Reverberations

Reverberations

Yesterday evening Nancy and I and friends strolled to the Reformat church here in Cluj to hear a baroque concert of trumpet, violins and organ. The night before, we listen to our final Friday night performance of our season pass of the Transylvania State Philharmonic. Both concerts were excellent and remind us that when we leave Romania later this summer we will miss the availability of great, live, affordable classical music.

Sitting in the Hungarian Reformat (Calvinist or Presbyterian) Church was a particular treat. The church was originally built by order of one the most famous of the Hungarian Kings, Mathias Corvin back in 1500. This king, born in Cluj, has many ties to Transylvania history and pride. His statue, depicting him astride a larger than life horse and being hailed by his followers, is a regular meeting site. Meet you by the horse statue,” and everyone knows where you mean, even though there are two such statues – the other of Mihai Vitazul, a Romanian hero.

The Reformat church is not the gothic Roman Catholic cathedral that dominates the central city, but was built 150 after that and is much more ‘German’ looking in its appearance. It’s a large space, with a very tall, arching ceiling, and the walls are of heavy stone. The large organ is along the back, west wall, of the church up in the choir loft. The metal pipes are shiny bright for the first 6 meters and then, as they must be much more difficult to clean, or perhaps they are of a different metal, more tainted and muted in their coloration as they rise to the ceiling.

We’ve learned to sit nearer the front of the church on pews that have their backs to the side walls so that we can turn and watch the organ. During organ concerts which are often held in the church, there is not much to see, for the organ just sits there as the music comes out, the organist hidden behind the keyboard. But it is from the loft that the trumpets and violins joined with the organ for this recent concert, so there was activity to watch as we listened to music of Bach, Handel, Albinoni and others. What’s more we could watch the sunlight as it brightened the glass windows and illuminated the loft.

These windows, as appropriate to a Calvinist church, are without image or decoration, but rather an alternation of frosted glass and honey colored panes in a geometric pattern. The windows are long and narrow and during the day offer a muted light to the church. As I’ve mentioned the stonework of the church is massive and remains cool throughout most of the summer. It also has the acoustical effect of bouncing the sound of organ and instruments to mellow them. During last night’s concert when one violin played it sounded as two. When two played, it sounded as six. When both trumpets and violins played along with the organ, the sound was huge, reverberating off the walls and down to our seats.

Nancy and I have less than a month left in Cluj and we hope to take full advantage of it, but we also hope that the reverberations of our time here will remain with us – what we’ve done, what we’ve seen, what we’ve heard and the people we’ve met - will echo in the stonework of our brain to remind us of our adventure here.