Ștefan Niculescu (July 31, 1927 – January 22, 2008) was a

Romania Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central Europe, Central, Eastern Europe, Eastern and Southeast Europe. It borders Ukraine to the north and east, Hungary to the west, Serbia to the southwest, Bulgaria to the south, Moldova to ...

composer A composer is a person who writes music. The term is especially used to indicate composers of Western classical music, or those who are composers by occupation. Many composers are, or were, also skilled performers of music. Etymology and def ...

. Niculescu was born in

Moreni Moreni () is a municipiu, municipality in Dâmbovița County, Muntenia, Romania, with a population of 15,472 as of 2021. The city is in the eastern part of the county, on the border with Prahova County. It is located east of the county seat, Tâ ...

Dâmbovița County Dâmbovița County (; also spelt Dîmbovița) is a county () of Romania, in Muntenia, with the capital city at Târgoviște, the most important economic, political, administrative and cultural center of the county. It is a traditional administra ...

. He was credited with introducing his own brand of heterophony, a technique based on superimposing melodic material onto variations of itself in order to create textures that are propelled by thematic energy as well as by the more common textural factors of density and levels of activity. This creative approach bears similarities with

György Ligeti György Sándor Ligeti (; ; 28 May 1923 – 12 June 2006) was a Hungarian-Austrian composer of contemporary classical music. He has been described as "one of the most important avant-garde music, avant-garde composers in the latter half of the ...

micropolyphony Micropolyphony is a kind of polyphonic musical texture developed by György Ligeti, which consists of many lines of dense canons moving at different tempos or rhythms, thus resulting in tone clusters. According to David Cope, "micropolyphony res ...

, but important aesthetic and stylistic differences set them apart. Niculescu's work as a teacher made him a mentor to a whole generation of younger Romanian composers, among them

Costin Miereanu Costin Miereanu (born 27 February 1943) is a French composer and musicologist of Romanian birth. Biography Miereanu was born in Bucharest in 1943. At the age of eleven, he enrolled in the Bucharest School of Music, where he completed six year ...

, Horațiu Rădulescu, and . In the 1970s he contributed to the popularization of modern music by organizing public listenings in

Bucharest Bucharest ( , ; ) is the capital and largest city of Romania. The metropolis stands on the River Dâmbovița (river), Dâmbovița in south-eastern Romania. Its population is officially estimated at 1.76 million residents within a greater Buc ...

together with Șerban Stănciulescu. Niculescu's work ''Ison II'' for wind and

percussion A percussion instrument is a musical instrument that is sounded by being struck or scraped by a percussion mallet, beater including attached or enclosed beaters or Rattle (percussion beater), rattles struck, scraped or rubbed by hand or ...

permutates simultaneous segments of a

diatonic Diatonic and chromatic are terms in music theory that are used to characterize scales. The terms are also applied to musical instruments, intervals, chords, notes, musical styles, and kinds of harmony. They are very often used as a pair ...

melody producing a reverberating complexity of sound which is held together by a strong sense of modal clarity. ''Opus Dacicum'' for orchestra applies similar textural explorations but with a stronger sense of harmonic movement, often with a Wagnerian lushness that lends this music a sensuous appeal a world apart from Ligeti's cluster-oriented sonorities. Among his honors are many awards from the

Romanian Academy The Romanian Academy ( ) is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 active members who are elected for life. According to its bylaws, the academy's ma ...

and the . He also received awards from the

Académie des Beaux-Arts The (; ) is a French learned society based in Paris. It is one of the five academies of the . The current president of the academy (2021) is Alain-Charles Perrot, a French architect. Background The academy was created in 1816 in Paris as a me ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of France. With an estimated population of 2,048,472 residents in January 2025 in an area of more than , Paris is the List of ci ...

(1972), the International Record Critics Award (1985), and the

Herder Prize The Herder Prize (), named after the German philosopher Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), was a prestigious international prize awarded every year from 1964 to 2006 to scholars and artists from Central and Southeast Europe whose life and wor ...

Vienna Vienna ( ; ; ) is the capital city, capital, List of largest cities in Austria, most populous city, and one of Federal states of Austria, nine federal states of Austria. It is Austria's primate city, with just over two million inhabitants. ...

(1994). In 1996 he was elected titular member of the Romanian Academy, while in 2000 he was awarded the

Order of the Star of Romania The Order of the Star of Romania (Romanian: ''Ordinul Steaua României'') is Romania's highest civil Order and second highest State decoration after the Order of Michael the Brave. It is the oldest Order of Romania. It is awarded by the Preside ...

, Commander rank.

References

Niculescu, esteemed Romanian composerObituary
1927 births 2008 deaths People from Moreni Romanian composers Romanian male composers Herder Prize recipients Titular members of the Romanian Academy Commanders of the Order of the Star of Romania {{Romania-composer-stub