REMEMBERING THE VIOLINIST GEORGES ENESCU ON HIS BIRTHDAY - 1

[violinland]

REMEMBERING THE VIOLINIST GEORGES ENESCU ON HIS BIRTHDAY - 19 AUGUST

Some experiences in life cannot be repeated, or can they. One that I remember vividly is the first time I heard George Enescu in 1950 playing Corelli's La Folia on a Columbia 78 rpm gramophone record made in1925. As a young violin student, I was convinced I had already heard all the great players either in the flesh, in the concert hall, or on gramophone recordings.

There were two other violinists in the room with me when I first played my new record of Enescu. When the recording ended there was complete silence, for all three of us had never heard playing like this before. Kreisler had been the nearest we had heard for individual sound and projection but this was much more profound playing. Of course, we were aware the style was familiar; we could hear much of Enescu's interpretation and teaching in the playing of his pupil the young Yehudi Menuhin. Menuhin had recorded the same piece of music that had been added to my collection many years previously. Menuhin's stunning performance of La Folia was very mature and showed he was far above his young contemporaries.

Years later a lifelong friend of Enescu, Miron Grindea asked me to write an article for the Enescu Centenary Edition of "Adam" magazine. What could I add to what Grindea, who had spent so many years with him in Paris, did not already know? The resulting article was about Georges Enescu the reluctant recording artist. Enescu did not, it appears, like making gramophone records. In this he was not alone there have been many other violinists who felt the same. However, in the twenties and thirties it was the only way of reaching a large audience. I have also read somewhere that Enescu did not like broadcasting either. Enescu's great friend Fritz Kreisler could not be persuaded to broadcast until very late in his career when his friend Donald Voorhees conductor of The Bell Telephone Hour Orchestra finally got him in front of a live microphone in 1944 to play the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto.

Enescu's recording legacy is not vast. The first session was in New York in 1924 with four acoustic sides. Then came the 1928 electric recordings. A few years later in 1933 the legendary Bach Double with his pupil Yehudi Menuhin - and what a performance that is.

It is thanks to private collectors of live recordings who have preserved for us works which he never recorded on commercial discs that we can hear more of Enescu's repertoire. A concert given in the University of Illinois in 1949 and discovered in the their library archives is a prime example of private recordings. This concert had been recorded privately and left unheard until someone realised its historic importance. On the tape Enescu can be heard playing the Beethoven Violin Concerto and a Bach encore. Admittedly, he was not at his best in this performance but nevertheless he is playing the Beethoven. As he had never recorded this work for a commercial recording company, it is indeed a bonus for Enescu collectors

Alas, there is no room here to discuss Enescu the conductor or composer, as he excelled in both, it must have been difficult for him to know in which he was most accomplished.

On Saturday evening I shall sit down in my music room and play some Enescu recordings, and I am sure I will not be alone in this. It will be like drinking good wine to hear again his complete recordings of the Bach Unaccompanied violin sonatas.

Above all I will listen again to a tape I have of the 1937 broadcast when Menuhin came back to the platform during his year's sabbatical to play the Bach Double with his master Enescu who was passing through the town. When the announcer says Georges Enescu and Yehudi Menuhin are now coming onto the platform to play the Bach Concerto for two violins…I will hear again, and be once more reminded of the wonderful violin playing and musicianship of Georges Enescu.

Cheniston K Roland (C) 2014

violinland@talktalk.net

[maestrob]

Thank you for such a wonderful post: I had no idea that so many recordings of Enescu existed.

[John F]

Late in life Enescu recorded Bach's sonatas and partitas for solo violin. They were published about 1950 on an American label called Continental, and the sonata no. 2 also appeared on a Remington LP. I never found a copy, but it doesn't matter now as the recordings have been reissued on CD and uploaded to YouTube. He was nearly 70 and his playing of faster movements and the fugues isn't flawless, but it's not embarassing either and it's definitely not old-fashioned. As in the E major partita:

[jbuck919]

This is off-topic except in the sense that being out of tune is an issue, but at the OHS convention recently one of the recital pieces was that praeludium played in an organ arrangement (not Bach's arrangement for a cantata, but someone else's where the left hand and pedal dealt with the harmonies). Every time the left hand played a chord I was sure I was hearing one or more wrong notes. The recitalist was of a caliber where that kind of inaccuracy was highly unlikely, so the solution had to be sought elsewhere. Finally it dawned on me. Care to guess?

Yup, an organ not tuned to equal temperament.

[SONNET CLV]

Upon reading this thread, I spent part of my Saturday evening listening session with Enescu and Bach (Sonata No. 1) on the Classica D'Oro CDO 2014.