GEORGE ENESCU: Impressions from Childhood, Op. 28 (Orch. Grigoriu); Chamber Symphony for 12 Instruments, Op. 33; Piano Quartet No. 2 in D Minor, Op. 30 – Sherban Lupu, violin/Sinfonia Da Camera/Ian Hobson, piano and conductor – Albany TROY1100, 72:29 ****:
From the first note of Sherban Lupu’s violin, opening “The Fiddler” in gypsy style–only a hair’s breadth from the swarthy-folk violin that begins Peer Gynt–the Impressions of Childhood (1940) of George Enescu (1881-1955) for violin and small orchestra, we revel in the virtuoso syntax that rivals Ravel’s solo work in Tzigane. The Old Beggar plays an anagram (E-E-flat-C) based on the name “Enescu,” since “es” is a common conceit utilized by Bach. Its harmonies neither traditional nor raucously avantgarde, the piece–as in the eerie Springwell in the Garden–communicates a modal sensuality that careens between Debussy, Berg, and Bartok. High harmonics reign with flute for The Caged Bird and The Cuckoo Clock. Lullaby conveys its own idyll of childhood. Cricket lasts a mere 30 seconds of pure transcendentalism. Moon Across the Window might be an interlude from a Berg opera or Enescu’s own Oedipe. An ephemeral Wind in the Chimney moves to a Storm Outside in the Night, quite ominous with harmonies from Wozzeck. Sunrise resounds in a modified parlando-sprechstimme style, the rhythm as free as the little, melodic cells that have directed the entire score. The various, ten impressions shimmer with auditory allusions, a Proustian journey into the acoustics of a musical soul in formation. One might wish to align Enescu with the sonorous world of Olivier Messaien.
His last, finished composition (though the last bars and orchestrations had to be dictated to friend Marcel Mihalovici), the four-movement Chamber Symphony (1954) exploits Enescu’s penchant for heterophony, a kind of personal polyphony that seems to establish a traditional key-center (E Major) without actually utilizing it, perhaps an homage to Tristan. The opening Molto moderato establishes a double exposition in the form of a sinfonia-concertante, rather lyrical in the violin and flute parts, with piano obbligato. Brian Kilp’s French horn makes its presence felt. The scherzo (Allegretto molto moderato) and Adagio sections are themselves a “development” section of an extended sonata-form that will recap with the last movement, Allegro molto moderato. The scherzo proves reminiscent of the “pairs” section of Bartok’s Concerto for Orchestra, with clarinet (J. David Harris) riffs from Stravinsky. The shifting timbres and blending chords can quite mesmerize in their unique syntax, much as Tcherepnin’s “contrapunct” technique speaks its own language. The Adagio extends the tensions between a diatonic, plainchant style and the strained chromatics that invoke the labyrinths of past ages. The cyclic form resolves into the finale, the trumpet and winds screeching for a transcendence that had my thinking of the later pages of Scriabin’s Poem of Ecstasy or pages from Loeffler.
The Quartet No. 2 (1944), a wartime creation, is dedicated to the memory of Gabriel Faure. All sorts of modal inflections and intimate exchanges between the darker strings capture the older master while proclaiming the Romanian character of the creator. Passing medievalisms and muffled syncopes abound, as the entire first movement–Molto moderato, un poco maestoso–conveys that autumnal, fin-de-siecle atmosphere of Faure after 1910. Often, the four instrumental timbres merge, tutti, into a symphonic blend whose expressiveness fuses dissonance and melodic serenity. At moments, the textures clear out to form an angular violin-piano sonata after the E Minor Sonata, Op. 108 of Faure. The Andante–marked “thoughtful and expressive”–plays as a sustained lied or Romanian doina, with the cello (Mirel Iancovici) prominent. Then the viola (Csaba Erdelyi) comes forth in plaintive, broad terms over the parlando piano and long-held notes in the bass. The influence of the late Debussy sonata-style experiments strongly colors this eerie, rarified, Faure elegy. Liquid playing from Ian Hobson at the keyboard. The last movement--Con moto moderato–has a Stravinskian drive and wit, especially in the acerbic, bravura figures in the piano and violin (Sherban Lupu). A carillon sonority pervades the middle pages of the movement, at once jubilantly restrained and valedictory, again like Faure. Ever more impassioned the music assumes–through the viola and piano–a dark hue whose slashing rhythms remind us of cynical Brahms. Cyclical, energized, colorful, and consistently engaging, this music–the entire disc–provides a new perspective into the kaleidoscope of Enescu’s musical character, a real coup for Ian Hobson and his gifted ensemble.
— Gary Lemco
