Ion Baciu – a musician who needs to be rediscovered

Abstract

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.