Liviu Taranu, director of the Romanian Cultural Institute, welcomes the audience to the concert in Beijing on November 30, 2025. Photo: Dong Feng/GT

The Romanian Cultural Institute staged a classical music concert titled "Extraordinary Concert 'George Enescu '70'" in Beijing on November 30. 

In a fully packed room, the audience enjoyed passionate performances by two Romanian artists. Before each piece, one of the musicians gave a brief introduction about the music, the composer, or their understanding of the works. 

Featuring violinist Diana Jipa and pianist Toma Popovici, the concert was to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the death of George Enescu, Romania's most outstanding composer. 

The concert was also held on the eve of Romania's National Day.

Claudiu Florian, Minister-Plenipotentiary of the Embassy of Romania in China, told the Global Times that "the concert brings George Enescu at the 70th commemoration of his journey to eternity, close to Romania's greatest friend, the Chinese public. It's a sum of facts and also a sum of symbols."

The program consisted of 10 pieces of handpicked music, most of which are so passionate that the audience took pictures and recorded video clips as inspired by the music. 

In the latter part of the concert, Butterfly Lovers, a Chinese legend about the tragic romance involving Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai, composed by He Zhanhao and Chen Gang was performed. 

For the introduction, violinist Jipa shared that when she first read the musical piece, her reaction was "perhaps the violin wasn't the best instrument for the performance, but rather the erhu [a traditional Chinese instrument]."

That said, as a violinist, Jipa would "try as much as possible to restore the true essence of the Butterfly Lovers concerto as presented by the erhu in terms of technique."

The performance impressed many in the audience, who spontaneously filmed videos to remember the moments.

The piece Butterfly Lovers was followed by Pablo de Sarasate-Fantasy on Themes from Bizet's Carmen. 

Enescu (1881-1955), who was one of the most influential musical masters of the 20th century, was not only a composer, but also a violinist, pianist, conductor, and educator, a cornerstone figure in Romanian cultural history.