Doru Popovici

Doru Popovici was born on 17 February 1932 in Reșița (Romania). He began his music education in his hometown and continued at the Municipal Conservatory of Timisoara. After a period of private study with Liviu Rusu (harmony, counterpoint, and musical forms) and Hedviga Halitchi (piano), he studied at the Bucharest Academy with Paul Constantinescu (harmony), Martian Negrea (counterpoint), Mihail Jora, Zeno Vancea, Mihail Andricu (composition) and Theodor Rogalski (orchestration) from 1950 to 1955.

After his studies Doru Popovici worked as a freelance composer, musicologist and writer. In 1968 he attended the summer courses in Darmstadt. There he met György Ligeti, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Iannis Xenakis and studied modern composition techniques with them. In the same year Doru Popovici became music editor with the Romanian Radio, a position he fulfilled until his retirement in 2002. Since the late 1960s Doru Popovic was also teaching at the National University of Music Bucharest and at the private universities Luceafarul and Spiru Haret.

Doru Popovici reveiced 20 Romanian Composers Union awards for his compositions since 1953, the "Meritul Cultural" Award in 1969, the Yugoslavian Composers Society Prize in 1970, the "Pro Musica" Award of the Hungarian Radio in 1971 and "George Enesco" Award of the Romanian Academy in 1972.
Doru Popovici died on 5 March 2019 in Bucharest (Romania).

The catalogue of Doru Popovici contains compositions of all genres. He composed 8 operas, 4 symphonies, a concerto for orchestra, a cello concerto, a concerto for flute, viola and orchestra and several orchestral poems. Doru Popovici is especially famous for his chamber music which includes a violin and a cello sonata, a string trio, quartet and quintet as well as solo works for piano, violin, cello, bassoon and oboe. He composed many songs and works for chorus, 18 cantatas and other compositions for voices, chorus and orchestra.

Among the writings of Doru Popovici are biographies of composers like Carlo Gesualdo, Frederic Chopin or Richard Wagner, monographs on topic like the contemporary Romanian music, the Renaissance music in Italy or the Art of the Troubadours.

In my possession are two manuscripts of Doru Popovici: The "Sonata for violin and piano op.3 No.3" and the "String quartet No.1 op.24".

Violin sonata No.3 op.3

In my possession is the autograph manuscript of the "Sonata pentru vioara si pian op.3 Nr.3" by Doru Popovici. The work was composed in 1953 and - according to the manuscript - finished on 5 September 1953 in Timisoara. The work consists of the four movements I. Allegro - II. Scherzo: Allegretto - III. Intermezzo: Largo and IV. Rondo: Allegro.

I have typeset the score but I am still working for a permission to publish the composition here on my website.

String quartet No.1 op.24

The "Cvartetul de coarde Nr.1 op.24" was originally composed in 1954. In 1964 Doru Popovici made a revision of the work, omitted movements and changed the order of the remaining ones. In my possession is the original folder with copies of the autograph in the new order. The copies contain handwritten corrections, remarks, new page numbers and are bound together in the new setting. This version has only two movements: I. Largo, molto tranquillo e pensieroso and II. Allegro.

The original pages show that the Largo movement was formerly called "Intermezzo" and located on pages 19 to 22. The Allegro movement was on pages 1 to 14. That means at least the movement on pages 15 to 18 was omitted. I don't know if the original version contained a fourth movement after page 22.

On the title page the String quartet was numbered "Op. 24 Nr. 1b", but the composer later crossed the "Nr. 1b" out.

The score of the String quartet No.1 op.24 is also unpublished so far, and again I am waiting for the permission from the family.