The symbiosis between tradition and modernity in the works of Tiberiu Olah and Anatol Vieru

The apparently antagonistic relation 'tradition - innovation' lays at the foundation of European art music as permanent transfer, as a complementary binomial. In higher education music institutions, there is also a strong connection between tradition and innovation. This paper focuses on the creation of two Romanian composers, Tiberiu Olah and Anatol Vieru (who were teachers at the Bucharest Conservatory, as well), aiming to emphasize their personal ways of balancing the new and the old. The modal universe, with its immense potential, becomes their object of study and their most important source of inspiration. The tie with the musical past is manifest, in the works of Olah and Vieru, in three main directions: a) the innovative absorption of aspects of Romanian oral tradition; b) the return to consonance; c) the references to the tradition of European art music.