A few glasses of wine were fatal: the sad death of the great Aurelian Andreescu, the unique voice of Romanian light music

Aurelian Andreescu was one of the most important and appreciated Romanian singers of all times.

Sadly, Andreescu would die prematurely, at the age of 44, due to medical complications, as a result of an addiction he could not control.

Aurelian Andreescu possessed an extraordinary vocal timbre

Aurelian Andreescu was not born in the age of the computer-altered voice. In his day, you either had talent or you didn’t – it was that simple.

Many who grew up with the music of earlier years would say that Aurelian Andreescu was perhaps the best male voice of all time, the specific tremolo never before or since.

He was born on 12 May 1942 in Bucharest and died in Constanța in 1986. He was married twice; the first time to Ana Ciumetti, the second time to Mariella Annie Dumitru, a ballerina.

About him, George Stanca would say: “He had a great quality. He made some extraordinary steak-tartar! I interviewed him when he was married to his first wife, Ana. Aurică even had a song called Ana, written especially by George Grigoriu for his wife. I remember that Aurica had a cat that he introduced in this way: Look, we have all kinds of animals, the cat Costica, Ana… Sometimes he was ironic. Ana was a colder woman. He suffered a lot because of that. He loved her very much, but she didn’t really respond to him. Many said Ana tormented him a lot. There was mutual contempt. She talked down to him, and he responded with humor. He also taught me to drink coffee with salt.”

His first marriage was closed because Andreescu suffered from sterility. However, the great singer fathered a child with his second wife. “I chose Mirel from the first moment,” the artist said at one point.

The beginning of the end: “Some bastards, so-called admirers, convinced him to drink a few glasses of wine, which were fatal”

Immediately after 1980, Aurelian Andreescu became terribly ill with hepatitis, and the nights lost in the singing, plus the large quantity of alcohol consumed, were added to the calculation. “The place is unforgiving. No one ever asked me what I was eating. Everyone asked me what I was drinking,” he said.

“The year before he died, he had a liver coma. It was General Șuteu who treated him and saved him from surgery. One of the doctor’s recommendations was to avoid the seaside and, therefore, exposure to the sun. In the year of his disappearance, 1986, he went to Eforie Nord, to the restaurant where Petre Geambasu used to sing. Some bastards, so-called admirers, persuaded him to drink a few glasses of wine, which proved fatal.

He asked Geambasu to let him sing two songs, and towards the end of the last song he became ill. As soon as he finished playing, he fell into a coma. He died the same evening at Constanța County Hospital. That terrible day, the maid woke me up from sleep, telling me to come to the phone urgently. It was Mirabela Dauer, who told me that Aurelian had passed away. At the funeral I got sick and had to be taken out of the church. His portrait was placed on the catafalque, and from the amplifier we could hear the songs Tree, People and You are my Spring. A few days after the funeral ceremony, I went to his grave and planted two saplings”, Cornel Constantiniu told about the last days of Aurelian Andreescu’s life.

In turn, Marius Țeicu appreciated him enormously. “He was capable of a magical interpretation, a beautiful phrasing that sprang from an enormous sensitivity. He had all the characteristics that a composer could wish for, that’s why everyone simply flocked to him”.