The Church Choirs in the Archbishopric of Roman and Bacău at the Beginning of their Existence

Choral church music has appeared in Romania as an expression of the process regarding the modernisation of the country and the abandonment of the Oriental fashion, in favour of the Western one. The modernisation of the educational system and the foundation of new schools have facilitated the approach of a wider area of subjects for study, among which music can also be encountered. This aspect has contributed to the enlargement of the perspective and the assumption of other forms of practicing religious singing, which then led to the embellishment of the public worship service. Once the Theological Seminary appeared in Roman, also the first choral groups for the Episcopal Cathedral appeared, and they constituted the starting ground for the appearance of a professional permanent choir. Following Romanʾs example, Bacău, and even Comăneşti, through their most important churches, encouraged the appearance of choirs, which would participate to the Holy Liturgy and also to various cultural manifestations of the city, thus attracting to this process young music lovers, willing and capable of becoming choir singers. The archive documents are testimonies for the existence of these choirs, the ones which indicate their popularity, as well as the various stages, either good or bad, thorough which the respective choral groups managed to go in the time period we have proposed to cover here.