Dimitrie Cuclin
Encyclopedia
Dimitrie Cuclin was a Romania
n classical music
composer, musicologist, philosopher, translator, and writer.
, a port on the left shore of the Danube
. His father was an immigrant from czarist Bessarabia
, from the village of Cucleni, near the town of Izmail
. He had studied music at the Theological Seminar of Izmail and at the Universities of Iaşi
and Bucharest
. At the time of Dimitrie’s birth he was a music teacher at the „Vasile Alecsandri” high-school in Galaţi. His mother was of peasant origin, from the village of Pechea, located about 25 miles from Galaţi; she was a housewife. Dimitrie Cuclin completed his primary and secondary studies in his native city, where his father was his first music teacher. During high-school, he began to compose small musical pieces, which impressed the composer G.D. Kiriac, who thus suggested that Cuclin should go to Bucharest to study music.
, where he studied until his scholarship expired in 1914. Because of the government’s refusal to supplement his scholarship, Cuclin had to live France without having completed his studies, thus without a French university degree, but with an attestation from D’Indy that certified his competencies. In Paris he met his future wife, Zoe, born Dumitrescu, ex Damian (d. 1973). They were married in 1920.
, in what was left free of the Kingdom of Romania
. After the War’s end, in 1919, he became a Professor at the Conservatory of Music, and had the title of the newly-founded chair of Musical Aesthetics. Between 1922 and 1930 Cuclin taught in New York, at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and City College of Music. He returned to the Bucharest Conservatory in 1930 and remained there until 1948, when he retired. During the Second World War, in the times of the National Legionary State
, Cuclin was briefly the Director of the Conservatory, but he did not have the best relations with the Legion
, a fact that got him relieved of that responsibility.
régime, Dimitrie Cuclin was condemned for political reasons to serve two years (1950-1952) in a labour camp at the Danube-Black Sea Canal
. The event that fired up the regime’s reaction was Cuclin’s attendance at a musical soirée at the Goethe-Institute in Bucharest. He was thus imprisoned for being “idealist” and “reactionary
”. After this sinister episode, Cuclin was able to create again, and in fact it is in this period that he commenced his career as a symphonist. Towards the end of his life, he was close to being elected a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy
, but the proletkult
poet Mihai Beniuc
opposed the move. He died in 1978 from the complications of a heart disease contracted while a prisoner in the communist work camps.
His Symphonies : No1(1910), No2 (1938)subtitled Triumph of the Peoples Union , No3 (1942), No4 (1944),No5 (1947) with soloists & chorus, No6 (1948,) No7 (1948), No8 1948, No9 (1949), No10 (1949) with chorus, No11 (1950),No12 (1951) with soloists & chorus, No13 (1951), No14 (1952), No15 (1954),No16 (1959)Triumph of Peace, No17 (1965) No18 (1967), No19 (1971), no20 (1972)
He also composed a Violin Concerto (1920), a Piano Concerto (1939,Clarinet Concerto (1968), Rumanian Dances for Orchestra (1961), 3 String Quartets & numerous other chamber, piano pieces, scred choruses & songs.
A detailed list of his works & bibliography is contained in Viorel Cosma's "Muzicieni romani" (Bucharest 1970
He is also the author of a ballet, Tragedy in the forest (1962). In addition to these, Cuclin composed sonatas, quartets, madrigals, melodies of folkloric inspiration, etc. As a composer, Cuclin is an exponent of the French school, following the line of César Franck
and Vincent D’Indy.
Cuclin's poetry follows the antebellic paradigm of the Romanian literature, imposed by such writers as Heliade Rădulescu, Bolintineanu
, Alexandrescu
, Alecsandri, Eminescu, Vlahuţă, Coşbuc and Goga
. He cultivates especially the sonnet, of which he has a musical understanding: the sonnet
was for him the literary equivalent of a sonata
. It is no wonder that, in the '70s, he failed to have a new poetry volume published: his style was long time outdated.
He translated also from Latin
the first two books of Ovid
's Fasti
, published by the same editor, year unknown.
all his life and he wrote several versions of a work called A Treatise of the Metaphysics. The earliest such treatise that is available in manuscript is entitled La théorie de l’immortalité (1931), and an abridged version in Romanian, realised by Cuclin himself, was published only in 1990. The latest integral version of a Traité de la métaphysique dates from the ’50, most probably after Cuclin’s release from the labour camp. There are indications that Cuclin wrote at least four versions of the treatise, in French and Romanian, but those could not be found, as they are buried in the private collections.
This last book-length treatise has two subtitles, namely, “A theory of nothingness” and “Towards a new aspect of Marxism”. Cuclin had the naivety to think that the official Marxism could incorporate his philosophy. We have several published compressed versions of his metaphysical system, some being to his disciples which noted them after a lecture or oral exposition of the master, and one being wrote by Cuclin himself (in Cuclin 1986), thus more reliable .
Other published works with philosophical content are Musique: science, art et philosophie (Cuclin 1934), in the documents of the Eighth International Congress of Philosophy from Prague and his innovatory Treatise of Musical Aesthetics (Cuclin 1933). The first part of this treatise is a partial exposition of his metaphysical vision, the foundation of his aesthetics
.
, but not one very easy to characterise. It is a musical panpsychism
, claiming influence from the Pythagorean
thought, and showing the Absolute
to be a living system of harmonized functions, in continuous expansion. It has been suggested that his particular brand of idealism be called “functionalist idealism” (Rusu 2002). During the communist period, the philosophy of Cuclin was considered a materialist dualism
(Matei 1985, Tănase 1985), point of view contested by Rusu.
, which will be briefly presented in the following lines.
But firstly we will note another methodological aspect of Cuclin’s metaphysics, namely the contribution of the “science of music” to the knowledge of the reality. The science of music is not a science of the sound, because the sound is not essential to music. The phenomenon of the “enharmony” and the fact that each sound can have different functions in different chords proves to Cuclin that the sound is only the contingent bearer of a “function” which can have other contingent bearers, like emotion and feeling. The “function” is determined as a degree of movement of the soul, towards pleasure or pain. Thus, the music is literally done with the soul, not with the sound, and it passes from the sound into the soul in virtue of this invariant which is the function. The science of music, then, provides us with the laws of the function, the ultimate component of reality.
, the essence it is roughly an equivalent of the spirit
, but it differs greatly because it presents itself as a system of harmonic
s, like an absolute sound composed of infinitely many harmonics, each one bearing a specific function within the whole. This realm of essence, governed by the laws of harmony
(which laws we know from the science of music) has a will, and a purpose for the realising of which the will mobilises. The purpose of this great harmonic system is to acquire self-consciousness. Therefore, the essence degrades itself in an impure mode, the substance, which is the second fundamental category of Cuclin's metaphysics.
), from which is further separated the electricity, followed by light and so on until the living matter is obtained. This cosmology, mostly fantastic, bears the influences of evolutionism
and voluntarism
, with a trace of Hegelianism
.
of creation and a theory of immortality
. Through his creations the man constitutes a magnetic double of his personality
, which is integrated in the great harmonic system which is the Essence. Thus, by contributing through creation to the becoming self-conscious of the Essence, the man becomes also immortal.
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
composer, musicologist, philosopher, translator, and writer.
Early life
Dimitrie Cuclin was born in the city of GalaţiGalati
Galați is a city and municipality in Romania, the capital of Galați County. Located in the historical region of Moldavia, in the close vicinity of Brăila, Galați is the largest port and sea port on the Danube River and the second largest Romanian port....
, a port on the left shore of the Danube
Danube
The Danube is a river in the Central Europe and the Europe's second longest river after the Volga. It is classified as an international waterway....
. His father was an immigrant from czarist Bessarabia
Bessarabia
Bessarabia is a historical term for the geographic region in Eastern Europe bounded by the Dniester River on the east and the Prut River on the west....
, from the village of Cucleni, near the town of Izmail
Izmail
Izmail is a historic town near the Danube river in the Odessa Oblast of south-western Ukraine. Serving as the administrative center of the Izmail Raion , the city itself is also designated as a separate raion within the oblast....
. He had studied music at the Theological Seminar of Izmail and at the Universities of Iaşi
Iasi
Iași is the second most populous city and a municipality in Romania. Located in the historical Moldavia region, Iași has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Romanian social, cultural, academic and artistic life...
and Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
. At the time of Dimitrie’s birth he was a music teacher at the „Vasile Alecsandri” high-school in Galaţi. His mother was of peasant origin, from the village of Pechea, located about 25 miles from Galaţi; she was a housewife. Dimitrie Cuclin completed his primary and secondary studies in his native city, where his father was his first music teacher. During high-school, he began to compose small musical pieces, which impressed the composer G.D. Kiriac, who thus suggested that Cuclin should go to Bucharest to study music.
Studentship
The young composer applied first at the Conservatory (1903), where he was rejected for being above the age limit, ant then at the Royal Academy of Music (1904), where he was accepted at the section of Theory and Harmony. After three years of studentship in Bucharest, Cuclin obtained a scholarship for Paris. He failed to get into the Conservatory (he was not a brilliant violin player, although he was an acceptable one), but he was admitted at Vincent D’Indy’s Schola CantorumSchola Cantorum
The Schola Cantorum de Paris is a private music school in Paris. It was founded in 1894 by Charles Bordes, Alexandre Guilmant and Vincent d'Indy as a counterbalance to the Paris Conservatoire's emphasis on opera...
, where he studied until his scholarship expired in 1914. Because of the government’s refusal to supplement his scholarship, Cuclin had to live France without having completed his studies, thus without a French university degree, but with an attestation from D’Indy that certified his competencies. In Paris he met his future wife, Zoe, born Dumitrescu, ex Damian (d. 1973). They were married in 1920.
Professorship
Once back in Romania, he was mobilised during the First World War, but did not go to the Front. He played violin at the Orchestra of Iasi, conducted by the famous musician George EnescuGeorge Enescu
George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher.-Biography:Enescu was born in the village of Liveni , Dorohoi County at the time, today Botoşani County. He showed musical talent from early in his childhood. A child prodigy, Enescu created his first musical...
, in what was left free of the Kingdom of Romania
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
. After the War’s end, in 1919, he became a Professor at the Conservatory of Music, and had the title of the newly-founded chair of Musical Aesthetics. Between 1922 and 1930 Cuclin taught in New York, at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and City College of Music. He returned to the Bucharest Conservatory in 1930 and remained there until 1948, when he retired. During the Second World War, in the times of the National Legionary State
National Legionary State
The National Legionary State was the Romanian government from September 6, 1940 to January 23, 1941. It was a single-party regime dictatorship dominated by the overtly fascist Iron Guard in uneasy conjunction with the head of government and Conducător Ion Antonescu, the leader of the Romanian...
, Cuclin was briefly the Director of the Conservatory, but he did not have the best relations with the Legion
Iron Guard
The Iron Guard is the name most commonly given to a far-right movement and political party in Romania in the period from 1927 into the early part of World War II. The Iron Guard was ultra-nationalist, fascist, anti-communist, and promoted the Orthodox Christian faith...
, a fact that got him relieved of that responsibility.
Retirement
At the beginning of the CommunistCommunist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
régime, Dimitrie Cuclin was condemned for political reasons to serve two years (1950-1952) in a labour camp at the Danube-Black Sea Canal
Danube-Black Sea Canal
The Danube – Black Sea Canal is a canal in Romania which runs from Cernavodă on the Danube to Agigea and Năvodari on the Black Sea...
. The event that fired up the regime’s reaction was Cuclin’s attendance at a musical soirée at the Goethe-Institute in Bucharest. He was thus imprisoned for being “idealist” and “reactionary
Reactionary
The term reactionary refers to viewpoints that seek to return to a previous state in a society. The term is meant to describe one end of a political spectrum whose opposite pole is "radical". While it has not been generally considered a term of praise it has been adopted as a self-description by...
”. After this sinister episode, Cuclin was able to create again, and in fact it is in this period that he commenced his career as a symphonist. Towards the end of his life, he was close to being elected a correspondent member of the Romanian Academy
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 acting members who are elected for life....
, but the proletkult
Proletkult
Proletkult was movement which arose in the Russian revolution and was active from 1917 to 1925 which aspired to provide the foundations for what was intended to be a truly proletarian art devoid of bourgeois influence.The name is a portmanteau of "proletarskaya kultura" , which are better-known as...
poet Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc
Mihai Beniuc was a Romanian proletcultist poet, dramatist and novelist. He graduated from the University of Cluj in 1931 majoring in psychology, philosophy and sociology. This was reflected in his writing, particularly the novels...
opposed the move. He died in 1978 from the complications of a heart disease contracted while a prisoner in the communist work camps.
Awards and Distinctions
- 1913 - The First Prize for Composition at the First Edition of the International Festival "George Enescu" from Bucharest
- 1934 - The Prize of the Romanian AcademyRomanian AcademyThe Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
for the Treatise of Musical Aesthetics
- 1939 - The National Prize for Composition
- 1955 - The State Prize
- 1969 - The Order "Meritul Cultural"
- 1978 - The Great Prize of the Union of the Composers from Romania
Music
Cuclin created a symphonic corpus containing 20 symphonies, and he was a representative of the monumental in symphonic writing. Some of his symphonies last the length of a whole symphonic concert (the twelfth, which is the longest, lasts 6 hours). Cuclin also composed 6 operas:- Soria (1911)
- Ad majorem feminae gloriam (1915)
- Trajan and Dochia (1921)
- Agamemnon (1922)
- Bellerophon (1925)
- Meleagridele (1958)
His Symphonies : No1(1910), No2 (1938)subtitled Triumph of the Peoples Union , No3 (1942), No4 (1944),No5 (1947) with soloists & chorus, No6 (1948,) No7 (1948), No8 1948, No9 (1949), No10 (1949) with chorus, No11 (1950),No12 (1951) with soloists & chorus, No13 (1951), No14 (1952), No15 (1954),No16 (1959)Triumph of Peace, No17 (1965) No18 (1967), No19 (1971), no20 (1972)
He also composed a Violin Concerto (1920), a Piano Concerto (1939,Clarinet Concerto (1968), Rumanian Dances for Orchestra (1961), 3 String Quartets & numerous other chamber, piano pieces, scred choruses & songs.
A detailed list of his works & bibliography is contained in Viorel Cosma's "Muzicieni romani" (Bucharest 1970
He is also the author of a ballet, Tragedy in the forest (1962). In addition to these, Cuclin composed sonatas, quartets, madrigals, melodies of folkloric inspiration, etc. As a composer, Cuclin is an exponent of the French school, following the line of César Franck
César Franck
César-Auguste-Jean-Guillaume-Hubert Franck was a composer, pianist, organist, and music teacher who worked in Paris during his adult life....
and Vincent D’Indy.
Literature
Cuclin wrote a lot of poetry, of which only a small part is published, and was also a translator of poetry.Original Works
Cuclin wrote in Romanian, English, and French. His literary works comprise theater plays, opera librettos, and poems. Among his published volumes, the following are the most important:- Destinée mystique. Poésies diverses, Bucarest : Imprimeries Independenţa, 1919 (in French)
- Poems, Bucharest, Tiparul Oltenia, year unknown (in English)
- DoinaDoinaThe Doina is a Romanian musical tune style, with Middle Eastern roots, that can be found in Romanian peasant music, as well as in Lăutărească and Klezmer music.-Origins and characteristics:...
s and Sonnets, Bucharest, Tiparul Oltenia, 1932 (in Romanian)
- Sofonisba: Versified Tragedy in One Prologue and Three Acts, Bucharest, Tipografia Presa, 1945
Cuclin's poetry follows the antebellic paradigm of the Romanian literature, imposed by such writers as Heliade Rădulescu, Bolintineanu
Dimitrie Bolintineanu
Dimitrie Bolintineanu was a Romanian poet , diplomat, politician, and a participant in the revolution of 1848. He was of Macedonian Aromanian origins...
, Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu
Grigore Alexandrescu in Bucharest was a nineteenth century Romanian poet and translator noted for his fables with political undertones.Of a noble family, he participated in secret revolutionary societies...
, Alecsandri, Eminescu, Vlahuţă, Coşbuc and Goga
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.-Life:Born in Răşinari, nearby Sibiu, he was an active member in the Romanian nationalistic movement in Transylvania and of its leading group, the Romanian National Party in Austria-Hungary. Before World War I,...
. He cultivates especially the sonnet, of which he has a musical understanding: the sonnet
Sonnet
A sonnet is one of several forms of poetry that originate in Europe, mainly Provence and Italy. A sonnet commonly has 14 lines. The term "sonnet" derives from the Occitan word sonet and the Italian word sonetto, both meaning "little song" or "little sound"...
was for him the literary equivalent of a sonata
Sonata
Sonata , in music, literally means a piece played as opposed to a cantata , a piece sung. The term, being vague, naturally evolved through the history of music, designating a variety of forms prior to the Classical era...
. It is no wonder that, in the '70s, he failed to have a new poetry volume published: his style was long time outdated.
Translations
As a translator, Cuclin made himself remarked by his translation of Eminescu's poems in English: Poems, Bucharest, I.E.Toroutiu, 1938.He translated also from Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
the first two books of Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Fasti
Fasti
In ancient Rome, the fasti were chronological or calendar-based lists, or other diachronic records or plans of official and religiously sanctioned events...
, published by the same editor, year unknown.
Works
Cuclin had a permanent preoccupation for metaphysicsMetaphysics
Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy concerned with explaining the fundamental nature of being and the world, although the term is not easily defined. Traditionally, metaphysics attempts to answer two basic questions in the broadest possible terms:...
all his life and he wrote several versions of a work called A Treatise of the Metaphysics. The earliest such treatise that is available in manuscript is entitled La théorie de l’immortalité (1931), and an abridged version in Romanian, realised by Cuclin himself, was published only in 1990. The latest integral version of a Traité de la métaphysique dates from the ’50, most probably after Cuclin’s release from the labour camp. There are indications that Cuclin wrote at least four versions of the treatise, in French and Romanian, but those could not be found, as they are buried in the private collections.
This last book-length treatise has two subtitles, namely, “A theory of nothingness” and “Towards a new aspect of Marxism”. Cuclin had the naivety to think that the official Marxism could incorporate his philosophy. We have several published compressed versions of his metaphysical system, some being to his disciples which noted them after a lecture or oral exposition of the master, and one being wrote by Cuclin himself (in Cuclin 1986), thus more reliable .
Other published works with philosophical content are Musique: science, art et philosophie (Cuclin 1934), in the documents of the Eighth International Congress of Philosophy from Prague and his innovatory Treatise of Musical Aesthetics (Cuclin 1933). The first part of this treatise is a partial exposition of his metaphysical vision, the foundation of his aesthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
.
General Overview
The system of Cuclin is a form of idealismIdealism
In philosophy, idealism is the family of views which assert that reality, or reality as we can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. Epistemologically, idealism manifests as a skepticism about the possibility of knowing any mind-independent thing...
, but not one very easy to characterise. It is a musical panpsychism
Panpsychism
In philosophy, panpsychism is the view that all matter has a mental aspect, or, alternatively, all objects have a unified center of experience or point of view...
, claiming influence from the Pythagorean
Pythagoreanism
Pythagoreanism was the system of esoteric and metaphysical beliefs held by Pythagoras and his followers, the Pythagoreans, who were considerably influenced by mathematics. Pythagoreanism originated in the 5th century BCE and greatly influenced Platonism...
thought, and showing the Absolute
Absolute (philosophy)
The Absolute is the concept of an unconditional reality which transcends limited, conditional, everyday existence. It is sometimes used as an alternate term for "God" or "the Divine", especially, but by no means exclusively, by those who feel that the term "God" lends itself too easily to...
to be a living system of harmonized functions, in continuous expansion. It has been suggested that his particular brand of idealism be called “functionalist idealism” (Rusu 2002). During the communist period, the philosophy of Cuclin was considered a materialist dualism
Dualism
Dualism denotes a state of two parts. The term 'dualism' was originally coined to denote co-eternal binary opposition, a meaning that is preserved in metaphysical and philosophical duality discourse but has been diluted in general or common usages. Dualism can refer to moral dualism, Dualism (from...
(Matei 1985, Tănase 1985), point of view contested by Rusu.
Concept of Metaphysics
Cuclin’s explications concerning the title of his Traité de la métaphysique are of great value for the understanding of his vision. Thus, we have “a treatise” and not “the treatise”, because metaphysics can be exposed in many treatises; and we have “of the metaphysics”, and not “of metaphysics”, because there is but one “metaphysics”. “The metaphysics” is, in fact, more like “the metaphysical realm” for Cuclin, or the domain of the transcendence. Thus, he proposed to produce one of the possible surveys of this domain.Method of Metaphysics
The method of Cuclin is the logical enquiry, followed up to an absurdity, or violent contradiction. The contradiction is the sign of reaching the truth, because the truth is found in logical reasoning, not in reason. An absurdity is the sign that the reason does not agree with the results of the logical reasoning, but is not a sign of unreality or falseness. Rather the opposite is true, that the point of view of the reason is unreliable and many times false. With this almost Eleatic method, Cuclin reaches some sort of spiritualist monismMonism
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry. Accordingly, some philosophers may hold that the universe is one rather than dualistic or pluralistic...
, which will be briefly presented in the following lines.
But firstly we will note another methodological aspect of Cuclin’s metaphysics, namely the contribution of the “science of music” to the knowledge of the reality. The science of music is not a science of the sound, because the sound is not essential to music. The phenomenon of the “enharmony” and the fact that each sound can have different functions in different chords proves to Cuclin that the sound is only the contingent bearer of a “function” which can have other contingent bearers, like emotion and feeling. The “function” is determined as a degree of movement of the soul, towards pleasure or pain. Thus, the music is literally done with the soul, not with the sound, and it passes from the sound into the soul in virtue of this invariant which is the function. The science of music, then, provides us with the laws of the function, the ultimate component of reality.
Categories
His central category is that of essence, which constitutes the ultimate ontological ground. Equated by Cuclin with the pure nothingness, but a positive nothingness, like the Buddhist nirvanaNirvana
Nirvāṇa ; ) is a central concept in Indian religions. In sramanic thought, it is the state of being free from suffering. In Hindu philosophy, it is the union with the Supreme being through moksha...
, the essence it is roughly an equivalent of the spirit
Spirit
The English word spirit has many differing meanings and connotations, most of them relating to a non-corporeal substance contrasted with the material body.The spirit of a living thing usually refers to or explains its consciousness.The notions of a person's "spirit" and "soul" often also overlap,...
, but it differs greatly because it presents itself as a system of harmonic
Harmonic
A harmonic of a wave is a component frequency of the signal that is an integer multiple of the fundamental frequency, i.e. if the fundamental frequency is f, the harmonics have frequencies 2f, 3f, 4f, . . . etc. The harmonics have the property that they are all periodic at the fundamental...
s, like an absolute sound composed of infinitely many harmonics, each one bearing a specific function within the whole. This realm of essence, governed by the laws of harmony
Harmony
In music, harmony is the use of simultaneous pitches , or chords. The study of harmony involves chords and their construction and chord progressions and the principles of connection that govern them. Harmony is often said to refer to the "vertical" aspect of music, as distinguished from melodic...
(which laws we know from the science of music) has a will, and a purpose for the realising of which the will mobilises. The purpose of this great harmonic system is to acquire self-consciousness. Therefore, the essence degrades itself in an impure mode, the substance, which is the second fundamental category of Cuclin's metaphysics.
Cosmology
The process of degradation that commences with the pure essence and ends with the pure substance is called by Cuclin “the separation of essence”. In this process of separation are generated diverse entities which are a mixture of substance and essence, where one of these aspects is prevalent. Actually, every extant thing is a mixture of essence and substance in different proportions. The first element into which the essence separates is the magnetism (or magnetic fieldMagnetic field
A magnetic field is a mathematical description of the magnetic influence of electric currents and magnetic materials. The magnetic field at any given point is specified by both a direction and a magnitude ; as such it is a vector field.Technically, a magnetic field is a pseudo vector;...
), from which is further separated the electricity, followed by light and so on until the living matter is obtained. This cosmology, mostly fantastic, bears the influences of evolutionism
Evolutionism
Evolutionism refers to the biological concept of evolution, specifically to a widely held 19th century belief that organisms are intrinsically bound to increase in complexity. The belief was extended to include cultural evolution and social evolution...
and voluntarism
Voluntarism
Voluntarism is a descriptive term for a school of thought that regards the will as superior to the intellect and to emotion. This description has been applied to various points of view, from different cultural eras, in the areas of metaphysics, psychology, sociology, and theology.The term...
, with a trace of Hegelianism
Hegelianism
Hegelianism is a collective term for schools of thought following or referring to G. W. F. Hegel's philosophy which can be summed up by the dictum that "the rational alone is real", which means that all reality is capable of being expressed in rational categories...
.
Artistic Creation and Immortality
The human being is a culmination of the substantialisation of the essence; from here the reverted process can begin, that of the re-essentialisation of the substance. The first process, the separation of the essence or its substantialisation, was also called analysis. The process of the re-essentialisation of the substance is called synthesis. Through this synthetic process which is the human creation, the re-essentialised substance can be transposed as a magnetic double in a great harmonic system, which is the image of the pure essence, regarded as re-essentialised substance. Thus, the essence stand in front of itself and, with the help of the human creation, takes consciousness of itself. This implies an ethicsEthics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
of creation and a theory of immortality
Immortality
Immortality is the ability to live forever. It is unknown whether human physical immortality is an achievable condition. Biological forms have inherent limitations which may or may not be able to be overcome through medical interventions or engineering...
. Through his creations the man constitutes a magnetic double of his personality
Personality psychology
Personality psychology is a branch of psychology that studies personality and individual differences. Its areas of focus include:* Constructing a coherent picture of the individual and his or her major psychological processes...
, which is integrated in the great harmonic system which is the Essence. Thus, by contributing through creation to the becoming self-conscious of the Essence, the man becomes also immortal.
Influence
Although isolated from the community of the philosophers, Cuclin had private disciples which assimilated his philosophy (e.g. Ion Bârsan). One of his students, Alexandru Bogza, wrote in solitude a philosophical system, called "the critical realism" (no connection with the homonymous American philosophical movement), published posthumously. This system bears the traces of a certain Cuclinian influence (Cuclin is quoted several times by Bogza), but the depth of this influence is yet to be assessed.Works by Cuclin
- (1933) Treatise of Musical Aesthetics (in Romanian), Bucharest, Tipografia Oltenia
- (1934) Musique : science, art et philosophie (in French), paper delivered at the Eighth Internation Congress of Philosophy from Prague
- (1983) A Polemical History of Music (in Romanian), Iaşi, Junimea
- (1990) The Theory of immortality (in Romanian), Galaţi, Porto Franco
General
- Bârsan, Ion (1995) Conversations with Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), Galaţi, Porto Franco
- Bârsan, Ion (1997) „Dimitrie Cuclin – Landmarks of his Biography and Creation” (in Romanian), Revista de etnografie şi folclor, nr. 5-6
- Istratty, Ella and Smântânescu, Dan (1985) Conversations with Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), Bucharest, Editura muzicală
- Moldovan, Nicolae (2001) Dimitrie Cuclin. The Man, the Thinker, and the Composer (in Romanian), Galaţi, Alma
Musicological
- Brâncuşi, Cristian (2006) The Musical Aesthetics in the View of Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), Bucharest, Editura Universităţii Naţionale de Muzică
- Ticulescu, I. (1933) Dimitrie Cuclin – Critical Study on his Life and Works (in Romanian), Bucharest
- Tomescu, Vasile (1956) The Creative Path of Dimitrie Cuclin (in Romanian), Bucureşti, Editura muzicală
Philosophical
- Matei, Dumitru (1985) “Some Observations concerning Dimitrie Cuclin's Metaphysics: the Theory of Existence” (in Romanian), Revista de filozofie, nr. 6
- Matei, Dumitru (1986a) “The Cuclinian Theory of Man” (in Romanian), Revista de filozofie, nr. 5
- Matei, Dumitru (1986b) “Dimitrie Cuclin on Immortality” (in Romanian), Revista de filozofie, nr. 6
- Rusu, Bogdan (2002) “An Outline of Dimitrie Cuclin's Metaphysics” (in Romanian), Eidos, nr. 2
- Surdu, Aexandru (2002) “Dimitrie Cuclin's Urge for Philosophy” (in Romanian), in Confluenţe Cultural-filosofice, Bucureşti, Paideia
- Tănase, Al. “An Original Philosophical and Aesthetical System of Music” (in Romanian), foreword to Istratty and Ştefănescu (1985)