Enescu: Symphonies Nos 1-3 (Orchestral Choice – July 2024)
It’s a while since a major label has shone a light on Enescu symphonies, and now John Allison couldn’t be happier...
Enescu
Symphonies Nos 1-3
Orchestre National de France/Cristian Mǎcelaru
Deutsche Grammophon 486 5505 160:21 mins (3CD)
This first recording of George Enescu’s music on DG is something to celebrate. It’s indeed a long time since a major label has paid comprehensive attention to Enescu’s large-scale works – we have to go back to Lawrence Foster’s series for EMI – even though there have always been such testimonies as that of Pablo Casals, who held Enescu to be ‘the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart’. A towering violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher, Enescu spent much of his life in Paris, dying there in exile in 1955; now that the Orchestre National de France is under the music directorship of the dynamic Romanian conductor Cristian Mǎcelaru, it’s a good moment for the French to be reconnecting with him.
Though premiered in Bucharest, Enescu’s two early Romanian Rhapsodies were composed in Paris. They are deservedly popular, with No. 1 particularly steeped in Romanian dance rhythms that sound freshly inspired here. Predominantly slow and gentle, No. 2 is full of folk inflections – an exoticism and modality marvellously showcased in the orchestral playing and DG’s vivid recorded sound.
'This is an unquestionably important addition to the composer’s discography'
Other parts of Enescu’s output remain under-appreciated, not least the three completed symphonies, which give a good overview of his development as a composer, moving from the early influences of German Romanticism to his later affinity with such voices as Scriabin and Szymanowski. It’s quite a journey, as the languorous finale of the Third Symphony demonstrates (its huge forces include organ and chorus), and Mǎcelaru captures the visionary aspects of the score in an unquestionably important addition to the composer’s discography. John Allison