Having recently fallen under the spell
of Enescu’s masterpiece, the opera Oedipe
[review]
, it was a pleasant surprise to find
this double CD in the latest batch of
review discs. I was totally unfamiliar
with his piano music, but this multi-talented
man, who first and foremost was one
of the great violinists of his day,
was also a brilliant pianist, admired
by pianist colleagues of the calibre
of Alfred Cortot, who stated that Enescu
had a better piano technique than Cortot
himself. And it is obvious that some
of this music puts the pianist to severe
test. The music, spanning a period of
almost forty years, is also extremely
diversified.
The opening piece,
the Prelude and Fugue, written
when he was 22, has more than a nod
in the direction of Johann Sebastian
Bach, the prelude especially clarified
and serene, but this is far from a pastiche
and there soon creep in un-Bachian harmonies,
reminding us that his teacher was Fauré
and that the piano composer of the day
was Debussy. The long Nocturne is
even more impressionistic, starting
softly almost immobile but slowly growing.
It reaches no real climax at this stage
but goes back to the initial mood, strangely
hypnotic. After about seven minutes
it changes character, becomes darker
with menacing rumble in the left hand
while the right hand sprinkles arabesques
on the dark surface. Enescu’s night
music is no idyll; Chopin and Field
are in a completely different world;
this is rather nightmarish but with
rays of light to both illuminate and
console. Fascinating music that is a
challenge to both pianist and instrument.
After 14 minutes it dies away and there
is a long silence before we return to
the stillness of the opening. This music
was never heard during Enescu’s lifetime
– it was found among his papers after
his death.
The Scherzo,
written he was 15, starts with youthful
nervous eagerness. After about two minutes
there is a contrasting trio with a beautiful
Brahmsian melody and then back to puberty
again. Pièce sur le nom de
Fauré was a commission from
the Revue musicale which turned
to seven of the aged masters former
pupils to write a short piece each –
among the others were Koechlin, Ravel
and Florent Schmitt. It has an improvisatory
character but is in fact utterly calculated
with the little tune, built on the letters
of Fauré’s name, repeated twelve
times but skilfully hidden behind the
decorations with which he fills his
little canvas.
CD2 contains his first
and third piano sonatas only. Where
is the second? Well, it doesn’t exist,
but it once did – only in Enescu’s head,
though. It was a finished composition
that he, as in many other cases, never
found the time to write down. He once
said to a colleague: "If I could
put down on paper everything I have
in my head, it would take hundreds of
years". I wonder what riches we
would have had if the modern computer
with all its possibilities had existed
in Enescu’s time. Sonata No. 1 from
1924 was one of few works that had him
temporarily abandoning the strenuous
composition of the opera Oedipe.
It is a bit strangely organised, has
a long first movement, marked Allegro
molto moderato e grave and it is
serious and mostly dark. It begins with
a simple descending motif that is soon
immersed in a swarm of ideas, seemingly
improvised. The second movement, instead
of being slow is a Presto vivace,
a short and whirling scherzo, actually
a kind of perpetuum mobile. The
slow movement instead comes last, starting
on a repeated single note, very sparse
music, reminding me of Arvo Pärt’s
piano compositions. The whole movement
feels like consolation finally reached
after the darkness of the beginning
and the hectic gaiety of the scherzo.
Sonata No. 3,
written ten years later, after having
finished the opera, is light and full
of invention, seemingly written by a
harmonious and confident person. Nothing
could be more wrong: in reality his
private life was in a tumultuous state,
his life partner Maruca having suffered
a mental breakdown "which left
her bordering on madness for the rest
of her life". Enescu wrote in a
letter to Edmond Fleg, the librettist
of Oedipe: "I console myself
by taking refuge in composition. The
result is a new piano sonata, freshly
arrived after Oedipe. It’s full
of gaiety, in complete contrast to the
atmosphere which surrounds it".
Little more needs to be said about it,
only that the central movement, Andantino
cantabile, breathes harmony, deeply
influenced by Romanian folk-music. The
last movement is bouncy and jolly, like
someone dancing around on a brightly
sunlit summer meadow.
One must wonder why
this music isn’t heard more often, but
of course Enescu has never been a household
name outside his native Romania and
even great composers need first rate
advocates to salvage them from obscurity;
and this is exactly what Enescu has
in the shape of Luiza Borac. The two
discs, not too well-filled (but at a
special,price), abound with ravishing
pianism and although I have not been
able to hear any alternative versions
it is hard to imagine this music better
played. Ms Borac has such delicate touch
and also all the requisite power. She
is recorded with exceptional truthfulness,
the acoustics of St. Dunstan’s Church
being obviously ideal for this music.
The booklet has a lot of interesting
biographical details as well as good
notes on the music. Altogether this
is a high quality product. Maybe Enescu
at last is due for wider appreciation
and then this set will be a valuable
gateway.
Göran Forsling
Evan Dickerson
has also listened to this disc
I echo many comments
made by my colleague Göran Forsling
about this set, but in some respects
I can provide additional perspectives
too. It follows Luiza Borac’s admirable
first release of Enescu’s piano suites
– a landmark recording and real ear-opener
in many ways – as this one too proves
to be.
Arguably the major
works in this set, in terms or artistic
stature, are the two piano sonatas,
though that is not to suggest the other
pieces should be dismissed lightly.
I seem to have written it many times
before in articles and reviews, but
the more I hear of Enescu’s piano writing,
the more it impresses me. Cortot remarked
with astonishment not only at Enescu’s
compositional grasp but his facility
in playing too: "Why is it that
you, a violinist, should have a better
technique at the piano than I do?"
These, then, are far
from straightforward pieces and even
those springing from Enescu’s relative
youth require an interpreter of vision,
with sensitivity to line and gradation
combined with passion all brought together
under a brilliantly fearless technique.
Luiza Borac matches these criteria to
a remarkable degree. This is music one
can senses means much to her, as it
would be being Romanian, but the affection
comes through in the total unity of
her playing with idiom of Enescu’s writing.
The early works here
give us insights to the formative influences
upon Enescu the entire musician, rather
than solely as composer, pianist or
violinist. The Scherzo contains
Brahmsian touches, appropriate as the
Hamburg master was one of Enescu’s early
musical figureheads (Wagner and J.S.
Bach were others). Enescu played violin
in a Viennese orchestra under Brahms’s
direction, and we have Enescu’s word
for it that Brahms once heard him practise
the violin concerto and offered him
advice on the playing of suitable cadenzas.
The Prelude and Fugue
shows Enescu at work very much in the
vein of J.S. Bach, though his approach
is tempered by an already advanced assimilation
of French compositional style. As a
violinist Enescu performed practically
the whole Bach canon from memory, and
conducted the B-minor mass and concerti
too – and at least we have some recordings
of his labours for posterity. Whilst
many talk, in my view often inaccurately,
about the influence of Romanian folk
music (or, worse, gypsy music which
is entirely another thing) upon Enescu’s
compositions, Bach as the bedrock to
his musical being remains under-acknowledged.
This Prelude and Fugue, along with the
first and second piano suites (1897
and 1901/3 respectively), demonstrate
the influence. Though his compositional
voice became more individual as the
years advanced what he never lost from
his understanding of Bach was the importance
of form within music.
The homage to Fauré
- one of several commissioned from the
great man’s young composition pupils
- takes the letters of Fauré’s
name and using them as notes weaves
a web of some intricacy, so that the
many repetitions are hardly noticeable,
but such subtlety Enescu already held
firmly in his grasp. By contrast the
Nocturne shows another facet of Enescu’s
piano style – his love of dominating
left hand chords. This is a feature
that permeates many early works, though
even the third violin sonata demonstrates
an unwillingness to totally relinquish
the effect these produce. Far from being
a Nocturne of Gallic geniality, Enescu
presents a vision of idiosyncrasy and
great inventiveness – and not a little
disturbed in its vision too. All of
which comes as grist to the mill of
Borac’s musical and imaginative realisation.
The first piano sonata
is the lesser known of the two that
exist. Structurally it seems slightly
odd, the slow movement coming last after
two movements of varying dynamic impetuousness
that suggest, but do not reply upon,
improvisatory wilfulness. However the
lasting impression is one of individuality
and some contemplation on the part of
the composer, who laid aside his magnum
opus, the opera Oedipe, to write
the sonata. Borac succeeds in capturing
with great effectiveness not only the
frenetic activity but also the spirit
of what Romanians call dor (a
mixture of longing, nostalgia, lovesickness
and sadness) that she finds within these
pages, and to an extent I do too in
the controlled, reflective ending. All
we know of the second – fully formed
and realised in Enescu’s head, but alas
never made the journey to paper – is
that ‘she’ was in B flat major.
Perhaps this is the
juncture to mention other available
releases. Especially where Enescu is
concerned I am of the opinion that there
are no competitors, merely contributors
to overall understanding, given that
the world is still young in accepting
this music. (How much further behind
still lie some other Romanian composers
whose works are all but unheard!) Cristian
Petrescu on Accord (3 CDs:
4762397) has decent sound, though
not comparable to Borac’s, and on the
whole takes too many liberties with
Enescu’s time and dynamic markings.
This said, his was about the only available
survey of Enescu’s piano works available
until now. Had I to choose just one
version the Borac would be my choice.
However when it comes
to the third sonata things are not quite
so straight-forward: enter Dinu Lipatti
with his own special view of the work
(EMI 5 67566 2). Being Enescu’s God-son,
Lipatti’s interpretation verges on being
a family affair, and his affection for
the music is apparent. As is so often
the case with Lipatti’s meagre quantity
of captured legacy the result is marred
by the recording quality; it comes from
Swiss Radio and was recorded on 18 October
1943. He is caught to winning lyrical
effect in the middle Andantino, though
the outer Vivace con brio and Allegro
con spirito show him in sparkling temperament
too. Nadia Boulanger’s co-operation
is documented with this recording but
EMI fails to state the nature or extent
of her involvement.
Borac enters the home
strait of her set unafraid of Lipatti.
She too displays much of the same fleetness,
intuitive musicality and sureness of
touch with her playing that Lipatti,
one feels more than completely hears,
brings to his. Listening to her recording
I was struck by memories of hearing
Enescu’s piano played two years ago
in Bucharest by students of the music
academy. What struck me then was the
voicing of Enescu’s instrument – how
it effectively had three voices: a deep
and rich bass allowing his love of accords
to come through, a willowy and pliant
middle register, and a top register
without hardness but bell-like in its
clarity. Given that Borac has played
Enescu’s baby grand (a booklet picture
confirms this) it can be no coincidence
that the piano used here brings forward
similar qualities. Lipatti though still
has much to offer, and I would not be
without either version.
Alright, so we are
short on playing time for two discs,
but given that they retail at a special
price that’s no great pity – particularly
as the artistic standard, recording
quality and supporting notes are of
high order. Greater advocacy for Enescu’s
genius would be hard to dream of: bravo,
Luiza Borac!
Evan Dickerson
Reviews
of Volume 1
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