Carmen Petra Basacopol

Carmen Petra Basacopol (5 September 1926 – 15 October 2023) was a Romanian composer, pianist, musicologist and academic teacher.

Petra Basacopol was born Carmen Petra in Sibiu, on 5 September 1926.

She had family homes in both Sibiu and Câmpia Turzii; her mother, Clementina, was a graduate of the Timișoara Municipal Conservatory, who encouraged her to take up visual arts (her first and lasting passion), as well as piano—which Carmen studied from the age of five.

Though she received a diploma (presented to her by composer Sabin Drăgoi) during a national music festival, she focused on literature, and, from 1946, took up formal studies in philosophy at the University of Bucharest.

She graduated in 1949.

She took an award at the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin, 1951.

In 1953, she won the George Enescu prize of the Romanian Academy.

She was awarded at the 4th World Festival of Youth and Students, held in Bucharest in 1953, then at the 5th edition, held in Warsaw in 1955.

She was then enrolled at the Bucharest Conservatory of Music, graduating in 1956.

Her professors included Ioan D. Chirescu (music theory), Leon Klepper, and Mihail Jora (composition), Paul Constantinescu (harmony) and Tudor Ciortea (musical analysis), Nicolae Buicliu (counterpoint), Theodor Rogalski (orchestration), Ion Vicol and Ion Marian (choral conducting), Adriana Sachelarie and George Breazul (music history), Tiberiu Alexandru and Emilia Comișel (folklore), and Silvia Căpățână and Ovidiu Drimba (piano).

Petra debuted as a composer at this stage, contributing a series of rondos and suites, before moving on to sonatas and symphonies inspired by her direct experience of peasant life in Țara Moților and Crișana.

In the 1960s, her Violin Concertino was recorded by soloist George Hamza and the Romanian Radio Studio Orchestra conducted by Ludovic Baci, ECE O404.

The Mannheim Hochscule presented her with a special prize for composition in 1961.

She taught at the National University of Music Bucharest, between 1962 and 2003, and at the Rabat Conservatoire in Morocco in the 1970s.

Petra became teaching assistant at the Bucharest Conservatory in 1962, later becoming lecturer (1966–1972); by 1965, she had been included on the steering committee of the Union of the Composers and Musicologists of Romania (UCMR), and was regularly featured with articles in the trade magazine, Muzica.

Their first child, a boy, was born in 1964.

The Basacopols lived for a while in Rabat, where she founded a music school and gave piano lessons to children, also teaching at the conservatory.

Their son Paul Basacopol became a singer at the Romanian National Opera, Bucharest.

Petra Basacopol died on 15 October 2023, at age 97.

Petra Basacopol composed for orchestra, opera, chamber ensemble, harp, piano, voice, and ballet performance, often using themes and instruments from folk music.

Among more than 80 opuses, chamber music has a special place, especially music for the harp.

She expanded the expression of the harp, typically associated with delicacy and transparency, by aggressive and strident sonorities, by hammering on the wood, playing close to the table, glissandos and syncopated rhythms, with "archaic sounds" used to "translate inner movements of the soul".

Her works include:

Petra Basacopol's compositions were recorded first in Romania by Electrecord.

She also attended classes at the Darmstädter Ferienkurse in 1968, with György Ligeti, Erhard Karkoschka, Günther Becker, Christoph Caskel, Saschko Gawriloff, and Aloys Kontarsky.

Her Violin Concerto No. 2 was recorded in the 1970s, by soloist Ștefan Ruha and the Romanian Radio Orchestra conducted by Constantin Bobescu, combined with Dan Constantinescu's Concerto for Piano and String Orchestra, ECE 607.

She then taught harmony, counterpoint, music history and improvisation at the conservatory of Rabat, Morocco, between 1974 and 1976.

She repeatedly received the UCMR's annual prize—in 1974, 1979, 1981, 1985, 1987, 1999 and 2003.

As a musicologist, she achieved a PhD from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1976, with a dissertation about three Romanian composers who had influenced her, George Enescu, Mihail Jora and Paul Constantinescu, composers representing essential features of Romanian music.

She composed music of many genres, with a focus on chamber music, including compositions with the harp; her works have been performed internationally.

Her music has been described as stylistically diversified, "defined by the freshness of inspiration, the elegance of construction and the ability to communicate directly with the listener through the simplicity of melodic and harmonic expression".

Petra Basacopol received her PhD in musicology from the Sorbonne University in Paris in 1976, with a dissertation entitled "The Compositional Art of Great Romanian Composers: Enescu, Jora and Constantinescu", focused on three composers who had influenced her, Enescu and two of her teachers.

She felt that these composers represented essential features of Romanian music, distinguishing it from other music.

Petra Basacopol then returned to Bucharest, teaching musical analysis and harmony at the Conservatory from 1976 to 2003.

Petra Basacopol attended conferences, lectures, scientific communications in Romania and abroad (France, Angola, São Tomé and Príncipe).

She authored research, published in trade journals and for Radio România Cultural.

She was a jury member of the Harp Contest in Jerusalem in 1979, and of the Valentino Bucchi Composition contest in Rome in 1986.

She was also awarded the George Enescu Prize of the Romanian Composers Academy in 1980, knighthood in the Order of Cultural Merit, and in 2017 the UCMR's Grand Prize for her life's achievements.

Petra Basacopol was married to Alexandru Basacopol, a physician whom she met when attending a performance of Enescu's Œdipe in Bucharest.

A collection of her chamber music appeared in 1980, containing the Quartettino for Strings in neoclassical style, the Sonata for Flute and Harp, Colaje for brass quintet, and the Violin Sonata, ST-ECE 01545.