Tune in at 1pm all this week as we explore the music of the Romanian composer George Enescu, as we celebrate his 143rd birthday.
Today Enescu is primarily remembered for his two Romanian Rhapsodies for orchestra, but he wrote a great deal of terrific aside from those two youthful works.
The renowned Spanish cellist Pablo Casals called him “The most amazing musician since Mozart.” Yehudi Menuhin, Enescu's most famous student, once said about his teacher: "He will remain for me the absoluteness through which I judge others", and "Enescu gave me the light that has guided my entire existence."
A child prodigy, Enescu graduated from the Vienna Conservatory at 12. After his studies in Vienna, he would go to study at the Paris Conservatory and produce his first mature compositions at the age of just 16.
Monday, August 19: Symphony No 1 in E flat major (1905)
Enescu’s Symphony No 1 was premiered on Sunday, 21 January 1906 at the Theatre du Chatelet in Paris. The score is dedicated to Alfredo Casella, Enescu's former classmate at the Paris Conservatoire and lifelong friend. In turn, Casella would dedicate his Second Symphony to Enescu in 1908.
The symphony shows the influence of his studies in Vienna and Paris. There are elements of the rich German romantic tradition as exemplified by Brahms. At the same time this work reveals the enormous French influence on Enescu that took hold when he studied in the 1890s with Massenet and Fauré.
The symphony is in three movements, which is a symphonic structure Enescu would use in all three of his published symphonies.
Tuesday, August 20: Violin Sonata No 2 in F minor (1899)
Enescu dedicated his second the French violin virtuoso Jacques Thibaut. When it premiered Enescu played the piano part, although he could have just as easily played the violin part. He was considered a virtuoso on both instruments.
Enescu considered the sonata the first work in which he freed himself from all influences and found his own voice. In the sonata, Enescu fused Romanian folk elements into the classical structure of the sonata.
The first movement, Assez mouvemente, is in the form of a fantasia. Its lovely chromatic melodies and rhythms flow in and out and through each other with an extraordinary plasticity. The main theme of the second movement, Tranquille, is a melody whose chromaticism gives it an air of melancholy. In the finale, Vif, we hear several folk motifs which are used, first to create a series of interlinked dances.
Wednesday, August 21: Symphony No 2 in A major (1912-1914)
Enescu conducted the premiere of his Second Symphony with the Orchestra of the Ministry of Public Education in Bucharest on 15,1915.
He was not satisfied with the result, and set aside the manuscript, which was not performed again until the conductor Josif Contra revived the symphony in 1961, six years after the Enescu’s death.
At the height of the First World War, in the summer of 1917, the Romanian government sent their gold reserves by train to Moscow, along with a diverse collection of Enescu's manuscripts, including the only copy of the Second Symphony. The box containing Enescu's documents arrived in Moscow, but promptly disappeared. It was only recovered thanks to the intervention of Bruno Walter in 1924, and eventually was returned to Enescu in Paris.
Enescu remarked in 1952 that it was "far from being finished.” He had intended an extensive revision of it, but other commitments prevented him from doing so. The score was first published only in 1965 by Éditions Salabert, Paris.
The symphony is reminiscent of his contemporaries, notably the restless energy and harmonic progressiveness of Richard Strauss. Regarding orchestration, the symphony has Straussian qualities but with the subtlety and beauty of orchestral colors that he would have learned from Gabriel Faure at the Paris Conservatory.
Thursday, August 22: Decet in D Major for Wind Instruments (1906)
Enescu composed his Decet quickly, in the first months of 1906. He had just finished his First Symphony the previous year. The Decet was given its first performance in Paris (less than six months after the symphony) on June 12, 1906, at a concert of the Société Moderne d'Instruments à Vent.
The Decet is scored for two flutes, oboe, English horn, two clarinets, two bassoons, and two horns; in other words, a double wind quintet.
This three-movement work has a rhapsodic quality about it. Enescu uses traditional classical formal structures in each of the movements; sonata form in the first and third movements, and rounded binary in the middle movement. Enescu is very economic with his tonalities, and it is the entrance of different themes with unique instrument combinations that keep the listener thoroughly engaged throughout the entire work.
Friday, August 23: Symphony No 3 in C Major (1916-1918)
Written against the backdrop of the First World War, and subsequently revised by Enescu over the next few decades, the Symphony No 3 is written on a grand scale.
It is scored for 4 flutes (3rd and 4th doubling 1st and 2nd piccolo), 4 oboes (3rd and 4th doubling 1st and 2nd cor anglais), 3 clarinets (3rd doubling E-flat clarinet and bass clarinet), 4 bassoons (4th doubling contrabassoon), 6 horns, piccolo trumpet in D, 3 trumpets in C, 2 cornets in B flat, valve trombone, 3 tenor trombones, bass trombone, 3 tubas, 2 sets of timpani, 6 percussionists (snare drum, tambourine, triangle, ratchet, hand bell, cymbals, tam-tam, bass drum, castanets, xylophone, bell (F♯), thunder sheet, glockenspiel), celesta, piano, organ, wordless chorus, 2 harps, 20 first violins, 20 second violins, 14 violas, 12 cellos and 12 double basses.
Like Enescu’s first two symphonies, he makes use of a cyclic structure, where themes return in various guises throughout.
The three movements are so contrasting, and so colorful that many have drawn parallels to Liszt’s Dante Symphony. The first movement representing Purgatory, the second movements being Enescu's depiction of the Inferno, and the final movement with its use of wordless chorus being comparable to Liszt’s depiction of Paradise.
It is a remarkable symphony and was an enormous success when it premiered in 1919.