Così fan tutte, a work of extraordinary complexity and beauty, which was long considered "misunderstood", continues to be the subject of many controversies today. The article starts from Bernard Paumgartner's statement that Così is "an opera of the future whose hour will come" and proposes some avenues for reflection on the themes, as well as on the literary references that the libretto of the opera Così contains, the novelty of the genre to which it belongs, as well as the nature of the characters, which differ substantially from those of other seria or buffa operas of the 18th century. Also evoked is the Mozartian conception of the spectacle performance and the stage play of the singers, as evidenced from some letters that Wolfgang wrote to his father, Leopold, a conception which reveals the modernity of the Austrian composer's dramaturgical and theatrical thinking. ...

The present research is referring to the creation of music for the piano, the waltz genre, by the composer B. Smetana, in comparison with the same genre creation of F. Chopin and M. Ravel. Since entertainment music has been a concern throughout the ages, salon music, also integrated into this category, has concentrated much of the piano creation. Romantic composers included the waltz in their creation, a genre that highlights a permanent evolution of language elements in Romanticism and Modernism. The primary element of the waltz remains the highlighting of emotion, through the ternary meter and flowing melodic lines. Each of the three analysed composers have different methods of expression. B. Smetana composed a cycle of waltzes which represents a plea for proven musicality, in any musical culture. F. Chopin remains the composer whose work is well known for its original language peculiarities, through lyricism subject to romanticism. And years later, M. Ravel's creation of waltzes is clearly modernist, with unusual harmonic developments. ...

Dumitru Capoianu was a remarkable personality in Romanian cinema of the 20th century. However, there are no extensive specialist studies outlining a cinematographic profile of this composer or of other colleagues of his, a fact that places in a cone of shadow not only Capoianu's compositional activity but also Romanian film music in general. Dumitru Capoianu's film music accompanied an extensive range of genres, also extending over a period of over 4 decades, thus demonstrating constancy and longevity. Considering the complexity and diversity of the genres addressed, in the following, the attention will be further focused on the outline of a general overview of his creation of feature film music, with some of the essential elements that he used being pointed out in musical language. This is essential to be able to understand as a whole the evolution of his career as a filmmaker, the vision he had but also the compositional predilections he manifested. ...

The funeral songs associated with the funeral have always accompanied man on his last journey, the types of sound manifestations, usually syncretic, being different from people to people. In European practice, the song of mourning, which expresses the suffering of those left behind, is found throughout the territory. In Romania, this category of songs is represented by lament. In addition to this, in a limited area, some ritual songs are practiced: "Fir tree song" and "Song of the dawn", whose roles are different and come from ancient beliefs related to mythology. Although poorly represented at the national level, in the Stremț commune of the Apuseni Mountains, we encountered five Fir tree songs, representing three different musical typologies, most likely originating from different evolutionary layers. These typologies differ in terms of number of melodic lines, type of verse, melodic profile, sound structures and ambitus, but also cadences and tempo. The fundamental similarities lie in the female group interpretation and the specific, unitary theme. An evolution can be seen in the presented repertoire. ...

George Enescu’s reception has undergone many changes over time as a result of the different perspectives from which his creation, interpretative work, personality and pedagogy are analysed and perceived. This study presents the way in which Șerban Marcu’s music approaches Enescu’s, the Cluj based composer being stimulated by the N-escu Project initiated by the George Enescu National Museum in Bucharest. Fundamental characteristics of Enescu’s style are combined with new approaches, primarily of an aesthetic nature, which place Enescu’s music in a contemporary mould. Marcu’s compositional idea is analysed correlatively and concretely as it offers an original interpretation of the fundamental landmarks of Enescu’s music, in particular the dreamlike childhood memories in his piece Boîte à musique for Jurjac. ...

The whole world is a field of study, unfolding before our eyes. Whenever we want to thrill an audience, we have to be seemingly thrilled ourselves. In order to portray a character, we primarily make use of the indications given by the author, but these are sometimes incomplete, abstract, and our participation, with our own data, in contact with the situation in which we are meant to evolve, must be objective. With the help of memory, imagination and exercise, the primary capacity of an actor must be the judgement, the detachment, the creation of the character as an ideal model, with improvisation being an ABC that helps building the interpretation of the character. ...

Located in the central-eastern part of Romania, the Neamț Region - "an inexhaustible treasure of folk songs" - about which the ethnomusicologist Gavriil Galinescu wrote decades ago - aroused the interest of folklore lovers since the middle of the last century, when the first recordings were made of folkloric productions. Some of these creations, preserved for a long time at the Folklore Archive of Moldova and Bucovina, were valorised by several ethnomusicologists, teachers or simple people interested in folklore. The research strategy that I applied in the collection campaign from the period of my doctoral studies aimed at expanding the collections published until 2019, towards localities in the county which did not come to the attention of researchers, but also at the reconstruction of the collection routes from previous campaigns. The result of the undertaken ethnomusicological research certifies the fact that in Neamț, certain folk music genres have been passed on to younger generations. ...

Exploring the Finnish piano repertoire of the second half of the XXth century as a musician and as a pianist made me take a closer look at the parameters that define the stylistic approach in performance, and how it may vary depending on the context, personal choice and historical background. Starting from methods and classifications formulated by acclaimed professionals such as Diether de la Motte, Mine Doğantan-Dack, Alfred Brendel, or Andras Schiff, I assembled a list of musical parameters that served as a personal guide in learning and performing modern and contemporary repertoire. The following article depicts Einar Englund’s music and offers suggestions regarding structure and objectives in building a performance. ...

From a historiographical point of view, the stardom of Eleonora Duse (Vigevano 1858 – Pittsburgh 1924) provides a very important international case-study. This is because Duse is still considered the greatest of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century Italian theatre actresses. Although enormously famous, is relevant to consider her celebrity before and after her only film performance in Cenere (Ashes, Italy 1916), a movie taken from the homonymous novel by Grazia Deledda (Nobel Prize for Literature in 1926). For this reason, after a century from the death of Duse (21st April 1924 – 21st April 2024), this paper explores her myth of Duse on the screen and its vitality in the New Millennium. ...

Painting has been used as a medium throughout history that could encapsulate a fragment of reality, an emotion or simply the universe of one’s surreal creativity. The painted portrait could hold precious information about its subject, from elements clear to the eye regarding age or emotional status, towards a more hidden meaning contained within symbols hidden in the background or chromatic choice of the garment. The present study brings to the reader's attention a comparative insight regarding the representation of the Romanian feminine portrait throughout painted medium in the 20th century. The article focuses on offering clarity towards the different types of feminine representations and represents a decisive point regarding the complexity of the studied artworks. Thus, can be defined under a specific type of aesthetic that is representative throughout the 20th century or a distinct pattern that can be applied to the different artistic periods. ...

Rehearsals, whether in theatre or film, require a personal approach on a role. Any kind of “character”, unless it involves “playing yourself, your actual self”, involves a transformation, with a higher or lower degree of composition. Differences in this approach gain a more defined shape in the effective moment of the artistic act – namely, the theatre performance or the filming per se. In general, the stage offers more freedom compared to a film set, from approach to motion (and even interpretation) – sometimes, indeed, for technical reasons. Very rare are the situations on stage when the actor’s movement or entrance are conditioned by mere centimetres, while on set this happens constantly, in almost every shot, as distance from the focal plane is measured by the focus puller (first assistant camera) for each character, which conditions the actors’ movement in tighter shots. ...

This paper investigates artistic appropriation occurring in Central-Eastern Europe during socialist regimes, and the variety of exchanges that were possible. To narrow down the search, a focus is placed on three countries, respectively Poland, Hungary, and Romania. Examples of socialist and capitalist symbols from Coca-Cola, sickle and hammer, May 1st, Lenin, and Chernobyl will be considered. Other examples of focus areas are happiness in the East, land art and performances in nature, ancestral heritage, and rituals. The end of the analysis will propose useful terminology that can best describe the act of appropriation from behind the Iron Curtain. ...

Who are we humans, we who always need to descend into the inferno to recognize the true face of love? My personal time capsule that I keep ready for when the Voyager spacecraft is launched, contains a painting by Mark Rothko, a copy of one of Lars von Trier’s films, and a sculpture by Aurel Vlad, because the message to outer worlds should speak about us, humans at a more profound level, absolved of artifice, or aesthetic dogmas. In Ancient Egypt, the sculptor was called "He who gives life" because it was believed that he granted immortality through his works; for the ancient Egyptians, the afterlife was even more important than the life they lived, and sensed. Aurel Vlad is not only a figurative sculptor. He is a sculptor of human condition in all of its poses. He loves the HUMAN BEING; probably, if asked "What is hell?" he would answer like one of Dostoevsky's characters in "The Brothers Karamazov”: "... it is the suffering of being unable to love.". There is no compromise in the universe of forms that Aurel Vlad created, just a raw, direct representation of our anxieties, pain, fears, but also of love, hope and of the excruciating journey to find our true identity. His works always look intently to the sky, in a quiet imploration of divinity, unsure if their prayer would be heard, or answered to. Theirs is a silent cry, a cringe of pain discreetly hidden under layers of metal, under clothes that metamorphose into shadows that show a striking resemblance to graves. Sculpture is the artist's way of connecting to the deepest and the most painful of the human condition – suffering and loss – which he then transforms, and brings back to life in tangible, perennial form. ...

Although folk dances remain the first sources of stage dance, it is important to make a distinction between the dances that are performed in traditional contexts and those which, through processing, have reached European royal courts and later, the stage. The academization of the folk-dance repertoires of professional folk dance ensembles and the stylizations of various choreographers raise a signal in terms of the paradigm of the authenticity of a dance. Few of the so-called traditional dances keep their original characteristics unaltered, thus becoming poor imitations of folk dance. If folk dance preserves the imprint of national specificity, Romanian character dance contributed to the 20th century to the birth of the cultivated Romanian dance, through choreographers who have “balletized” or put folklore to the rhythm. Clarification is therefore necessary on these dance genres that fall within the scope of folklorism, but without diminishing the specific values of each esthetic. ...

Most Romanian musicologists believe that Romanian musical creation is based on the folk vein. This, it is true, knew three main approaches that assumed a complexity of procedures through which sublime expressiveness was obtained: the folkloric quote, of moderate folkloric inspiration (in folkloric style), of radical folkloric inspiration (in modern style). Observing and exemplifying the common melodic, rhythmic and architectural structures and their processing, the connection between traditional and scholarly Romanian music must be a continuous concern for all Romanian musicians. ...

The Rumanian Folk Music collection consists of musical folklore recorded by Béla Bartók in Transylvanian villages over a hundred years ago. This material includes a certain melodic type individualized by its stanza structure and by the presence of refrains within the larger category of old style, free rhythm songs. All the melodic variants gathered under no. 325, letters a to f, were collected from villages in Hunedoara County during the winter 1913-1914. At a first glance, these variants appear to differ in terms of melody and cadence system, let alone the initial melodic formulas. Aim of the present study was to analyze all musical parameters, to identify the stable and the variable elements of the melodies, respectively, and to attempt a reconstruction of Bartók’s logic of classifying these melodies under the same melodic type. ...

Psychological implications in ambiental design are the totality of physical and psychological factors involved in the realisation of the design concept. Systemic, intuitive, anticipatory and logical thinking in the phasing of the ambiental design process must be possessed by the designer. Psychological implications also arise from the interaction with the beneficiaries, where the designer sorts out ideas and steers discussions in the direction where he can obtain important key information from clients in order to shape the interior design concept. The needs and wishes of the beneficiaries are weighed up in order to select the optimal implementation options, and the functional-aesthetic criterion is also an important design consideration. ...

This article aims to point out the use of aerial perspective in painting throughout centuries of art history. In this article I propose a broad observation of this painting technique from the subtler intervention to the base element of composition and the chromatic rules that derive. Although aerial or atmospheric perspective is rooted in landscape painting, we may encounter these techniques in other subjects and themes. ...

The traditional dance is still an active element in the fiddle music practice in Dâmboviţa county. This consistency of it reduces the risk of becoming an inactive musical category in the local fiddle structure. Gradually, the dances of The traditional dance of the village (“Hora satului”) - with the disappearance of this institution – to the stage environmente trought the performances of various local, county and national dance ensembles. It is well known the variety in which the traditional dance from Dâmboviţa manifests itself or has manifested itself in the cultural landscape. This category can be observed in three modes of operation: in the village institution “Hora satului” in the framework of private events in the life of the community and in the scenic environment (shows, festivals, county and local contests)....

Life stressors at school or at home increase the risk of anxiety and depression among adolescents. Through cinematherapy or filmmaking therapy a healing process could be created. The field of filmmaking therapy could be especially suitable for adolescents dealing with behavioural disorders, thanks to their familiarity with the means of digital media. The present study aims towards understanding filmmaking therapy through studying the psychanalytical and artistic processes that are involved, and understanding how they could be applied to offer adolescents, which represent a vulnerable category of individuals due to their developmental challenges, a better insight over their transition from children to adults. ...

The paper highlights the importance of the selection of the colour scheme for public means of transport in order to answer the sensory, identity and functional requirements proper for each urban centre. With a powerful impact on the social environment, public means of conveyance tend to be related to – in time – the image of the city of origin. Adopting a unique colour scheme represents a significant step in integrating the vehicles into the urban aesthetics and, also, in visually signalizing them in the crowded traffic. The principles of choosing the unique colour scheme and the design strategy are presented throughout a case study applied in Iasi, started in 2015 and still continuing. The social-cultural implications of the project generate a progressive improvement of the quality of the travel experience and city image. ...