THEOPHIL DEMETRIESCU, PIANO
00:00 * Weber: Rondo brillante in E flat, op.62 [VOX 06261. April 1925].
03:53 * Liszt: Gnomenreigen [VOX 06261. April 1925].
06:20 * Bizet: Heimfahrt (Bild vom Rhein) - {Le Retour from Chants du Rhin} [VOX 6269. May 1925]
08:48 * Prokofiev: Prelude op.12 no.7 [VOX 6269 May 1925].
[All the Vox recordings are acoustic]
10:52 * Busoni: Fourth Ballet Scene - Waltz-Galop op.33a (revised version 1913, BV 238a) [Decca G-20379 sides A-B. December 22, 1934].
16:04 * Liszt: Au bord d'une source [Odéon O-25326 December 22, 1934].
18:58 * Schubert-Liszt: Serenade - Hark, Hark! The Lark S. 558/9 [Odéon O-25326 December 22, 1934].
Theophil Demetriescu was born in Bucharest, Romania on April 12, 1891, and died in Cluj, Romania on August 16, 1958. He studied with Eugen d'Albert in Berlin, and made his debut in 1912, performing with the Berlin Philharmonic. Demetriescu concertized from his adopted home of Berlin, and there became a student and devotee of Ferruccio Busoni, becoming a true companion to the great Italian through Busoni's last days. Demetriescu's "Busoni-ism" was described in New York's "Musical Courier" on November 9, 1922:
"Theophilus Demetriescu, formerly pupil of d'Albert, has gone over to the Busoni camp. Busoni-ism is the leech that will suck these young fellows dry. A whole evening of Busoni compositions! ... there is peculiar dullness over it all, good music though it is. And Demetriescu is a good pianist. Dommage!"
Walter Niemann wrote of Demetriescu in his book "Masters of the Piano: Pianists of the Present and the Recent Past (1921). Niemann names two more Liszt students who taught the young Demetriescu:
"Romania has only recently become a country of pianists. The young former student of Vianna da Motta, Ansorge and d'Albert, Theophil Demetriescu, is a born concert pianist. Real virtuoso "clout", generous sound, creative power, and an inexhaustible sense of playfulness are at the service of a healthy, robust manner. His Bach, in modern virtuoso enhancement, seeks to conjure an organ from the piano. His Chopin is a red-cheeked country Pole, who is not overly concerned with delicate health, world-weariness or romance.
The humor of Bach's D major Fugue is blown into a Cyclops, and Busoni's pianistic ballet corps [as the Ballet Scene here presented] forms an Amazon army. All that sounds a bit like the d'Albert of today."
Demetriescu based himself in Germany, and concertized in Europe, recording a few disks for Vox and Odéon along the way. Despite excellent reviews in Germany, he fell into severe financial difficulty. He returned to Romania in 1944, living on income from private piano lessons supplemented by the occasional radio concert. His letters from this period are depressing, tragic documents.
In November 1949, Demetriescu was accepted as professor of piano at the Institute of Art in Cluj. Still, his ordeal continued. He was forced to sleep on the floor of a classroom at the Institute while his family lived in poverty 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.
We will allow Theophil Demetriescu's art to speak for itself in his internet debut, through the extremely rare recordings here offered. For the poster, the energy and fluidity of his playing are its standout features, as well as his lovely touch, e.g. the beautiful Bizet song without words "Le Retour" and the Prokofiev Prelude, both acoustically recorded on an Ibach piano. Demetriescu shows a special affinity for the music of his friend Busoni in his astonishing performance of the Fourth Ballet Scene. Note the "inexhaustible playfulness" mentioned by Niemann!
All are ear-catching performances, to say the least. ENJOY!
[Many thanks to historian Victor Eskenasy for providing information about Demetriescu's life in Romania. Victor has written about Theophil Demetriescu in the Romanian language journal "Supplementul de Cultura" - suplimentuldecultura.ro/.
Transfers by Allan Evans, who also provided the files of the 1934 disks... thank you!
Special thanks to our friend Sigmund Rosen for passing along the super-rare Vox recordings, which MORNING IRSAY donated to the International Piano Archives at Maryland - they were on its want list!! MORNING IRSAY is the poster's weekly radio program, Fridays from 10-noon over WBAI 99.5 FM New York, streaming at stream.wbai.org, archived at nuarchive.wbai.org ].