Romanian composer Cornel Ţăranu haș died at the age of 89.
He composed chamber, vocal and orchestral music, all of which gained international acclaim.
Ţăranu was also a professor at the Gheorghe Dima Academy of Music in Cluj-Napoca, director, and artistic director of Ars Nova Ensemble and Cluj Modern Music Festival.
A student of another important composer, Sigismund Toduță, Ţăranu would go on to study in Paris under Olivier Messiaen and Nadia Boulanger, and then to Darmstadt under György Ligeti, Bruno Maderna, and Christoph Caskel.
„Cornel Ţăranu quickly creates a personal language, centered on fragmented melodicity, chromatic modal scales, melismatic insertions from archaic folklore (laments, doina) and obstinate, visceral harmonic stasis. His stylistic options include serialism, driven improvisation, hybrid music and postmodernism”, explains Dan Dediu in a 2021 monograph on the composer. As a visiting professor, he held courses in Germany, Israel, Switzerland, and the USA. In addition to his stage and opera music (ex. Othello, Hamlet, The Secret of Don Giovanni), the lover of literature also composed vocal works on lyrics but significant Romanian poets such as Mihai Eminescu, Nicolae Labiş, Ana Blandiana, Nichita Stănescu, Cezar Baltag, Vladimir Streinu, Tristan Tzara. Ţăranu also created countless scores for films directed by his brother-in-law, the famous filmmaker Nicolae Mărgineanu, as well as other films in the last half century. His musicological research projects involved both Romanian contemporary creation (George Enescu, Sigismund Toduţă, Liviu Glodeanu, Mihai Moldovan) and universal composition (Iannis Xenakis, Karlheinz Stochhausen, Olivier Messiaen).
In local circles, even in the twilight of his life Ţăranu was often seen walking to and from his home in Cluj’s interbelic neighborhood of villas (Andrei Mureșanu) to the Conservatory, in the center of town. For the faculty, where he was a professor of composition, he represented an essential shaper of the city’s music, as a modern and contemporary representative.
In certain ways, his death marks the end of an era – given his friendship with figures like Pascal Bentoiu, Nichita Stănescu, Marin Sorescu, Cezar Baltag, even Lucian Blaga.
The funeral will take place on June 22nd at the Central Cemetery in Cluj-Napoca.
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