1925 - The Romanian Composers' Society founded the Romanian Section of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM-Romanian Section)

ISCM and its Romanian Section

Since its beginnings (1923), the festival organi1zed by the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) has sustained the plurality of the modern composition styles -and, thus, it maintained its viability. It has promoted young composers and it presented works which nowadays are considered classical. Austria is the country where, in 1922, it was settled the greatest musical organization meant to promote new music -ISCM-, an initiative of the composer and musicologist Rudolph Réti and of the composer Egon Wellesz.

For two decades, the society, leaded from London, tries to function as a supra national society of the composers, trying to promote new music of all tendencies and esthetic trends, mission accomplished in the Festival entitled (since 1974 World Music Days), which is annually moving between the most important cities of the world. Of course, in the frame of the numerous concerts presented by ISCM there have been discussed the great problems concerning the style of the modern creations, starting with the terminology which provides a difference between the "new music" and the "contemporary music" (reflected in the German, French or English terms as Internationale Gesellschaft für Neue Musik or International Society for Contemporary Music). The concept of "New music" was synonym for a while with the dodecaphonic orientation of the Second Viennese School, but it was represented also by the neoclassicism between the two World Wars in the programme of the Festival.

Anyway, in the musical life, ISCM becomes gradually an important supra-political factor, which has greatly influenced the music between the two World Wars, being known that the age between 1922 and 1945 (presided by the English Edward Dent) was a glorious one, corresponding actually with the modern music history. Then, in its later stages (delimited by the year 1971, when occurred certain changes in the Society), the role of such an organisation appeared clearly in the dialogue between the national sections represented in festivals, in the performing of first auditions of works which remained famous or even in consecrating important composers.

It has been often discussed the role of the organisation, whose history encountered many difficult stages (from the ideological, financial and social point of view): if the contemporary music can't find its own place in the traditional musical life, it means that ISCM will loose its function precisely by accomplishing it. At least in Romania, this didn't happen yet. World Music Days Festival from 1999, organised here, meant a celebration for the nowadays creation, representing the accomplishment of one of the most important aim of the Society which is the permanent presence of the national sections.

The brief history of the Romanian Section shows that it has functioned between 1925 and 1935, after that being inactive between 1948 and 1950. Attempts for reviving it would be possible only after 1989, made by the composer Nicolae Brândus, President of the Romanian National Section of the ISCM (1990-1991 and 1993-2002), member of the Executive Committee of the International Society for Contemporary Music (ISCM) (1991-1993). He was succeeded by the composers Liviu Danceanu, President between 1991 and 1993, Maia Ciobanu, President between 2002 and 2003, and in present by Sorin Lerescu, President of the Romanian National Section since 2003.

The efficiency of this Society can be seen in the interest manifested for the new music all over the world, in the influence of the compositional act which creates styles, in the development of certain genres (as the cameral one). Beside the festival, it is also important the every day activity of each section, which is measured in concerts and other forms of promoting the national and international composers. This internationalism determines the information exchange which serves the great nations as well as the smaller or extreme ones, because ISCM promotes the main trends of the new music. It exists, also, an important list of composers which owe their first international success to ISCM (Britten, Copland, Dallapiccola, Eisler, de Falla, Hába, Honegger, Janacek, Kodály, Malipiero, Frank Martin, Martinu, Marcel Mihalovici, Petrassi, Poulenc, Prokofiev, Roussel, Szymanowski, Vaughan-Williams, Wellesz a.s.o.), and also some composers which became well-known through ISCM (Schönberg, Berg, Webern, Stravinski, Ravel, Hindemith, Bartók, Milhaud, Krenek, Stockhausen, Ligeti, Boulez, Nono, Cage, Schnittke, Kagel and others).

Thus, an important part of the XXth century music - "modern", "contemporary" or "new"- interferes with ISCM, which was involved in the musical life, from the beginnings of the Schonberg's school up to the nowadays "classics". The institution maintains even in the '90ies the idea of promoting the music of our days, verifying the compositional act through audition and through the opinions of the World Music Days' participants.

Valentina SANDU-DEDIU