Ciprian Porumbescu Memorial House

The Ciprian Porumbescu Memorial House is in the village of Ciprian Porumbescu, seat of the commune of the same name in Suceava County, about 24 km from Suceava and 23 km from Gura Humorului. The village was called Stupca until the mid-1950s, when it was renamed after the composer. It is reached on the DN 17 from Suceava towards Ilișești, then on the DJ 178 towards Ciprian Porumbescu. The building is the only surviving part of the former parish house of Stupca, home from 1865 to the family of Iraclie Porumbescu, a priest, writer and national activist. The parish house itself has not survived; what remained was the annex holding the priest's study and the summer kitchen. Ciprian Porumbescu (1853-1883), born at Șipotele Sucevei, lived here with his family, wrote much of his music here and died at Stupca on 6 June 1883 of tuberculosis. His works include the Ballad for violin, the operetta „Crai nou”, first performed in Brașov in 1882, and the song „Pe-al nostru steag e scris Unire”, whose melody is used for the national anthem of Albania. The house opened as a memorial museum in 1953. Its two small rooms, Iraclie Porumbescu's study and the kitchen, are furnished with period furniture, photographs and family objects, among them the piano of Mărioara, the composer's sister. A roof beam still bears the signature that Ciprian Porumbescu carved with a penknife. The house is part of the Ciprian Porumbescu museum complex of the Bukovina National Museum, which also includes the Memorial Museum, opened in 1971 in an eighteenth-century building, the former residence of the boyar Dimitrie Costin, and holding the composer's piano, cello and violin, as well as the family crypt in the village cemetery. The composer is buried in the Stupca cemetery, beside the altar of the church of St Demetrius. The museum is open from Wednesday to Sunday.