Chaos & Harmonie. Eine Hommage an den Komponisten Aurel Stroe
Chaos & Harmony – Homage to the Composer Aurel Stroe

Summary/Abstract: The life of the Romanian composer Aurel Stroe, who died in Mannheim in 2008, can be split into three periods. The works from the first period stem from the time directly after he completed his studies at the Bucharest University of Music. They were the result of a scientific impulse; based on algorithms and the latest computer technology, he generated audacious sound formations that are characterised by a significant distance from any topics of Romanian national music. A complete setting to music of Orestie is the central feature of Aurel Stroe’s middle period. This work was conceived as the allegorical murder of a tyrant; and as a consequence Stroe left the country. After a stay of 12 months in the USA, he settled in Germany. In his marginalised life on the banks of the Rhine, he devoted himself to the master works of his third period, which are the subject of this homage. These works reflect his life experiences that are characterised by many ruptures. Realising that the various musical practices with which the composer, born in Bucharest in 1932, had come into contact were incompatible and that, in particular, the tuning systems created ideological frames that could not be combined, he began to create large scale symphonic works. They reflect this insight and make it possible for the listener to experience the abyss between different cultures. In works such as Ciaconna con alcune licenze, a sober empirical approach is combined with speculation on the universal nature of things. In this way, Aural Stroe reaches a genesis of a cosmos of sound in which chaos and harmony are kept in balance.

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