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Horatiu Radulescu: Complete Solo Piano Works, 1967–2007 on CD

In September 2026, Metier Records presents an outstanding contemporary release - the

complete acknowledged output for solo piano by Romanian composer Horatiu Radulescu,

performed by premier Metier artist Ian Pace, a world-renowned interpreter of new music. Pace

knew and worked closely with Radulescu for two decades and gave the world premiere of the

Piano Sonata No. 6, specially written for him. The 2-CD set includes authoritative recordings of

all six piano sonatas plus Omaggio a Domenico Scarlatti (1967) and The Origin p (1999), and an

excellent, extensive article on these works by Ian Pace in the booklet notes.

Horatiu Radulescu was the leading figure in the field of Romanian spectral music, which derives

massive, overwhelming sound masses from the very basics of harmonic spectra. In the second

half of his career, he combined this with Romanian folk music and Byzantine chant, often in

startling contrapuntal combinations employing techniques developed during the European

Renaissance.

The first Piano Sonata 'Wiege an den Abgrunden/Cradle to Abysses' (1968) from his early student

days in Bucharest alludes to Liszt's final Symphonic Poem and features dramatic and austere

music evoking a multitude of 'Abysses'.

The remaining five are all closely linked and collectively known as the Lao Tzu Sonatas, inspired

by the Taoist philosopher. Their chant-like or folk-derived materials are continually juxtaposed

with more abstract spectral harmonies, derived in part from Radulescu's earlier idiom. They

retain traces of song, ritual, and dance, but they are also transformed into something larger:

continuous bodies of resonance, rhythm, and colour. The Second Sonata, 'being and non-being

create each other' (1991), composed 23 years after the first, is viewed as ushering in Radulescu's

'second period'. The Third Sonata, 'you will endure forever' (1992, rev. 1999), the largest of the

six, is the first of Radulescu's piano works to draw explicitly upon pre-existing musical materials,

specifically Byzantine chant. In the Fourth Sonata, 'like a well older than God' (1993),

Radulescu makes prominent use of three different Romanian Christmas carols, all originally

collected and set by Bartok. The Fifth Sonata, 'settle your dust, this is the primal identity' (2003)

employs a wide range of Romanian folk melodies. The Sixth Sonata, 'return to the source of light'

(2007), was Radulescu's last completed work, and premiered by Ian Pace.

Omaggio a Domenico Scarlatti (1967) from the composer's student days in Bucharest displays

many aspects of post-war modernism and connects to the scale and performing features of

Scarlatti's keyboard music. The piano piece The Origin p (1999) is Radulescu at his most

uncompromising with what he calls 'spectral resonance' created by metal bars holding down all

black notes and most white ones.

Radulescu was born in Bucharest and studied violin with Enescu pupil Nina Alexandrescu at the

Bucharest Academy. During this period, a shift came about from the dominant neo-classical

style towards a greater engagement with European modernism. Radulescu graduated in 1969

and went to Paris, taking French citizenship in 1974. After this, like other emigre Romanian

composers, his music was barely played at all during the remainder of the communist era.