – a musician who needs to be rediscovered

Ion Baciu is remembered in the history of Romanian music as the organiser of a musical institution, orchestra trainer and a performer of great depth of George Enescu’s works. His exceptional achievements were the foundation and training of the new symphonic ensemble of the Iași Philharmonic, equal to the few high-performing collectives of the country, which had reached a level of European quality, the assertion of superior conceptual-aesthetic standards in deciphering the particular features of Enescu’s music. The encomiastic chronicles of the most important musical critics, the audio-video recordings, the evocations of those who knew him intimately remain precious, incontestable documents regarding the value of an artist who deserves to be brought back to public consciousness. The micro-study reproduced in what follows sketches a few defining trajectories of Ion Baciu’s personality on the basis of archival samples, from bibliographic testimonies, some of them unresearched until nowadays, to patrimony recordings, unfortunately ignored. In the year of the celebration of nine decades from his birth, of four decades from the historic version of the opera Oedipe, on the commemoration of 120 years from George Enescu’s birth, one should emphasise the merits of the Conservatoire professor, philharmonic manager and conductor who contributed essentially to the inscription of Iași among the important musical centres of the country.