The Dispute between Paul Constantinescu and I. D. Petrescu on the Lord’s Passion Oratorio

Paul Constantinescu’s Oratorios have been ranked among the best musical compositions since their very birth. According to N. Moldoveanu they are equal to the oratorios of
Johann Sebastian Bach, Joseph Haydn or Friederich Georg Händel.
Moreover, given the fact that Paul Constantinescu worked on melodies
previously composed by our greatest Romanian precentors, which is
considerably more difficult a task to accomplish in comparison to the cases in
which composers use their own style, we could state that our church oratorios
are difficult to polyphonize and orchestrate. In his Oratorios, “Paul
Constantinescu reached the peak of religious music composition. That is why
his genius is still unsurpassed in the Orthodox world.�