VIDU MUSEUM
The town of Lugoj in western Romania, about 60 km east of Timisoara, is the country’s main provincial centre of choral music. It possesses a Casa Personalitatilor, a house in which leading people from the city (including a dozen musicians) are commemorated, and also a Casa Muzicii, a house of musicians, in which the lives and achievements of several local musicians are celebrated, as too are the visits to Lugoj of a number of other leading Romanian composers including Ciprian Porumbescu and George Enescu. A commemorative house of musicians was first set up in 1925 and became a museum in 1968; it moved to its present premises, the former house of the composer Filaret Barbu, across the river from the main part of Lugoj, in 1985.
VIDU MUSEUM Photo Gallery
The biggest of the individual displays is devoted to Ion Vidu, who was born near Arad in 1863, worked in Lugoj from 1888 until his death there in 1931 and was primarily responsible for the town’s development as a musical centre. He composed and arranged a quantity of choral music, much of it linked with Romanian folk music. Two of the alcoves in the main room on the ground floor are devoted to Vidu and his achievements: one has material on older traditions and folk music along with photographs, transcriptions and publications by him, and the next is concerned with his choir, the Corul Ion Vidu, its foundation and early history. The first room on the upper floor is dedicated to him too – his desk is there, with a death mask, diplomas and photographs, as well as his Edison cylinder player and a large record player. Another room is given over to the choir and its continuing activities, showing its numerous awards, medals and banners. (See also Barbu and Brediceanu.)
