Enescu, George

Enescu, George – Ouverture de Concert sur des Thèmes dans le Caractère Populaire Roumain, Op. 32

(b. Liveni Vîrnav, Romania, 19. August 1881 – d. Paris, 4. Mai 1955)

Preface
The Romanian composer George Enescu was the only surviving child of his parents, who had lost several children as stillbirths or through illness. His father, Costache Enescu, was the administrator for a local landowner and his mother, Maria née Cosmovici, was the daughter of an Orthodox priest. His father was a man of great energy and ability: he taught himself French and Latin, played the violin and conducted a choir. His mother played the guitar and the piano. George was a musical prodigy, playing the violin and composing from an early age. When he was seven, he was admitted to the Vienna Conservatoire, where he was the youngest student they had ever accepted. He subsequently studied at the Paris Conservatoire and made a musical career, primarily as a violinist, though he also conducted and played the piano. He was also a much sought after teacher and taught many of the great violinists of the next generation. It is said that he could play on the piano any passage from the sonatas, symphonies and quartets of Beethoven from memory. He admired both Brahms and Wagner and saw no contradiction in doing so. In 1939 he married Maruca Cantacuzino. However, she suffered from mental illness. After the Second World War and the Communist takeover of Romania, he settled in Paris, where he died.

Enescu’s output as a composer was limited by both his career as a performer and by his domestic troubles. Nevertheless, he completed three symphonies, a number of other orchestral works including the symphonic poem with voices Vox maris, also chamber and piano works and the opera Oedipe, which is his magnum opus. However, he was a perfectionist about preparing his works for publication, and the result is that there are number of other works which he left as short scores or only partly orchestrated, which have been completed, published and performed in recent years. These include two more symphonies, the oratorio Strigoii (Ghosts) and various chamber works. His idiom became increasingly subtle, complex and sophisticated, with affinities to those of his contemporaries Bartók and Szymanowski.

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