Before our trip to Bucharest, I read that the best way of visiting the Romanian Athenaeum was to attend a concert. A helpful website in English was easy to navigate and I’d soon located and booked what sounded like ideal entertainment for a not very musical husband: Sacred Jazz with the George Enescu Philharmonic Choir. The Saturday morning performance wouldn’t clash with dinner, and at sixty minutes, wouldn’t impact too much on our sightseeing time.
Compared to the Royal Opera House, tickets were remarkably cheap, and I booked two seats in one of the boxes at the back of the auditorium for €6 each.
We’d seen the outside the day before on a city tour when our guide had pointed out the six columns and six mosaics above the entrance, each depicting one of the most important Romanian political leaders who were also great cultural patrons.
The grand entrance was amazing with twelve pink stucco Doric columns and four ornate flights of Carrara marble stairs leading upwards.
We entered the auditorium early to see the Grand Fresco, painted by Costin Petrescu and unveiled in 1939, which depicted twenty-five scenes illustrating major events in Romanian history. We found our box, which could seat six: a bench at the back seating three (3, 4, and 5), two moveable chairs in front (1 and 2) and a pull-down seat (6). However, most of the boxes eventually only had two or three occupants.
The concert which started a few minutes late, began with a 15-minute introduction in Romanian from a guy who clearly liked the sound of his own voice. Eventually a choir of 10 ladies began with a piece by Bach, The Motet Lobet den Herrn, alle Heiden. A larger mixed choir then performed Oculi Omnium and Nidaros Jazz Mass, before the tempo increased with the addition of three musicians on double bass, piano and percussion. The concert ended on a high note with excerpts from Duke Ellington’s Sacred Concerts and Stacey Gibbs Get away Jordan.
The behaviour of the audience was appalling – they were still arriving at 11.15am, wandered in and out and took so many photographs and recordings. When the concert ended late at 12.30pm, small children went to the front and presented the musicians and singers with single roses.
As anticipated, there was a long queue for the loos, and we nipped across the road to the Athénée Palace Hotel where we’d had drinks the previous night.
