Georges Enescu: Two sonatas for cello and piano, Op. 26

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Release Date: 29th Oct 2012
Catalogue No: LVC1170
Label: Saphir Productions
Length: 67 minutes

Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco, Alexandre Paley, Alexandre Dmitriev: Allegro molto moderato

Work length11:41

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$2.80

Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco, Alexandre Paley, Alexandre Dmitriev: Allegretto scherzando

Work length6:54

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Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco, Alexandre Paley, Alexandre Dmitriev: Molto andante

Work length10:17

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Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley, Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco: Presto

Work length6:37

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Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco, Alexandre Paley, Alexandre Dmitriev: Allegro moderato ed amabile

Work length10:45

$1.50

$2.10

Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco, Alexandre Paley, Alexandre Dmitriev: Allegro agitato, non troppo mosso

Work length5:49

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Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco, Alexandre Paley, Alexandre Dmitriev: Andantino cantabile, senza lentezza

Work length7:45

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$2.10

Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

Georges ENESCO, Georges Enesco, Alexandre Paley, Alexandre Dmitriev: Final à la roumaine

Work length7:24

$1.50

$2.10

Alexandre Dmitriev, Alexandre Paley

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Born in 1881, Enescu was, with Mozart, one of the most remarkable child prodigies that the history of music has ever known. Taking up the violin at the age of four, he completed his first composition at five and was seven when he enrolled at the prestigious Vienna Conservatory. There, he learned about Wagner's music, which he would later conduct frequently, and met Brahms of whom, in a way, he sought to be his aesthetic heir at the time.

The first Sonata for cello and piano was thus composed in late 1898, reportedly in 12 days. Some hear the influences of his teachers or models (Brahms, Saint-Saens, Massenet, Fauré...) in it, and although that is true of the traditional four-movement forms and highly contrapuntal finale, like a veiled reference to the fugal finale of Brahms's First Cello Sonata, what strikes us straight off is rather the very personal nature of the discourse, playing with striking short cells, concise and abrupt, and their development in long, implacable, or sometimes lyrical, phrases that are close to the gift of infinite melody typical of Rachmaninov's genius.

The second Sonata, written in 1935, shows the same qualities within stranger, more shifting harmonic climates worthy of Scriabin. Essentially meditative but occasionally rising to a few climactic eruptions, the music seems tinted with dark forebodings of coming catastrophes. The 'Finale à la roumaine' goes back to the vein of Enescu's most famous works, the two Romanian Rhapsodies for orchestra, or the Third Violin Sonata, Op. 25. In this blend of fragments of dances and dreams, there is an incredible feeling of improvising freedom.

Georges Enescu: Two sonatas for cello and piano, Op. 26

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