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When choosing the theme of my research, I was guided by the desire to get to know and investigate the organ, as a musical instrument, and by the affection and love for my homeland. I thought that I would choose a theme and a searching area, that has been infolded only in the slightest extent, and which constitutes an important piece of the history of Erdővidék and of the reformed diocese from Erdővidék. Many researchers surveyed the organs of Transylvania4, among others Dávid István published his results too. With my work I would like to complete this research of great dimensions, especially the part referring to the reformed churches from Erdővidék, and to correct the occurent false informations, and confirm them with authentic data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During the first half of the 20th century, Romanian music flourished through the creation of a group of composers that were of great value. This generation of artists, although formed in schools of the West, kept in touch with the Romanian culture and worked to develop it and promote it. In this context, the consequences of World War II meant that Romania fell under Soviet control, and as a result, the Soviet ideology encroached on all aspects of Romania's society. The communist authorities realized the potential influence that culture and the arts could have, thus subjugating them to the new social-realist agenda. This paper explores the impact that the Stalinization period had on Romanian composers and the music they created, from censure to monitoring and, ultimately, control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper I will present the customs regarding the Hungarian reformed funeral songs in the area by the stream Nádas, an area that is located in the heart of Kalotaszeg in Romania. The paper follows a theoretical and a practical thread. In the theoretical part I examined the funeral song-material of old Hungarian song collections, while the practical part describes my visits to a number of villages with significant folk traditions, inhabited by Hungarians, where I collected and summarized the musical traditions associated with funerals. In this paper I will shortly report on my findings, observations and experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present paper presents the the portrait of Liviu Țaran (b. 1961), an important folk musician from Fundu Moldovei village, the county of Suceava, an area of important and rich folk tradition. He is the grandson of a virtuoso shepherd's pipe player, Ilie Cazacu (1903-1979), who, in turn, was trained by the famous violinist Sidor Andronicescu (1899-1981); both lived in the same village. For almost 70 years, the latter was the conductor of the most famous folk music band in the area. Liviu Țaran learnt how to play the shepherd's pipe from his grandfather, Ilie Cazacu, whose entire repertoire he took and which he masterfully performs, with a skill which is comparable to his grandfather's. Liviu Țaran's repertoire consists of old, genuine folk melodies, dance tunes for certain occasions or casual, "doina" songs, as well as shepherds' tunes. The virtuoso is a member of an amateurs' ensemble named "Arcanul", established in the 70's in Fundu Moldovei village. The ensemble is still active in performances at home and abroad and promotes genuine folk songs and dance music from Bukovina. To briefly illustrate Liviu Țaran's repertoire, we added two sample songs in musical notation. Ilie Cazacu's and Liviu Țaran's extensive musical activity, as well as their impressive repertoire, are undoubtedly invaluable treasures of the national folklore heritage from Bukovina; they set an example to be followed by the present-day and next generations of performers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper pays homage to one of the most important religious singers and music teachers in Braşov, but it is also dedicated to his cultural legacy (little researched and less known at a national level). We hope this will become an essential contribution to the latest effort of emphasizing his personality and the manuscripts preserved in the archive of the Museum of the First Romanian School in Braşov. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study approaches the history of Romanian education in the town of Sebeş - Alba during the first half of the 20th century. The paper considers Nicolae Lupu, a teacher of several schools in town, who contributed to the promotion of cultural and artistic values among the Romanian community in the area. The information referring to the teacher Nicolae Lupu comes mostly from documents found in the funds of the Sebeş Orthodox Parish and Astra from the Alba County Service of the Romanian National Archives. The material was organized chronologically, a process permeated with inherent difficulties due to the lack of information which would allow for the drawing of a complete professional trajectory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes to analyze those procedures, compositional techniques and means of artistic expression of Franz Liszt, which are aimed to reflect and to embody the ethical and aesthetic values of macabre and obstiné. The analyzed opuses are four piano dances, dating from Liszt's late composition period. The piano pieces are: Csárdás macabre, Csárdás obstiné, Mephisto-Walzer Nr. 3 and Bagatelle sans tonalité. These laconic, concentrated and bizarre compositions show also a diabolical virtuosity, due to their Mephistophelian program. A few of the compositional techniques used for the musical expression of the macabre and obstiné character are already known from the Wiemar-period, but there are a few new lisztian procedures, which occur in these late pieces, and which increase progressively the distances between his style and Romanticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Towards the end of the year 2013 the birth of the composer Ion Vidu will be marked by the commemoration of the 150 years that have passed. A memorable figure of the musical scene from Banat, the founder and promoter of the Orthodox choral movement for which Banat is known even internationally, Ion Vidu can righteously be defined as a most complex cultural personality whose legacy entitles him to be called a canonical composer for the history of the Romanian choral music and a remarkable conductor, teacher, publicist and organizer of the cultural life in Banat in general and of the choral movement in the same area in particular. Thus, in this commemorative year, this paper sets out to highlight yet again not a general portrait of Ion Vidu (in which case the risk of a shallow approach would be very high), but the two most common dimensions of his personality: Ion Vidu, the composer and the conductor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Our paper studies the mineralogical and petrographical characteristics of 28 ceramic fragments that were excavated in the village of Palatca, Transylvania (Romania). Optical microscopy, X-Ray powder diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), grain size analyses, and porosity measurements were used to investigate the samples. Our objective was to describe or reconstruct the corresponding products and to elucidate the manufacturing process, the firing techniques, and the transformation pathways. Based on our results, we conclude that the Late Bronze Age ceramics (1600-1300 BC) were produced from clay and temper material such as river sand and ceramoclasts. It has been modeled by hand and fired between 800 and 950°C. For most samples, we can narrow the temperature range to 850-900°C. We interpret the data further from a geoarchaeological point of view with respect to the historical evolution of the local culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the end of the 18th century so called hymns of repentance formed an outstanding category of hymns. These are sung during the weeks of preparation before the great religious holidays. The past and present of the hymns of repentance in the worship of the Reformed Church of Transylvania has two main sources: the hymnbooks of various churches and the repertory of hymns passed over as an oral tradition. The paper hereby deals primarily with the tunes of the hymns, it analyzes them, it reveals their sources, their versions represented in the hymnbooks of various centuries and how they were altered while passed over in oral tradition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Starting from the findings of previous studies, which have proved the long existence of the melodic category, in which the finale is situated on the fifth step of the six-cord scale, in this paper, the investigation is expanded onto the instances taken by this phenomenon in the repertoire of Romanian carols. The songs are grouped into general profile patterns. Groups and subgroups are constituted, on the basis of correlating the following criteria: architectonic patterns, sound structure and pitch of final cadences. From the findings, it follows that the finale on the fifth step is just one of the possibilities. Despite the variety of instances, there is a tight connection amongst the different melodic categories, due to the use of elements of common musical language. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper suggests a synthetic view of the choral works belonging to the composers in Cluj-Napoca, generating a panorama of the musical language and of its means of expression. The stylistic data reflect several evolutionary stages, beginning with the romantic creation and culminating with the one influenced by the national school of composition based on the integration of traditional folkloric values, from neo modal to the avantgarde and postmodernism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper presents the study of some agates from the Gurasada area (Mureş Valley, West Romania) and their igneous host rocks. Agates occur in the vesicles of strongly altered pyroclastic rocks ("banatites"), such as basaltic andesites, trachyandesites, trachytes and dacites or in the alluvial sediments along the Gurasada valley. The age of host-rocks is Late Cretaceous-Early Paleogene. Agates consist mainly of various types of α-quartz such as: chalcedony, quartzine and microquartz, associated with moganite. The genesis of agates is related with the hydrothermal solutions which altered the host-rocks. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Roşia Montană Project represents a responsible mining project in progress in the Apuseni Mountains, Romania. It is the first mining project developed in Romania according to up-to-date Romanian and international (EU) standards. Besides specific geological and mining aspects, the Project comprises various other aspects concerning the culture and the community. The present paper presents the cultural heritage of Roşia Montană in the framework of the new mining development proposed by Roşia Montană Gold Corporation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A large quantity of pottery has been discovered at the Lumea Nouă Neolithic and Eneolithic settlement in Alba Iulia City (Romania). It belongs to different cultures, and in this paper a comparison among three of them is made: Vinča, Lumea Nouă and Foeni. An analogous number of samples has been selected for each of the three cultures, together with some clay samples collected in the Alba Iulia settlement area. The samples have been analysed by means of XRF, XRPD, and in thin section. Significant differences among the three cultures are only related to the alkalis contents. The Lumea Nouă pottery has higher potassium contents and contains microfossils, while the Foeni pottery differs to each other for the higher sodium contents. A clear correspondence between pottery and clays has not been found, so that we hypothesize that not all the pottery is local or, more probable, that a geological gradual variation in local clay deposits existed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the results of macrofossil analysis from Steregoiu sequence in the Gutâiului Mountains covering the last 8,000 cal BP. The studied peat deposit is characterized by abundant macrofossils. Their diversity is, however, low with most remains coming from plants that grew on the mire and in the forest surrounding the basin (Carex spp., Cyperus sp., Urtica dioica, Potentilla erecta, Filipendula ulmaria, Rubus idaeus, Lycopus europaeus). The concentration of Picea abies macrofossils correlates partially well with its pollen percentages, and only when it has apparently been present on the bog surface. The absence of macrofossils from deciduous trees, which were abundant in the surrounding vegetation according to the pollen data, suggests that these deciduous trees taxa were not growing on the bog or around its margins. The combined macrofossil and the pollen results assists in the understanding of the differences between the local and regional flora. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reports on the identification of four rare minerals in the phosphate deposit in Cioclovina Cave, Romania. Berlinite, AlPO4 and hydroxylellestadite, Ca5[(Si,P,S)O4]3(OH,F,Cl) are minerals that can form only at high temperatures, and would not be expected in a sedimentary environment. In this study we review the characteristics of berlinite and hydroxylellestadite from a heated sedimentary sequence in Cioclovina Cave (Romania) and refine their structure from single-crystal X-ray data. Two other minerals, churchite-(Y), YPO4·2H2O and foggite, CaAl(PO4)(OH)2·H2O are, for the first time, described from a cave environment. The minerals were documented by means of single-crystal X-ray investigations, X-ray powder diffraction, and electron-microprobe (EMPA) analyses. In addition, laboratory synthesis of berlinite was conducted and vibrational spectroscopy data were collected for hydroxylellestadite and churchite-(Y). Based on these investigations, we suggest that locally the heavily compacted phosphate-bearing clay sediments underwent a natural heating process. It is likely that in-situ bat guano combustion is responsible for generating the high-temperature environment needed for the genesis of berlinite and hydroxylellestadite. The occurrence of churchite-(Y) and foggite is related to guano-leaches that reacted with subjacent limestone and different allogenic cave sediments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]