I haven't heard much Enescu. The works which come readily to mind are Romanian Rhapsody 1 & 2. Ill have to check into this composer a little further.

 

For the past few days, I've been wanting to introduce myself to the music of this man. I don't know why; no one mentioned him or his works in a big way recently. And for the record, I haven't heard his Romanian Rhapsodies. (Okay, maybe once, but that doesn't really count.) I was thinking of starting with chamber works (again, for an unknown reason). Do you any favourites that you would recommend?

 

I can't really call them favorites if they are the only ones I've heard, but I do enjoy a disc from Nonesuch (79682-2) with Gidon Kremer and the Kremerata Baltica. It has the Enescu Octet, Op. 7. To my ears it is very much late romantic, not 20th century. The first half minute or so the entire string ensemble plays in unison a very slavic sounding almost recitative theme. That might seem boring, but it isn't. I think this version is played by a string orchestra rather than an octet. This gives it a lot of space.

The disc also contains a Piano quintet (Op. 29) which is more modern and a little less to my liking, though I probably would find it very rewarding if I gave it all of my focus rather than using it as musical wallpaper as we are so guilty of these days.

Here is a link to a better review, unfortunately with no samples:
http://www.classicstoday.com/review.asp?ReviewNum=5666

 

There are videos on Youtube of some of his work. None of the symphonic stuff, but there are the last two of his violin sonatas more or less complete on there.

Here's Enescu himself with Dinu Lipatti playing his second violin sonata:

Sherban Lupu playing the first movement of his third violin sonata:

His Concertstücke for viola and piano:

And here's Yehudi Menuhin playing his third violin sonata in its entirety (with Hephzibah):

 

WV and Weston, thank you very much for the links and recommendations. It's getting a bit late here, and I'm in a Brucknerian hangover, so I'll make sure to listen to at least some of the works listed tomorrow (later today, that is).

 

Greatest musical mind of the 20th century? George Enescu?
You can not be serious.

 

And how can I not be serious?

 

Well,not one paper i read about the topic rates him above Stravinsky or Prokofiev or Shostakovich and i humbly agree.If you have any reasons or any thesis' or papers that states why he is superior,please be my guest to list them.

 

And since when must someone be rated superior to be superior? I'm not saying Enescu was strictly superior, I'm only meaning that he was one of the greatest and most grossly underrated musicians of the 20th century. If I said "the greatest" I humbly apologize, as once you get to this level there are no strict superlatives to be given, but I think Enescu is much greater than many people make him out to be.

Bach was never in the public eye until Mendelssohn, yet Mozart and Beethoven worshiped him; Enescu is still not in the public eye, yet people like Casals and Menuhin next to worshiped him (they still worshiped Bach, granted, but that's almost a given really).

 

Listening to the third violin sonata linked to above. I have not yet read about the work, yet, but there seem to be influences of music from parts of the world other than Europe. Or, perhaps, it's the Romanian music that I have not familiarised myself with.

 

Yes, Enescu was influenced quite heavily by the music of his native Romania, yet he still had several Western influences, Bach at the fore (trends?) and also Brahms (whom he apparently met). These further Western influences, if I remember rightly, are more able to be found in his symphonic music.

 

Thanks for the YouTube links WV. I'll be on the look out for more Enescu. The 2nd Sonata was nice, however the 3rd was sustained magic!

 

I have recently got acquainted with some of the man's chamber works - namely, the two String Quartets, the Piano Quintet and Quartet, the Violin Sonata No.3 and the two Cello Sonatas.

I also own recordings of his Symphonies, the Orchestral Suites, Symphonie Concertante, Romanian Rhapsodies, Poeme Roumaine and the huge tone poem Vox Maris.

The symphonies and chamber works have been a true discovery, a discovery of a style so personal it couldn't be imitated, especially in later pieces. A fine distillation of the Romanian folk idiom into a personal, classical and highly sophisticated musical language, much like late Bartók, but with a greater density of thought and subtlety of expression. Romania is often there, but Enescu was a clearly West European and even French composer.

He is not everyone's cup of tea, I guess - particularly in his later works, there is no definite rhythmical beat, instead the music just flows like thoughts, sometimes only vaguely tonal. However, I find this mystical, caressing, deep-felt and masterly, therefore I love it.

My favourites are String Quartet No.1, Cello Sonata No.2, Piano Quartet, Symphony No.3, Poeme Roumaine and the Orchestral Suite No.2. I would also love to hear Impressions d'enfance and the famous Octet.

A wonderful composer, and I agree with WV - a grossly underrated 20th-century genius. One might argue that the nickname of 'Romanian Mozart' wasn't exaggerated, him being a fabulous musical teacher, conductor, violinist and pianist. Also don't forget Arthur Grumiaux, he taught him too. And I think Ginette Neveu, but I'm not sure about her.

Trăiască minunata muzică lui George Enescu, geniului românesc!

 

...the music just flows like thoughts, sometimes only vaguely tonal. However, I find this mystical, caressing, deep-felt and masterly, therefore I love it...

I agree with this & it matches my first impression three of his Violin Sonatas, which I just got on a Hyperion "Helios" budget disc. The works are played by Romanians Adelina Oprean (violin) & her brother Justin (piano).

The Sonata No. 2 (1899) sounds to me to be absorbing early modernist tendencies, including impressionism. The Sonata Torso (1911), so-called because we only have the first movement, is much lighter and has this salon like feel (reminds me a bit of Granados' chamber music). & I agree with suggestions made above, that the Sonata No. 3 'dans le caractere populaire romain' (1926) is a masterpiece by any standard. In this work, Enescu doesn't quote directly from Romanian folk music, but maintains a very folkloric character throughout, as the title suggests. In the first movement, for example, the piano sounds much like a cimbalom. The second movement has this night time feel, as if you were sitting under the stars at a camp fire, hearing the sounds of nature (Ives also comes to mind here). & the third is a lively dance, very unique, and very dissonant at the end (both instruments are extended to their limit).

The liner notes say that indeed Enescu was a kind of everyman, known as a violinist in Europe and as a conductor in the USA. Of course, as has been mentioned above, he was also a great teacher. Unfortunately (as the Sonata Torso shows), he had a propensity to see many of his works as being in a constant state of progress, so he didn't make definitive versions of them. After he died, he left a plethora of works in this state of flux, so that the executors of his estate could not authorise their publication. This was the case with Symphonies Nos. 4 & 5, which have never been published for this reason. His opera Oedipe also took him decades to complete in this way. The public's reaction to his works were also quite mixed, the notes say that one of his works was booed at it's European premiere, which caused him (along with the death of his mother at the same time), to give up composing for a year or two around the late 1900's.

I have also known his Romanian Rhapsodies Nos. 1 & 2, but these are probably not his best works (although they are excellent in themselves). It's great that budget labels like Helios and Naxos, have made many of his works available at a decent price, and in high quality interpretations. Some, like the Sonata Torso, have been recorded for the first time. While I have much to learn about this composer, my limited listening and the anecdotal evidence does suggest that World Violist's assertion that he was one of the finest musicians of the C20th does hold much water...

 

GEORGE ENESCU (1881-1955)

Born 19 August 1881 in a relatively small village of Liveni-Vârnav (today Dorohoi) in Moldavia, the eastern region of Romania. He was the youngest of eight children and the only one to survive infancy. His father, Costache, was an estate bailiff, and his mother, Maria, a school teacher who loved music and often played the piano. Young George showed signs of exceptional musical talent from the age of 3 or 4. He greatly enjoyed the folk songs and dances of his fatherland. His first known composition is dated 1887.

After some piano lessons with his mother, Enescu was sent to a famous Roma violinist, Niculae Chioru, who taught him the instrument. Soon it became evident the little Enescu required more advanced training, so his father sent him to Iaşi, the Moldavian 'capital', where studied with Edouard Caudella. With Caudella's recommendation Enescu arrived to Vienna in 1888, and the Conservatory made an exception to the general admission rule and took Enescu although he was only 6. There he studied with Josef Hellmesberger Jr., Robert Fuchs and Johann Nepomuk Fuchs. He meets Brahms and plays first violin under him in a student orchestra. He attends the Viennese Opera where Hans Richter conducts Wagner, whose music leaves a deep impression and a long-lastin influence on young George. On 15 July 1893 Enescu graduates with top marks, and gives a concert in the Musikvereinssaal. After further two years of studying with Fuchs, he leaves for Paris and enters the Paris Conservatory.

There his teachers are Massenet, Fauré and Gédalge, while his fellow students include Ravel and Koechlin. Massenet speaks very highly of Enescu. In 1898, Enescu being 16, the premiere of his first orchestral work, Poeme Roumaine, takes place in Paris. The audience is dumbstruck. In the same year, Enescu conducts the Poeme, for the first time in his life, in the Ateneul Român hall in Bucharest.

To shorten this long post:

- 1899 - graduates from the Paris Conservatory - awarded with a Bernardel violin
- 1900 - starts giving violin lessons in Bucharest - gives public recitals - composes his Octet for Strings - meets Queen Elizabeth of Romania (Carmen Sylva)
- 1901-1902 - composes the Romanian Rhapsodies
- 1902 - becomes a member of the Society of French Composers
- 1904 - becomes a member of the examination commission of the Paris Conservatory
- 1903 - First Orchestral Suite (the 1st movement is sometimes as bold harmonically as Messiaen)
- 1905 - Symphony No.1- 1914 - stays in Romania - conducts the premiere of Beethoven's 9th in Romania - Symphony No.2 and Second Suite - raises funds for the building of an opera house in Bucharest and to supply the Ateneul with an organ (contributes generously himself)
- 1916 - becomes a member of the Romanian Academy - during the occupation of Muntenia and Bucharest, stays in Iaşi, and founds the Iaşi Philaharmonic Orchestra
- 1920 - made president of the Society of Romanian Composers
- the 20s - constantly travels between Paris and Bucharest, gives unforgettable performances of Bach and Chausson - Menuhin becomes his student
- the 30s - travels to the USA for concert tours - teaches violin on Harvard
- 1932 - Enescu in Paris for the French premiere of Elgar's Violin Concerto, played by Menuhin and conducted by Elgar himself
- 1936 - the premiere of Enescu's opera Oedipe - plays his Violin Sonata No.3 with Dinu Lipatti
- 1939 - marries Maria Cantacuzino-Rosetti - lives in Bucharest
- 1946 - due to the establishment of communism in Romania, leaves for the USA
- 1948 - gives masterclasses in New York
- 1955 - dies in Paris, 4 May - interred at the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery

Enescu and young Menuhin

Enescu's childhood house

http://www.editionsilvertrust.com/enescu-octet.htm

- sample bites of the Octet (I love the opening of the work and the Tres fougueux!)

 

An incredibly gifted and versatile Romanian (Danube) composer and for me at least a wonderful musical empathy. I never tire of his Rumanische Rhapsodie No. 1 Listening to it you keep thinking, that is it ... it then bounds off again. Quite incredible, mesmerising; you just want it to go on and on. I like him. Can you tell?

 

I've many of his chamber works. IMHO, one of the greatest composers and violinists of the frist third of past century.

 

Listened to my recording of his Piano Quintet the other day. It's so original and delightfully dark. Very good composer. Too bad he's so overlooked.

 

I seemed to have amassed most of his symphonies and chamber music released on the now defunct Olympia record label.

There was a time when I really loved his work; particularly his cello sonatas. His string quartet is really strange; kind of like an expanding melody leaving vague presentiments of emotional coloration without any concreteness nor tangibility. I thought my recording of the quartet by the Enesco-Athaneneum Quatuor was deficient and went for the universal Ad Libitum Quatuor in the past few months. Whereas the recorded sound of the latter is superior, the ambiguity of the emotional space which his quartets occupy are really still too alien for me. Not sure why I can't get into them any more. Even Vox Maris and the 'Villageoise' works are more listenable for me......and that's from a non-symphonist..

 

Enescu is a fabulouse composer!

Just listened to these: (Both performances have maximum score in my private ranging system, in sound, performance, work and overall.)

George Enescu

Work
Enescu: Cello Sonata No.1 in F-, Op.26, No.1

Artists
Rebecca Rust
David Apter

http://www.amazon.com/ENESCU-Cello-...ta-VILLA-LOBOS-Capadocio/dp/B000009IJE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315227092&sr=8-1

Work
Enescu: String Quartet No.1 in Eb, Op.22, No.1

Artists
Quatuor Ad Libitum

http://www.amazon.com/Enescu-String...escu-String-Quartets-1-2/dp/B00004VROD/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1315231797&sr=8-1

 

Playing the cello sonata again....just fantastic

 

Enescu composed quite a few masterpieces that fell into neglect, and the opera Oedipe is one of them. There is at least one more recording out there, but this is the one I've heard. It's a very interesting opera. Recommended to fans of Janacek, the more progressive operas of R. Strauss, and so on.

 

Don't forget his solo piano works.

View attachment 4262 View attachment 4263

 

Those are wonderful discs. I especially love the three suites for piano where Enescu starts with music in the baroque "olden style" through an impressionist sensibility and ending with teasing us with his tonal centers.

I support the premise that Enescu was one of the greatest 20th century musicians. He was definitely a man for all musical seasons more than any other 20th century composer.

 

Enescu festival announcement. Light on Enescu works, I'd say. And too bad people like Kremer, Borac, Foster are missing.

http://www.classicalsource.com/db_control/db_news.php?id=2294

 

Lisztfreak has left the building.

 

This is Enescu's Study Symphony No. 4 in E-flat major, composed in 1898.

 

One of Enescu's lesser-known works, Symphony No. 5 in D major, on which Enescu worked in 1941. His Fourth and Fifth Symphonies were left unfinished at the time of his death but they were ultimately completed by the Romanian musicologist Pascal Bentoiu. This symphony is composed for tenor, female chorus and orchestra.

 

The symphony no.V is such a poetic and languidly inspiring piece.

Enescu is one of the few symphonists I listen to - he really understands the use of orchestral textures and development beautifully. I don't, and rarely listen to any although each time I listen to Enescu' symphonic works, I'm mesmerised and forget that I don't like symphonies lol

 

I adore his chamber music, especially his first Cello Sonata, though I haven't warmed up to his symphonies yet. Seeing the posts above, I should maybe spend more time with them. Anyone cares to recommend me some good performances?

 

Some people here may recommend Mandeal on Arte Nova, but I recommend Rozhdestvensky for the symphonies on Chandos. I have yet to hear Foster's performances on EMI.

 

What about his songs?