Month: June 2025

In Memoriam: Eugen Doga

On June 3, 2025, the Moldovan-Russian, composer Eugen Doga died in Chișinău at the age of 88.
Eugen Doga was born on March 1, 1937, in Mocra (Moldavian Soviet Republic). After seven years of schooling, Eugen Doga went to Chișinău to enroll at the conservatory, which he had heard about on his homemade radio. Despite having no prior training, he was accepted to the “Ștefan Neaga” Conservatory and studied cello from 1951 to 1955. Since paralysis of his left hand prevented him from
pursuing a career as a solo cellist, he continued his studies at the Gavriil Musicescu Art Institute for five years, specializing in composition. After graduating from the conservatory, he was a member of the orchestra of the Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic from 1957 to 1962, taught at the Stefan Neaga Music Academy in Chisinau from 1962 to 1967, and worked in the Ministry of Culture of the Republic

of Moldova from 1967 to 1972. From 1972 onward, he gave concerts throughout the Soviet Union and, after the collapse of the USSR, also delighted large international audiences.
Eugen Doga composed an opera, ballets, a symphony, string quartets, cantatas, choruses, songs, and romances, as well as numerous waltzes. He also composed music for more than 200 films.


The video shows Eugen Doga playing the piano during a performance of his waltz “Gramophon” with the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Ilarion Ionescu on June 21, 2014, at the Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest.

Stamp of the Month: June 2025

Georges Bizet


France 13.6.1960
The French composer Georges (Alexandre César Léopold) Bizet was born in Paris on October 25, 1838. He died of a heart attack on June 3, 1875, in Bougival, near Paris, at the age of just 36. June 2025 marks the 150th anniversary of his death.
 
Bizet’s father was an amateur singer and composer; his mother was the sister of the famous singing teacher François Delsarte. In 1848, before his 10th birthday, Georges Bizet became a student at the Paris Conservatoire and wrote his first symphony at the age of 17.
In 1857, he won a prize sponsored by Jacques Offenbach for the one-act operetta “Le docteur Miracle.” He also won the Rome Prize, securing a three-year scholarship in Rome. There, his talent flourished in works such as the opera buffa “Don Procopio” and his only liturgical work, the “Te Deum.” Back in Paris, he composed the operas “Les pêcheurs de perles” (1863), “La jolie fille de Perth” (1867), the symphony “Roma” (1868), and “Jeux d’enfants,” a piano four-hand work (1871). The popular “L’Arlésienne” (1872) was originally an occasional composition for a play by Alphonse Daudet, which Bizet adapted into a suite.
His one-act opéra comique “Djamileh” (1872) is often seen as a precursor to his most famous work, the opera “Carmen” (1875). Although “Carmen” was initially not well received by audiences, it is now one of the most popular works in all of operatic literature. Bizet, who had been made a Chevalier of the Legion of Honor shortly before his death, did not live to see the success of his opera. He died three months after the premiere.

France 31.3.2025

 


The video shows the Royal Stockholm Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Nathalie Stutzmann performing L’Arlésienne Suite No. 1 & Suite No. 2 by Georges Bizet at the Konserthuset, the Stockholm Concert Hall, in October 2014.