50. Telegram From the Embassy in Romania to the Department of State1
3042. USIA for IPS and ICS.
Bucharest, November 21—American composer-conductor Aaron Copland left this capital Friday2 after having enriched Romania’s musical life in several ways.
In his concert with the symphonic orchestra of Romania radio-television Thursday night, the Romanian public for the first time heard three contemporary American compositions. These were Leonard Bernstein’s overture to Candide3 and Copland’s concert for clarinet and string orchestra and El Salon Mexican. The clarinet concert, with Aurelian-Octav Popa as a solosit, clearly was the public’s favorite.
But from the audience’s reaction to the lively Candide and Salon Mexican and from comment and conversation immediately following the concert it was evident that these two compositions also were enjoyed. The large radio-television concert hall, considered Bucharest’s finest, was filled to the last seat, including a who’s who in Romanian music as well as large numbers of enthusiastic youngsters.
Before the concert, Mr. Copland presented a prize of 5,000 lei (about $270) to the Romanian Union of Composers, to be awarded to a Romanian composer under 30 who is considered one of the outstanding talents of the present generation.
The proposal was accepted on behalf of the union by Zeno Vancea, UCTS Vice President, who thanked Mr. Copland for his artistic and material contributions to Romanian music.
- Source: National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1967–69, CUL 16 US. Unclassified. Repeated for information to USIA.↩
- November 21.↩
- Reference is to the operetta composed by Bernstein based on Voltaire’s Candide. It opened on Broadway on December 1, 1956, at the Martin Beck Theater. (Louis Calta, “Candide to Open at Beck Tonight,” New York Times, December 1, 1956, p. 18)↩