String Concerto nr.2 by Sigismund Toduță between the neobaroque and the contemporary styles

Abstract

Located in the middle between the Concerto for string orchestra no. 1 written in 1951 and Concerto per archi nr.3 "in stile antico" (1974), both of them being of neo-baroque affiliation twinned with a folkloric modalism specific to the composer, Concerto for strings no. 2 (1972-1973), dedicated to the conductor and his disciple, Emil Simon, only demonstrates with special expressive force the approach of Toduta’s creative thinking to the baroque forms belonging to the Suite through the successive parts: Preludio, Fuga, Recitativo e Arioso, Toccata as well as a language based on an intensely chromatically folkloric modalism that gives its music a modern and contemporary breath.Toduta’s personal style present in the polyphonic articulations of the discourse, in his modal melody of folkloric origin, essentialized in cells belonging to the Romanian folk song, dressed in improvised baroque "forms" or with a fixed pattern (see Fuga), through a harmonic style proper to the composer, resulting from the vertical arrangement in consonant-dissonant conglomerates of the sounds of the modal melody, gives to the score of the String Concerto no.2 (score edited by the Music Publishing House of the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania) a special aura, unmistakable through the masterful grinding of every compositional detail.