Romani Rock

Libby Gardner Series

Sunday, April 19, 2026
3:00PM
Libby Gardner Concert Hall
1375 Presidents' Circle
Salt Lake City, Utah 84112

Music of Enescu, Janáček, and a world premiere by Igor Iachimciuc

Program

Igor Iachimciuc‍ ‍Roma Suite for Cello and Cimbalom
Igor Iachimciuc, cimbalom
Walter Haman, cello

Leoš Janáček‍ ‍String Quartet no. 1 “Kreutzer Sonata”‍ ‍
Fry Street Quartet

George Enescu‍ ‍Octet
Will Hagen, violin
Robert Waters, violin
Rebecca McFaul, violin
Laura Ha, violin
Andrea Ashdown, viola
Brad Ottesen, viola
Walter Haman, cello
Anne Francis-Bayless, cello

Program Notes

In the words of today’s featured composer and Moldova native Igor Iachimciuc, “The music of the Roma people is hard to define stylistically. Depending on where a specific Roma artist comes from, their music might sound completely different from another composer in the culture. In general terms, however, all Roma music can be described as highly expressive. It can be either extreme joy, or extreme sorrow. There is also a lot of humor in texts of vocal music, and the melodies are usually highly ornamented and improvisatory. Unlike traditional folk music, Roma music does not always respect the stylistic boundaries of specific geographical areas. One can often hear a fusion of styles, which may be coming from different countries.” Clearly, the term itself (Roma) is asked to do a lot of work, here and elsewhere, when used to encompass such a rich and complex network of communities from around the world. Things get even more complicated with music. There are so many variations, so many inspirations. 

Speaking of inspirations, how about a string quartet inspired by a novella that was itself inspired by a violin sonata? In 1803, Beethoven wrote his Violin Sonata No. 9 for George Bridgetower, but the two friends had a falling out shortly after the premiere (over a woman, history insists) and Beethoven changed the dedication to Rodolphe Kreuzter. Kreutzer, for his part, did not like the piece and never played it. Fast forward all the way to 1889, and the publication of a novella named for Beethoven’s piece. Leo Tolstoy’s “Kreutzer Sonata” seemed to obliquely follow a momentary impasse like the one between Beethoven and Bridgewater to its dramatic, illogical and all-to-possible conclusion. This is a story about a man whose jealous fury over his wife’s interaction with a violinist (they are working on the Beethoven Kreutzer together) leads him to murder her. A slightly shorter leap is needed to reach from Tolstoy in 1889 to 1923 and Leoš Janáček. He was commissioned in that year to write two works for the Bohemian String Quartet and, for the first of them, he chose a subject he had previously explored for an unfinished Piano Trio in 1908. That particular subject was, of course, Tolstoy’s tragic and mentally complex “Kreutzer Sonata.” The music of String Quartet No. 1 does not literally trace the plot of the book, but the passions and rages of its characters are very much present in sound. So too is Tolstoy’s notion that powerful music, like that of Beethoven or Janáček, can inflame the heart and push us past our psychological limits. The work was premiered in October 1924.     

This brings us back to Igor Iachimciuc and his Roma Suite for Cimbalom and Cello (2026). There is an underlying story in this piece too but, unlike Janáček, Iachimciuc was not immediately aware of it. The work was commissioned by the NOVA Chamber Music Series, and the composer wrote the following about it: “In my Suite I was specifically inspired by the music of the Roma from Transylvania. When selecting the musical ideas, I tried to come up with contrasting movements, similar to a baroque suite. But after I finished the score, I realized that a story emerged. The suite comprises five movements: 1. Three rooms – The young Roma man is trying to impress upon his girlfriend that the size of his house and its three rooms is indeed a big deal! She said yes! 2. Such a Life! – The man discovers a bitter side of the marriage. 3. Smart Baron! – As with all Roma people, the man knows how to make money and yet again impress his wife. 4. When the Man is Gone – But he often needs to be gone for long time, which brings uncertainty into their relationship. 5. Beautiful Dancer – From time to time he goes to see a beautiful dancer, who can take all the dark thoughts away. But it is only an illusion, like a drumbeat, which appears in his head. He can’t escape it.” In more technical terms, Iachimciuc adds that he has “been experimenting with incorporation of traditional functionality into the otherwise atonal environment” and uses elements like “pitch content, voice leading, spacing, register, and timbre” to institute a measure of hierarchy to the “non-triadic sonorities” of the Roma Suite.

George Enescu was born in Romania in 1881 and got a very early start as a composer. He was only five years old when he wrote his first works for violin and piano and was enrolled at the Vienna Conservatory by age seven. Enescu was off to the races from there, with far too many notable (and precocious) achievements to list quickly. He did not die young, as did so many of our other great prodigies, but many of his best-known works still have the imprint of youth upon them. Efforts on the Octet in C Major, Op. 7 for strings were begun when Enescu was a relatively mature 18-year-old in 1900. By even the most generous historical wunderkind standards, he took his sweet time with it, giving the Octet a full year and half to bake. He wasn’t being indulgent. In fact, Enescu’s own comments on the process indicate that struggled to master the immensity of his massive, 40-minute-long creation. “I wore myself out,” he wrote later, “An engineer launching his first suspension bridge over a river could not feel more agony than I felt…” Enescu’s musical bridge held, thankfully, and it still stands strong as a worthy successor to Mendelssohn’s legendary exemplar. For his Octet, Enescu left explicit indications of his grand vision in the preface to the first edition score when he stated that the piece is “cyclic in form” and “divided into four distinct movements in the classic manner, each movement linked to the other to form a single symphonic movement”. They follow one another “according to the rules of construction for the first movement of a symphony.”   

—Jeff Counts ©2026