The museum dedicated to one of the most important Romanian composers of all times can be found in the village Ciprian Porumbescu, Suceava, and for decades has been one of the most popular tourist objectives in the region. Despite the fact that the musician sadly passed away before he was thirty, his work and ideals inspired many other intelectuals and composers who came after him and turned him int a myth.
Born on October 14th 1853 in this very village, then called Stupca, Ciprian Porumbescu studied music in Suceava and Cernauti, then in Vienna, due to a scholarship. He played violin and amazed everyone with his extraordinary talent, wrote some of the most popular and important compositions in Romanian classical music and even had one of his operas presented on stage, with huge success. Due to his political ideals and affiliations, in the last decades of the 19th century he was arrested and put into jail. Yet, he would use this time to compose some of his best works. He was freed after o short period of time and returned to his home village.
Sadly, the prison time further agravated his health problems and soon, at just 29 years of age, on July 6th 1883, he died of tuberculosis, and Romania lost one of it's most important composers.
The Ciprian Porumbescu Museum was opened in 1971 inside a classical building, dating from the beginning of the 19th century, suitable for such an important institution. In the middle of a park filled with various trees and flowers, this neoclassical building has inside the best collection dedicate to Ciprian Porumbescu, from personal objects and documents to prints and photographs. Those who want to find out more about the composer must visit this place. The sheer volume of exhibits is impressive, as is the variety. Of special interest is the selection of personal objects : the piano, the violin (with all of it's accessories), an album made by Ciprian Porumbescu for his lover, Berta Gorgon. This touching selection is further completed by photographs, prints, posters, coins and stamps from that time or later (many bearing the image of the composer), documents which present important moments in the artist's biography. You can also admire some of the music sheets of his compositions, and it is a special moment, as some of them even have his notes.
Close to the museum, there is the family crypt, were several generations have been buried, as well as the composer himself.
