Dimitrie Cuclin

Dimitrie Cuclin completed his primary and secondary studies in his native city, where his father was his first music teacher.

The young composer applied first at the Conservatory (1903), where he was rejected for being above the age limit, and then at the Royal Academy of Music (1904), where he was accepted at the section of Theory and Harmony.

He failed to get into the Conservatory (he was not a brilliant violin player, although he was an acceptable one), but he was admitted at Vincent D’Indy’s Schola Cantorum, where he studied until his scholarship expired in 1914.

Because of the government’s refusal to supplement his scholarship, Cuclin had to leave France without completing his studies, thus without a French university degree, but with an attestation from D’Indy that certified his competencies.

He played violin at the Orchestra of Iasi, conducted by George Enescu, in what was left free of the Kingdom of Romania.

During the Second World War, in the times of the National Legionary State, Cuclin was briefly the Director of the Conservatory, but he did not have the best relations with the Legion, a fact that got him relieved of that responsibility.

At the beginning of the Communist régime, Dimitrie Cuclin was condemned for political reasons to serve two years (1950-1952) in a labour camp at the Danube-Black Sea Canal.

Towards the end of his life, he was close to being elected a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy, but the proletkult poet Mihai Beniuc opposed the move.

Operas: Symphonies: Concertos: Other works: He is also the author of 3 string quartets & numerous other chamber, piano pieces, sacred choruses & songs.

Among his published volumes, the following are the most important: Cuclin's poetry follows the antebellic paradigm of the Romanian literature, imposed by such writers as Heliade Rădulescu, Bolintineanu, Alexandrescu, Alecsandri, Eminescu, Vlahuţă, Coşbuc and Goga.

The earliest such treatise that is available in manuscript is entitled La théorie de l’immortalité (1931), and an abridged version in Romanian, realised by Cuclin himself, was published only in 1990.

The latest integral version of a Traité de la métaphysique dates from the ’50, most probably after Cuclin’s release from the labour camp.

There are indications that Cuclin wrote at least four versions of the treatise, in French and Romanian, but those could not be found, as they are buried in the private collections.

It is a musical panpsychism, claiming influence from the Pythagorean thought, and showing the Absolute to be a living system of harmonized functions, in continuous expansion.

During the communist period, the philosophy of Cuclin was considered a materialist dualism (Matei 1985, Tănase 1985), point of view contested by Rusu.

But firstly we will note another methodological aspect of Cuclin's metaphysics, namely the contribution of the “science of music” to the knowledge of the reality.

Equated by Cuclin with the pure nothingness, but a positive nothingness, like the Buddhist nirvana, the essence it is roughly an equivalent of the spirit, but it differs greatly because it presents itself as a system of harmonics, like an absolute sound composed of infinitely many harmonics, each one bearing a specific function within the whole.

Through his creations the man constitutes a magnetic double of his personality, which is integrated in the great harmonic system which is the Essence.