Theodor Grigoriu (born in Galaţi, Moldavia, in 1926) is one of the major Romanian composers in the period after Enescu. His vast output is little known outside his own country, although it includes oratorios, symphonies, cantatas, chamber music, film-scores and much more.

His musical roots reach back to Romanian folk-music and to the modal melodies of ancient Byzantium – as in this large-scale triptych, Byzantium after Byzantium, which consists of a violin concerto, a sonata for solo violin and a sonata for violin and piano. All three works are performed here by Sherban Lupu, the violinist for whom the music was written.

Sherban Lupu, born in 1952, is the leading Romanian violinist of his generation and was for decades, until his recent retirement from academic life at the University of Illinois, one of the most sought-after violin teachers in North America. For Toccata Classics he has embarked on a complete recording of the works of Heinrich Wilhelm Ernst, and more recently released a CD of unfamiliar solo and chamber works for violin by Enescu (TOCC0047). Gramophone wrote of this disc that ‘Lupu’s playing is truly idiomatic, with something of Enescu’s own elegantly expressive manner’.