ARS INVENTIO IN THE B.A.C.H. SYMPHONY FOR ORGAN SOLO BY SIGISMUND TODUŢĂ

Abstract

The paper intends to outline the role of this symphony in the cultural landscape of Romanian and universal Modernity by referring it to the Neo-Baroque trend characteristic for this Transylvania born composer. S. Toduţă, the first Doctor in Musicology in Romania, the creator of a valuable composition school in our cultural space, is celebrated on the anniversary of 100 years from his birth.

The analysis of this symphony underlines that ontogenetic relationship present in the case of cultural patterns in various epochs – here the musical Baroque and Modernism – which is possible through referring to the same axiom of thought and expression considered to be generally human. If the phenomenology of the creative act shows essential gestures of artistic gestation and evolution, universally valid in all historic epochs, then we find as legitimate a reference of the phases of the creative act to the point of view of the 17^th and 18^th centuries and their exposition by means of analysis in the B.A.C.H. Symphony for Organ Solo by Toduţă. I have tried thus to reconstruct the process of ars inventio by analyzing the musical material of the symphony from the perspective of the three phases of the musical creation, as defined by the Baroque: Inventio (Erfindung), Dispositio (Inhaltgliederung) and Elocutio (Formung), corresponding, from the point of view of the compositional trade, to the invention, the planning and the expression. Consequently, in the Inventio phase each part was analyzed from the perspective of micro formulas of language, while in the Dispositio and Elocutio we distinguish elements of sonorous architecture as well as semantic, harmonic and tonal subtleties. We established the existence of a reduced number of figure cells with formative, generator role, a modal and modal-chromatic harmony, a typical Baroque architecture where the genre and the form are still inseparable: the 1^st part – Fantasia, the second part – Choral, the 3^rd part – Toccata among the composer’s elements of style.