"Andricu's music? It is always detached from its author - classical par excellence. On the one hand books, jazz (whose first admirer in Romania and among the first in Paris he was), cigarettes, musafirii, Stravinsky, Debussy and others, on the other hand his music in which he has always remained the same, evolving continuously and imperceptibly for decades. His symphonies, symphonies, suites are deeply imbued with musical culture. An unostentatious, unapologetic culture, in a natural and not bookish state." - are the words of composer Anatol Vieru about Mihail Andricu, one of the most prolific Romanian composers of the first half of the 20th century, five decades after whose physical death will be celebrated on February 4^th.

From January 29^th we will be evoking Mihail Andricu, opening a series of 5 special columns, which we will offer you every day in the "Polyphonies" programme. 5 special columns dedicated to the creation of the composer Mihail Andricu, among those who gave relief and personality to Romanian musical culture in the sense of anchoring it in the local tradition. His merits are appreciated in the context of the approach initiated by George Enescu, to whose concretization Paul Constantinescu, Mihail Jora, Sabin Drăgoi, Marțian Negrea also contributed; whose aesthetic vision goes beyond folklorism by approaching the great forms and by the approach of synchronization with the European currents with which they were contemporaries and which they strove to assimilate.

Mentor of names such as Ștefan Niculescu, Aurel Stroe and Doru Popovici, Mihail Andricu is among the most important creators of symphonic and chamber music in Romania. His signature works stand out for their clarity, rigour of musical form, balance and consistency. His pastoral evocation and diverse rhythms, inspired by traditional music, are also defining features.

His unconventional personality, the fact that he was up to date with musical innovations not approved by the party, that he was a constant visitor to Western embassies and that he expressed his opinions on political actions quite freely and not always favourably, automatically made him a target of the Securitate, The episode of Mihail Andricu's exclusion from the Romanian Academy, the Composers' Union and the professors of the Bucharest Conservatory on vague and laconic political grounds in 1959 is a painful, bitter episode, one of the many unjust and dramatic episodes that occurred during the communist regime. Practically, from an artistic point of view, Mihail Andricu's name disappeared completely, for a while, from the posters of the time.

At Radio România Muzical, for five days, we offer you the chance to get to know or re-evaluate Mihail Andricu, listening to many of his representative works, most of them preserved only in the Radio România Sound Archives; under the sign of the half-century of his passing into eternity.