Description

THEOPHIL DEMETRIESCU (BUCHAREST, APRIL 12, 1891 – BUCHAREST, AUGUST 16, 1958)

 

 

 

 

Theophil Demetriescu was the son of Anghel Demetriescu and his second wife, Emma (née Gluck). Showing a talent for music since childhood, Theophil Demetriescu studied piano in Germany with Ferrucio Busoni.

He made his debut on February 11, 1912, in a concert with the Berlin Philharmonic.

In the last years of his life, Theophil Demetriescu encountered great financial difficulties. In 1949 he was hired as a piano teacher at the Art Institute in Cluj, but his salary was insufficient to allow him to rent a place to live, so he slept in one of the institute’s lecture halls, while his family lived a life of misery in Bucharest.

He attempted to leave Romania for Berlin, but the Communist authorities denied permission, leaving him to end his life in squalor at Cluj, in the country of his birth. After Demetriescu’s death in 1958 his family managed to leave Romania, carrying his funerary urn with them.

 

 

TRACKLIST

 

 

1. Bizet: Heimfahrt (Bild vom Rhein) – {Le Retour from Chants du Rhin} [VOX 6269. May 1925]
2. Busoni: Fourth Ballet Scene – Waltz-Galop op.33a (revised version 1913, BV 238a) [Decca G-20379 sides A-B. December 22, 1934].
3. Liszt: Au bord d’une source [Odéon O-25326 December 22, 1934].
4. Liszt: Gnomenreigen [VOX 06261. April 1925].
5. Prokofiev: Prelude op.12 no.7 [VOX 6269 May 1925].
6. Schubert-Liszt: Serenade – Hark, Hark! The Lark S. 558/9 [Odéon O-25326 December 22, 1934].
7. Weber: Rondo brillante in E flat, op.62 [VOX 06261. April 1925].