ROMANIAN COMPOSERS' SPIRITUAL CREATIVITY IN THE XX CENTURY - MUSICAL HAGIOGRAPHY OF THE ORDEAL OF A SOCIETY.

The spiritual musical creativity of Romanian composers in the XX century underwent numerous phases, between zenith and despair, due to social events specific for the whole of south-eastern Europe in the past century. Even though this creativity, in essence, expresses the tradition of the East, endeavouring to avoid any loss of its Byzantine roots, many composers, especially in the second half of the XX century, leave aside the elements of this esthetic and direct its creative focus to new creative tendencies. This work reviews compositions with spiritual themes by XX century Romanian composers, from the first decades, encompassing the years of communistic rule, till the days when it became immersed in a postmodern creative course, and it presents the names of the majority of composers who dedicated their works to the glory of the Almighty, analyzing thoroughly the information found at the Union of Composers and Musicologists of Romania from Bucharest. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]