ABSTRACT
This chapter is about transition, and about the ambivalence that invariably attends it. It was common for composers in Romania from the late 19th century, and in Bulgaria from the early 20th, to appropriate pronounced, and largely stylised, oriental elements in their depictions of the Turks. There is a comparable local canon in Romania, including composers such as Ion Nonna Ottescu, Ionel Perlea, Theodor Rogalski and the Paris-based Filip Lazar. It is clear that one composer loomed over all others in this ‘orient within’, and from a very great height. George Enescu easily transcended the local canons of the western Black Sea states to take his place confidently alongside other pioneering and canonical composers from east central Europe, notably Janacek, Bartok and Szymanowski.
