George Enescu,
Composer
I am leaving Romania with my mind at peace because I am leaving behind a gifted composer who will bring fame to our country.
John Gritten,
Journalist, Author
A musician compared with Von Karajan and Barbirolli, who was near the pinnacle of world fame when he was struck down in his mid-fifties.
Mihail Jora,
Composer
His adagios are extraordinarily rich in feeling and, as far as Romanian music is concerned, only surpassed by Enescu’s.
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Constantin Silvestri
1913 Bucharest – 1969 London
A musician compared with Von Karajan and Barbirolli, who was near the pinnacle of world fame when he was struck down in his mid-fifties.
The boy for whom George Enescu predicted a brilliant future.
The young pianist who enraptured audiences with his improvisations on themes handed to him on scraps torn from newspapers.
The despairing and ailing young composer who set fire to his own works.
The person who only became a citizen of his country of birth when he was 22.
The young man who wrote to a friend: “I can no longer foresee a future for myself as a conductor” but became the principal conductor of Romania’s three major orchestras (Bucharest Philharmonic, National Radio and National Opera) and was given the country’s most prestigious cultural accolade, Artist of the People.
The electrifying conductor who was ‘discovered’ by a Scottish music critic visiting Bucharest at the time of the Iron Curtain and invited to make his London debut with the London Philharmonic.
The dedicated and revered conductor-teacher with unorthodox methods who, for his last seven years moulded the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra into an orchestra of international repute.
As a young man, Costi was a hard and methodical worker and lived modestly. His room was a model of tidiness, with everything meticulously classified. He collected a huge library of records and scores. He had exercise books in which he noted all the different performances of works to which he listened and the exact length of time of each one. He had his own markings which no one else understood.
‘Not one of us at his age could have produced such beautiful things as he has. His is an exceptional talent, whether as conductor, composer or pianist.’ (1939. Mihail Jora, Romanian composer and Silvestri’s teacher, conductor, pianist, first Music Director of the Romanian National Radio).
In 1958 Silvestri left his homeland and for three years lived in Paris. Here he won the Charles Cros Academy first prize for his recording of Dvorak’s Symphony “From the New World” and the Grand Prix du Disque for Enescu’s Wind Dixtuor.
In 1961 Silvestri was appointed principal conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra to which he became passionately attached. He made this English seaside town his home and elevated the orchestra to international standard. He conducted and recorded with the world’s finest orchestras and became a British citizen.
His last concert was in Exeter before he died from cancer in a London hospital aged only 55. In the words of the epitaph on his memorial stone in the churchyard of St. Peter’s, Bournemouth, Silvestri was “an outstanding musician and a remarkable man.”
This website includes texts from A Musician Before His Time: Constantin Silvestri conductor, composer, pianist
by John Gritten.
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