George Enescu (1881-1955)
Piano Quintet • Piano Quartet No. 2
The Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu may now be seen as the most important figure in the musical history of his country. He was born in Moldavia in 1881 and had violin lessons there with a pupil of Vieuxtemps, before moving, at the age of seven, to the Conservatory in Vienna, where he studied with Josef Hellmesberger. In 1893 he went to Paris for further study of the violin with Marsick and of composition with Massenet and Fauré, and in 1897 a concert of his work was given there. By 1899, when he won the first violin prize at the Conservatoire, he was already known as a composer, his Poème romaine having proved particularly successful. His subsequent career brought him similar distinction both as a performer and as a conductor.
Although Enescu’s career was centred on Paris, with the formation in 1904 of the Enescu Quartet, and increasing commitments both as an unwilling virtuoso and later as a teacher, he retained his connections with Romania and did much to encourage music there, through the Bucharest Conservatory and through the Conservatory at Ia‰i, where he established the George Enescu Symphony Orchestra in 1917. His influence on younger Romanian composers was to remain considerable.
Enescu was a remarkably versatile musician. He was a competent pianist, accompanying Jacques Thibaud in the first performance of his own second Violin Sonata, and able to play all of Wagner at the keyboard from memory. In his phenomenal memory he held the complete works of Bach, and Menuhin describes how he was able to play Ravel’s new Violin Sonata from memory after two brief readings with the composer. His natural ability as a small child had led him to become a virtuoso violinist, but his interest was always rather in composition than performance, the second providing the means for the first. His life was divided between Paris and Romania, his character and music presenting a similar contrast between cosmopolitan urbanity and the more passionate elements that were part of his Moldavian inheritance.
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