Olah, Tiberiu

 Viorel Cosma
 , revised by Valentina Sandu-Dediu
 https://doi.org/10.1093/gmo/9781561592630.article.50101
 Published in print: 20 January 2001
 Published online: 2001
Updated in this version
updated and revised, 28 May 2015
(b Arpă şel, Maramureş district, Jan 2, 1928; d Bucharest, Oct 2, 2002). Romanian composer.
At the Dima Conservatory, Cluj (1946–9), he studied theory with Juliu Mureşianu, harmony
and counterpoint with Max Eisikovits, and the piano with Gheorghe Halmoş; he continued his
studies at the Moscow Conservatory (1949–54) with Yevgeny O. Messner (composition) and
Dmitry R. Rogal-Levitski (orchestration). In addition, he participated in the Darmstadt
summer courses (1966–72), where several of his compositions (e.g. The Infinite Column and
Invocations) were performed. In 1967 he was awarded the international Koussevitsky prize
and in 1969–70 he was composer-in-residence at the Deutscher Akademischer
Austauschdienst, Berlin, where he embarked on a study of time and space in
music. Olah played an important part in the development of Romanian cinema. Two of his
film scores, Răscoala (‘The Uprising’) and Mihai Viteazul (‘Michael the Brave’), have
subsequently become successful concert pieces in their own right. Olah’s musicological
writings include a study of polyheterophony in Enescu’s music and of the structure of
Webern’s pre-serial harmonic language; both display a highly original perspective.
As a composer, Olah was, for more than 40 years, concerned with filtering folkloric musical
ideas (predominantly from Transylvania) through sophisticated modern techniques. His great
skill placed him, as early as the late 1950s, among the significant representatives of the
Romanian avant-garde. Many of his works are marked by a personal touch that is easily
recognisable due, in part, to the profoundly pentatonic underlying nature of the melody. His
first great success, Cantata with Old Csango Lyrics (1956), was a continuation of the
Bartókian cantata. In the 1960s he devised a cycle of works related to sculptures by
Constantin Brâncuşi in an attempt at conveying through music the essential ideal of archaic
folkloric art. A number of concepts important to Olah’s compositional thinking took shape
here – his meditation on space and time among them – and so did his combinatorial
techniques, such as the superposability and auto-superposability of musical structures. After
studying the interdependence between the real and imaginary spaces of music in Enescu and
Webern, Olah developed his own compositional technique, polyheterophony: a heterophony
of heterophonies, which solved the problem of the unity between the horizontal and vertical
dimensions, through their mutual transformation into a pluridimensional space. His study of
classical scores (Mozart and Beethoven in particular) gave him numerous creative impulses,
which resulted in the development of a ‘pantonality’ (a combination of pentatonic modes and
a major chord) and a temporary adherence to postmodernism, through the employment of
allusions and quotations in the 1980s–1990s (Symphony No.3, the concerto Obelisk for
Wolfgang Amadeus).

Works
(selective list)

Dramatic
Geamgii din Toledo [The Glaziers of Toledo] (television opera, B. Andor), 1970 [from puppet
theatre, 1959]

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Film scores
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The Avalanche, 1959

Străzile au amintiri [Streets’ memory], 1961

Sărutul [The Kiss], 1964

Comoara din Vadul Vechi [The Treasure of Vadul Vechi], 1965

Răscoala [The Uprising]; Castelanii [The Castle-Owners], 1966

Meandre [Meanders], 1966

Zodia fecioarei [Virgo], 1966

Răutăciosul adolescent [A Mischievous Adolescent], 1969

Mihai Viteazul [Michael the Brave], 1970

Puterea şi adevărul [Power and Truth], 1971

Decolarea [The Take-Off], 1971

Moartea lui Ipu [Ipu’s Death], 1972

Pe aici nu se trece [No Trespassing], 1974

 Osânda [The Condemnation], 1976

Trecătoarele iubiri [The Passing Loves], 1977

Independenţa [Independence], 1977

Munţii în flăcări [The Burning Mountains], 1980

La răscrucea marilor furtuni [At the Crossing of the Great Storms],

1980

Convoiul [The Convoy] 1981

Cine iubeşte şi lasă [Who Loves and Leaves], 1982

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Other works

Orchestral

Sym. no.1, 1956

Brâncuşi: Coloana fără sfîrşit [The Endless Column], 1961, Poarta sărutului [The Gate of the
Kiss], Masa tăcerii [The Table of Silence]; Translaţii; Perspective, Crescendo, 1966–72

The Time of Memory, 1973

Harmonies: I, 1975, II, 1976, III, 1978, IV, 1981

Sym. no.2, 1986

Sym. no.3, 1989

Musica concertante, fl, cl, orch, 1990

Obelisco per Wolfgang Amadeus, cl, sax, orch, 1991

Sinfonia giocosa, 1991

Muzică de concert, 16 brass, tape, 1993

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Chamber and solo instrumental

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Pf Sonatina, 1950

Str Qt, 1952

Trio, cl, vn, pf, 1954

Sonatina, vn, pf, 1955, rev. 1963

Equinox I, 1957

Sonata no.1, cl, 1963

Spațiu și ritm [Space and Rhythm], 3 perc, 1965

Perspectives, 13 insts, 1969

Invocatie I, 1971

PaROdiSSINIana, musical joke, vc, db, tape, 1973

Equinox II, 1975

Invocatie II, 1975

Equinox III, 1976

Invocatie III, 1976

Sonata for flute, 1978

Sonata, vc, 1979

Sonata no.2 (Rhymes for the Revelation of Time), cl, or sax and tape
1982

Conc. notturno, vib, a sax, tape, 1984

Sonata, vn, perc, 1985

Sonata, cb, tape, 1986

3 zboruri deasupra unui fluviu [3 Flies over a River], 1987

Conc. delle coppie, sax qt, 1988

Incontri spaziali, solo perc, tape, 1989

Peripeţii cu trisonuri majore [Adventures of Major Triads], 1993

Sonata (Rhymes for the Revelation of Time III), vn, tape, 1999

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Vocal

Cant. (Rom. trad.), 1957

Prind visele aripi [Winged Dreams] (cant., M. Banuş) 1959

Constelaţia omului [Man’s constellation], orat (Majakovski), 1960

Ode (T. Utan), mixed chorus, 1962

E chipul tău [It’s Your Face] (T. Utan), 3-part chorus; Ţara lui Făt-Frumos [The Country of
Prince Charming] (T. Utan), mixed chorus, 1964

Timpul cerbilor [The Time of the Stags] (choral sym., Pop verses), 1973

Vagues vagues, roses roses (T. Tzara), S, 2 fl, cl, 1974

Déchants, 2 fl, cl, v, 1997

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Writings
 ‘Folclor şi esenţă’ [Folklore and essence], Muzica, vol.24/5 (1974), 4–6
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 ‘Weberns vorserielles Tonsystem’ [Webern’s pre-serial compositional
system], Melos/NZM, vol.1/1 (1975), 10–13
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 ‘Pe tema experimentului în muzică’ [On experimentation in
music], Muzica [Bucharest], vol.25/10 (1975), 1–3
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 ‘Une nouvelle méthode d’organisation du matériau sonore: La
polyhétérophonie d’Enescu’, Muzica [Bucharest], vol.33/4 (1983), 35–47
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 ‘Nota simbol de geneză tonală in “Simfonia neterminată” de Schubert’
[The symbol sound of tonal genesis in the Unfinished Symphony of
Schubert], Muzica [Bucharest], vol.9/3 (1998), 36–46
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Bibliography
 RiemannL12
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 U. Dibelius: Moderne Musik: 1945–65 (Munich, 1966), 299
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 V. Cosma: Muzicieni români: lexicon (Bucharest, 1970), 337–8
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 A. Goléa: ‘Romanian Composers’, The World of Music, vol.12/3 (1970),
66–9
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 D. Buciu: ‘Tiberiu Olah’, Revue roumaine, vol.3 (1972), 130–2
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 C. Stoianov: ‘Tiberiu Olah’, Fr. trans. in Muzica [Bucharest], vol.32/6
(1982), 40–8
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 V. Cosma: Muzicieni din România: Lexicon, vol.7 (Bucharest, 2004)
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 V. Sandu-Dediu: Rumänische Musik nach 1944 (Saarbrücken, 2006)
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 O. Lupu, ed.: Tiberiu Olah. Restituiri [Restorations] (Bucharest, 2008)
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 O. Lupu, ed.: Tiberiu Olahși multiplele fațete ale
postmodernismului [Tiberiu Olah and the multiple facets of postmodernism]
(Bucharest, 2008)