American Romanian Festival

ROmerican Avant-Garde / March 2, 2023
2023-03-02 19:30 (Europe/Bucharest) | Cook Recital Hall, 333 W Circle Dr, East Lansing, MI, 48824, United States
ROmerican Avant-Garde
Piano Recital
Thursday, March 2, 2023, 7:30 p.m.
Cook Recital Hall, 333 W Circle Dr, East Lansing, MI 48824

Free Admission
The daring works proposed by ROmerican Avant-Garde explore emotional themes ranging from anger to dreams and rebelliousness, with a whiff of nostalgia from Eastern Europe and post-war America. Echoing our 21st-century identity crisis, this program testifies to a need for a new, avant-garde approach.
Conceived as a “revisited” classical piano recital, ROmerican Avant-Garde is a concert experience lasting about 50 minutes, without applause, and almost without interruption, between the works. This unusual musical program, which presents American and Romanian compositions written mainly during the first half of the 20th century and dedicated to the piano, is centered around a work never performed in Europe until now, since its premiere in Paris in 1955: The Seven Deadly Sins by Jacob Druckman.

Artists
Dinu Mihailescu, piano

Teaser Trailer

The Program
John Cage (1912–1992)
In a Landscape (1948)
Remus Georgescu (1932–2021)
Three Miniatures for Piano (2004)
I. Berceuse
II. Sicilienne
III. Marche
Jacob Druckman (1928–1996)
The Seven Deadly Sins (1955)
I. Pride
II. Envy
III. Anger
IV. Sloth
V. Avarice
VI. Gluttony
VII. Carnality
Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990)
“For Aaron Copland” from Seven Anniversaries (1943)
Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
Four Piano Blues (1926–1948)
I. Freely Poetic
II. Soft and Languid
III. Muted and Sensuous
IV. With Bounce
George Enescu (1881–1955)
“Carillon Nocturne” from Pièces Impromptues (1916)

Program Notes
Program Note by Dinu Mihailescu
The daring works proposed by ROmerican Avant-Garde explore emotional themes ranging from anger to dreams and rebelliousness, with a whiff of nostalgia from Eastern Europe and post-war America. Echoing our 21st-century identity crisis, this program testifies to a need for a new, avant-garde approach.
Jacob Druckman, one of the principal composers of the American musical avant-garde, is also considered one of the greatest orchestrators of his generation. The Seven Deadly Sins is his only known piece for solo piano. Composed in Europe—more specifically in Paris—this work might represent an “experimental plane” for the composer, who continued to try out new forms, techniques, and styles of composition upon his return to the United States.
Adept in the atonal style, all the while including reminiscences of tonality that are magistrally “hidden” in his musical discourse, Druckman finds his principal sources of inspiration in the music of Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland—with whom he studied composition at Tanglewood. Beginning in the 1960s, this American composer became impassioned with electronic music and by opera, two elements that will contribute to the originality of his future musical creations.
John Cage, an emblematic composer of American experimental music, adept in the dissonant style, and in particular of the prepared instrument, is represented in the program by an early work, rarely played in public and very surprising in its melodicity: In a Landscape. This piece, written in 1948, is reminiscent of a meditation; it was composed during a period of profound questioning in the composer’s life, a period during which he became involved in Zen culture and wrote another work in the same style: Dream. In this program, In a Landscape symbolizes the opening toward an imaginary world that is sometimes burlesque—at once grotesque and sweetly nostalgic.
Remus Georgescu, renowned Romanian conductor and composer is represented in this context of musical avant-garde by Three Miniatures for Piano, compositions that are close to Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky’s music, dissonant and very rhythmically dynamic music, which expresses a great inner freedom.
Consequently, the respective atmospheres proposed by these short pieces are diverse, passing through the mystery of nocturnal life and the ambiguity of dreams/nightmares (Berceuse), postromantic nostalgia (Sicilienne) and caricature (Marche). The association with Druckman’s work is therefore obvious. These three miniatures, which follow the opening work (Cage’s In a Landscape), play the role of preparing the listener’s ear, and gradually lead them toward the fantastical reality of the post-war world (1955).
The third American composer, who completes the program, Aaron Copland, nicknamed “the Dean of American Composers,” is one of the most original and influential composers of the 20th century. Having studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris for three years, his vast musical creation is interwoven with surprising mixtures of the artistic currents of the moment (such as as jazz, Postimpressionism, and neoclassicism) as well as the new musical languages with which the most “rebellious” composers experimented at the beginning of the 20th century: serial music, atonality, new sounds and effects produced on traditional instruments, etc.
As if in an avant-garde poem, almost out of context and in a fleeting manner, Leonard Bernstein “intervenes” and pays tribute to his teacher and friend, Aaron Copland, with the miniature titled “For Aaron Copland.” This work is taken from the collection Seven Anniversaries, which includes seven works for solo piano written between 1942 and 1943. These short pieces represent a musical gift for the birthday of each friend of the composer. The “miniature” character is again used to prepare for the entrance, this time, of Copland’s Four Piano Blues.
The last piece in this musical “collage” is “Carillon Nocturne,” by the renowned Romanian composer George Enescu. Inspired by Romanian folk music, the impressionist movement and, later, by Asian music, Enescu creates his own language by finding the perfect balance between his sources of inspiration and his own musical intuition.
Through this original representation of chimes, Enescu’s work suggests an atmosphere of tranquility and stability at the end of the program, which allows the audience to gently reconnect with itself. The dissonances are no longer the real harmonic conflicts of The Seven Deadly Sins, but rather a faithful representation of the natural resonances of the bells, at once high and at the same time deep, produced this time by the piano.
The Project
“The two years of the Covid-19 pandemic put a brutal halt to face-to-face cultural events: in particular, to live performances. Even after health restrictions were eased, audiences were reluctant to return for a quite some time; some never returned to concerts at all, which speaks to the fragility and fluidity of audiences. During this period, the following thought came to me: ‘In view of the habits that have radically changed since the beginning of the pandemic, I see here an opportunity to rethink classical concerts in order to make them accessible to a new audience beyond the habitual traditional music lovers.’ This thought was the impetus for the concept of ROmerican Avant-Garde. The choice to bring an American repertoire linked to Romanian works allows us to highlight the cultural links that exist through music of all times, despite wars, distance and social upheaval. If George Enescu’s nocturnal nostalgia in Romania at the dawn of World War I resonates with John Cage’s post-war imaginary landscapes in New York in 1948, American Jacob Druckman’s 1955 atonal “rebellion” in Paris can resonate with a young 21st century audience going through a period of profound transformation; an audience that is more and more concerned about the current dramatic global situation that humanity is facing, and that participates actively in its improvement.”

Black Angels / March 3, 2023
2023-03-03 19:30 (America/Detroit) | The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Dr, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI, 48236, United States
Chamber Music Concert
Friday, March 3, 2023, 7:30 p.m.
The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Dr, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236
Buy Tickets: $25 adults / $10 students Join us on March 3, 2023, at The War Memorial in Grosse Pointe Farms for the chamber music concert “Black Angels” featuring compositions by George Crumb and Constantin Silvestri.

Artists
Sujin Lim, violin
Marian Tănău, violin
Will Haapaniemi, viola
Jeremy Crosmer, cello

Concert Program
Constantin Silvestri (1913–1969)
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 27 (c. 1944)
I. Con passione—disperato; Agitato e molto espressivo
II. Brillante giocoso
III. Nostalgico
IV. Con virtuosità, ma leggiero
Sujin Lim, violin; Marian Tănău, violin; Will Haapaniemi, viola; Jeremy Crosmer, cello
– INTERMISSION –
George Crumb (b. 1929)
Black Angels for Electric String Quartet (1970)
I. Departure
1. THRENODY I: Night of the Electric Insects,
2. Sounds of Bones and Flutes
3. Lost Bells
4. Devil-music
5. Danse Macabre (Duo alternativo: Dies Irae)
II. Absence
6. Pavana Lachrymae (Der Tod und das Mädchen) (Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)
7. THRENODY II: BLACK ANGELS!
8. Sarabanda de la Muerte Oscura (Solo obbligato: Insect Sounds)
9. Lost Bells (Echo) (Duo alternativo: Sounds of Bones and Flutes)
III. Return
10. [Solo: Aria accompagnata] God-music
11. Ancient Voices
12. Ancient Voices (Echo)
13. THRENODY III: Night of the Electric Insects
Marian Tănău, violin; Sujin Lim, violin; Will Haapaniemi, viola; Jeremy Crosmer, cello

Program Notes
String Quartet No. 2, Op. 27 (c. 1944)
Program Note by David B. Levy
Romanian composer and conductor Constantin-Nicolae Silvestri was born in Bucharest on May 31, 1913, and died in London on February 23, 1969. By age 6, he was already starting to play piano and organ, and he gave his first public performance at age 10. His studies led him to the Târgu Mureş and Bucharest Conservatories. Despite any formal training in conducting, he made his debut in this capacity in his teens. In 1930, he made his debut with the Bucharest Radio Symphony Orchestra, and five years later was associated with the Romanian Opera and the “George Enescu” Philharmonic Orchestra. From 1948 to 1956, Silvestri taught at the Bucharest Conservatory, where among his best-known students was Sergiu Comissiona, a conductor who enjoyed considerable success in the United States. As a composer, he produced works for piano, orchestra, and chamber music, including the String Quartet No. 2, Op. 27, composed in the 1940s.
Silvestri’s music is not well-known outside of his native Romania and Eastern Europe. His reputation was built primarily on his activities as a conductor. According to the biographical article in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, Silvestri’s style blended “neoclassical constructivism, with occasional shades of expressionism.” His String Quartet No. 2, Op. 27, is cast in a chromatically embellished key of a minor, and is in four movements marked “Con passione—agitato e molto espressivo,” “Brillante, giocoso,” “Nostalgico,” and “Con virtuosità, ma leggiero.” Despite its mild level of dissonance and thematic angularity, the work displays elements of folklorism, but without the citation of actual folk music.
Black Angels for Electric String Quartet (1970)
Program Note by David B. Levy
American composer George [Henry] Crumb [Jr.] was born on October 24, 1929, in Charleston, West Virginia, and died in Media, Pennsylvania, on February 6, 2022. The son of musicians (both parents were members of the West Virginia Symphony), Crumb grew up in an environment filled with classical and romantic music, as well as music composed by early twentieth-century masters. He received training in composition at the Mason College of Music and Fine Arts (University of Charleston), the University of Illinois, and the University of Michigan. His favorite composers included Mahler, Debussy, and Bartók, but his own music frequently quoted music by Bach, Chopin, Schubert, and Richard Strauss, and others, always with a specific dramatic or programmatic goal in mind. His Black Angels for Electric String Quartet (1970, published 1971) is one such piece, quoting a part of Schubert’s lied “Tod und das Mädchen” (“Death and the Maiden”). Schubert himself used this theme in the variation movement of his String Quartet in d minor. Crumb was the recipient of several prestigious grants, as well as the winner of the Pulitzer Prize in Music (1968). Black Angels is Crumb’s reaction to the horrors of the Vietnam War. It was commissioned by the University of Michigan and was first performed by the Stanley Quartet in October 1970. An inscription in the score reads “Finished on Friday the Thirteenth, March 1970 (in tempore belli).” In addition to their amplified instruments, the performers are required to play crystal glasses, maracas, suspended tam-tam, and gong, as well as using their voices to produce phonemes and reciting numbers in a variety of languages.
George Crumb was a composer who was at once conscious of the tradition of concert music to which he belonged, as well as the social issues of his day. Many of his works made use of texts by the Spanish poet Federico García Lorca, most notably Ancient Voices of Children (1970). This work, and many others, makes use of theatrical effects and lighting. According to Crumb’s own program notes, Black Angels (Thirteen Images from the Dark Land) is a “parable on our troubled contemporary world.” The work is rife with multiple layers of symbolism, part of which is numerological (7 and 13). The interval of the tritone, known as “the devil in music” (diabolus in musica) in the Middle Ages, plays an important role throughout the piece. In addition to the Schubert quotation, Crumb also alludes to the medieval Latin chant Dies irae that is the sequence in the Catholic Mass for the Dead. This tune was also used to great effect by Berlioz in his Symphonie fantastique and by Rachmaninoff in several of his works. Crumb also opens the work with a movement titled “Night of the Electric Insects”—a clear reference to a (non-electric) effect found in some music by Bartók.
While Black Angels is linked specifically to the composer’s response to the Vietnam War, its dramatic message is timeless. In writing the words in tempore belli (in time of war), for example, Crumb was doubtlessly aware of the title of Joseph Haydn’s Missa in tempore belli (Mass in Time of War) of 1796. Crumb described the structure of Black Angels as a “huge arch-like design” portraying “a voyage of the soul [in three stages]” being “Departure (fall from grace), Absence (spiritual annihilation) and Return (redemption).” Even here, Crumb was surely thinking of the three movements of Beethoven’s Sonata for Piano, Op. 81a (“Lebewohl” or “Les Adieux”), whose three movements are labeled Departure, Absence, and Return. While much of Black Angels is harsh and angular, the use of tonal quotations provides a helpful anchor for the listener.

ROmerican Avant-Garde Recital & Book Signing / March 4, 2023
2023-03-04 15:00 (Europe/Bucharest) | Steinway Piano Gallery Detroit, 2700 E West Maple Rd, Commerce Charter Twp, MI, United States
ROmerican Avant-Garde Recital
Piano Recital
Saturday, March 4, 2023, 3:00 p.m.
Steinway Piano Gallery Detroit, 2700 E West Maple Rd, Commerce Charter Twp, MI 48390 Admission $20 adults / $10 students 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 The daring works proposed by ROmerican Avant-Garde explore emotional themes ranging from anger to dreams and rebelliousness, with a whiff of nostalgia from Eastern Europe and post-war America. Echoing our 21st-century identity crisis, this program testifies to a need for a new, avant-garde approach.
Conceived as a “revisited” classical piano recital, ROmerican Avant-Garde is a concert experience lasting about 50 minutes, without applause, and almost without interruption, between the works. This unusual musical program, which presents American and Romanian compositions written mainly during the first half of the 20th century and dedicated to the piano, is centered around a work never performed in Europe until now, since its premiere in Paris in 1955: The Seven Deadly Sins by Jacob Druckman.
Join us for a classical piano recital featuring Dinu Mihailescu and special guest book signing by author Andrei S. Markovits.

Artists
Dinu Mihailescu, piano

Teaser Trailer

The Program
John Cage (1912–1992)
In a Landscape (1948)
Remus Georgescu (1932–2021)
Three Miniatures for Piano (2004)
I. Berceuse
II. Sicilienne
III. Marche
Jacob Druckman (1928–1996)
The Seven Deadly Sins (1955)
I. Pride
II. Envy
III. Anger
IV. Sloth
V. Avarice
VI. Gluttony
VII. Carnality
Leonard Bernstein (1918–1990)
“For Aaron Copland” from Seven Anniversaries (1943)
Aaron Copland (1900–1990)
Four Piano Blues (1926–1948)
I. Freely Poetic
II. Soft and Languid
III. Muted and Sensuous
IV. With Bounce
George Enescu (1881–1955)
“Carillon Nocturne” from Pièces Impromptues (1916)

Program Notes
Program Note by Dinu Mihailescu
The daring works proposed by ROmerican Avant-Garde explore emotional themes ranging from anger to dreams and rebelliousness, with a whiff of nostalgia from Eastern Europe and post-war America. Echoing our 21st-century identity crisis, this program testifies to a need for a new, avant-garde approach.
Jacob Druckman, one of the principal composers of the American musical avant-garde, is also considered one of the greatest orchestrators of his generation. The Seven Deadly Sins is his only known piece for solo piano. Composed in Europe—more specifically in Paris—this work might represent an “experimental plane” for the composer, who continued to try out new forms, techniques, and styles of composition upon his return to the United States.
Adept in the atonal style, all the while including reminiscences of tonality that are magistrally “hidden” in his musical discourse, Druckman finds his principal sources of inspiration in the music of Igor Stravinsky and Aaron Copland—with whom he studied composition at Tanglewood. Beginning in the 1960s, this American composer became impassioned with electronic music and by opera, two elements that will contribute to the originality of his future musical creations.
John Cage, an emblematic composer of American experimental music, adept in the dissonant style, and in particular of the prepared instrument, is represented in the program by an early work, rarely played in public and very surprising in its melodicity: In a Landscape. This piece, written in 1948, is reminiscent of a meditation; it was composed during a period of profound questioning in the composer’s life, a period during which he became involved in Zen culture and wrote another work in the same style: Dream. In this program, In a Landscape symbolizes the opening toward an imaginary world that is sometimes burlesque—at once grotesque and sweetly nostalgic.
Remus Georgescu, renowned Romanian conductor and composer is represented in this context of musical avant-garde by Three Miniatures for Piano, compositions that are close to Béla Bartók and Igor Stravinsky’s music, dissonant and very rhythmically dynamic music, which expresses a great inner freedom.
Consequently, the respective atmospheres proposed by these short pieces are diverse, passing through the mystery of nocturnal life and the ambiguity of dreams/nightmares (Berceuse), postromantic nostalgia (Sicilienne) and caricature (Marche). The association with Druckman’s work is therefore obvious. These three miniatures, which follow the opening work (Cage’s In a Landscape), play the role of preparing the listener’s ear, and gradually lead them toward the fantastical reality of the post-war world (1955).
The third American composer, who completes the program, Aaron Copland, nicknamed “the Dean of American Composers,” is one of the most original and influential composers of the 20th century. Having studied composition with Nadia Boulanger in Paris for three years, his vast musical creation is interwoven with surprising mixtures of the artistic currents of the moment (such as as jazz, Postimpressionism, and neoclassicism) as well as the new musical languages with which the most “rebellious” composers experimented at the beginning of the 20th century: serial music, atonality, new sounds and effects produced on traditional instruments, etc.
As if in an avant-garde poem, almost out of context and in a fleeting manner, Leonard Bernstein “intervenes” and pays tribute to his teacher and friend, Aaron Copland, with the miniature titled “For Aaron Copland.” This work is taken from the collection Seven Anniversaries, which includes seven works for solo piano written between 1942 and 1943. These short pieces represent a musical gift for the birthday of each friend of the composer. The “miniature” character is again used to prepare for the entrance, this time, of Copland’s Four Piano Blues.
The last piece in this musical “collage” is “Carillon Nocturne,” by the renowned Romanian composer George Enescu. Inspired by Romanian folk music, the impressionist movement and, later, by Asian music, Enescu creates his own language by finding the perfect balance between his sources of inspiration and his own musical intuition.
Through this original representation of chimes, Enescu’s work suggests an atmosphere of tranquility and stability at the end of the program, which allows the audience to gently reconnect with itself. The dissonances are no longer the real harmonic conflicts of The Seven Deadly Sins, but rather a faithful representation of the natural resonances of the bells, at once high and at the same time deep, produced this time by the piano.
The Project
“The two years of the Covid-19 pandemic put a brutal halt to face-to-face cultural events: in particular, to live performances. Even after health restrictions were eased, audiences were reluctant to return for a quite some time; some never returned to concerts at all, which speaks to the fragility and fluidity of audiences. During this period, the following thought came to me: ‘In view of the habits that have radically changed since the beginning of the pandemic, I see here an opportunity to rethink classical concerts in order to make them accessible to a new audience beyond the habitual traditional music lovers.’ This thought was the impetus for the concept of ROmerican Avant-Garde. The choice to bring an American repertoire linked to Romanian works allows us to highlight the cultural links that exist through music of all times, despite wars, distance and social upheaval. If George Enescu’s nocturnal nostalgia in Romania at the dawn of World War I resonates with John Cage’s post-war imaginary landscapes in New York in 1948, American Jacob Druckman’s 1955 atonal “rebellion” in Paris can resonate with a young 21st century audience going through a period of profound transformation; an audience that is more and more concerned about the current dramatic global situation that humanity is facing, and that participates actively in its improvement.”

Book Signing
Special Guest & Book Signing
Saturday, March 4, 2023, 3:00 p.m.
Steinway Piano Gallery Detroit, 2700 E West Maple Rd, Commerce Charter Twp, MI 48390
Andrei S. Markovits, author
Andrei S. Markovits was born in late 1948 as the only child of a Hungarian-speaking, middle-class Jewish family in Timișoara, where he spent the first nine years of his life. He then emigrated first to Vienna, Austria, and then to New York City, where he went to Columbia University, receiving five degrees there. The first 25 years as a university professor included stints at Harvard University, Boston University, Wesleyan University, and many universities in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Israel. He then joined the faculty at the University of Michigan in 1999, where he spent the next 25 years in his academic career. His many books, articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in 15 languages. In 2012, the Federal Republic of Germany bestowed on him the Order of Merit, First Class, which is the highest honor awarded to any civilian, German and foreign.
His most recent book is a memoir titled The Passport as Home: Comfort in Rootlessness published by the Central European University Press in Budapest and Vienna. A Romanian translation will be published by Editura Hasefer in Bucharest in April of this year.
The Passport as Home: Comfort in Rootlessness
Book Summary
This is the story of an illustrious Romanian-born, Hungarian-speaking, Vienna-schooled, Columbia-educated and Harvard-formed, middle-class Jewish professor of politics and other subjects. Markovits revels in a rootlessness that offers him comfort, succor, and the inspiration for his life’s work. As we follow his quest to find a home, we encounter his engagement with the important political, social, and cultural developments of five decades on two continents. We also learn about his musical preferences, from classical to rock; his love of team sports such as soccer, baseball, basketball, and American football; and his devotion to dogs and their rescue. Above all, the book analyzes the travails of emigration the author experienced twice, moving from Romania to Vienna and then from Vienna to New York.
Markovits’s Candide-like travels through the ups and downs of post-1945 Europe and America offer a panoramic view of key currents that shaped the second half of the twentieth century. By shedding light on the cultural similarities and differences between both continents, the book shows why America fascinated Europeans like Markovits and offered them a home that Europe never did: academic excellence, intellectual openness, cultural diversity and religious tolerance. America for Markovits was indeed the “beacon on the hill,” despite the ugliness of its racism, the prominence of its everyday bigotry, the severity of its growing economic inequality, and the presence of other aspects that mar this worthy experiment’s daily existence.

Passionate Enescu & Martin String Octets / March 5, 2023
2023-03-05 15:00 (Europe/Bucharest) | The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Dr, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI, 48236, United States
Chamber Concert
Sunday, March 5, 2023, 3:00 p.m.
The War Memorial, 32 Lake Shore Dr, Grosse Pointe Farms, MI 48236
Buy Tickets: $25 adults / $10 students Join us on March 5, 2023, at The War Memorial in Grosse Pointe Farms for the chamber music concert “Passionate Enescu: & Martin String Octets” featuring compositions by George Enescu as well as a commissioned work by American composer Colin Martin.

Artists
Kimberly Kaloyanides Kennedy, violin
Heidi Han, violin
Sujin Lim, violin
Marian Tănău, violin
Mike Chen, viola
William Haapaniemi, viola
Jeremy Crosmer, cello
Cole Randolph, cello
Colin Martin, Commissioned Composer 2023

The Program
Colin Martin (b. 1993)
Amerikinetics for String Octet (2023)
I. Very fast, with country spirit
II. Slowish, jazzy
III. Fast, with big city energy
INTERMISSION
George Enescu (1881–1955)
Octet for Strings, Op. 7 (1897)
I. Très modéré
II. Très fougueux
III. Lentement
IV. Mouvement de valse ben rythmée

Program Notes
Amerikinetics (2023)
Program Note by Colin Martin
“Amerikinetics” is a portmanteau of “American” and “kinetics,” meaning the study of motion. It refers to the lively American rhythms that serve as the basis of the entire work and give it a sense of propulsive movement. The first movement, “Very fast, with country spirit,” is largely in 10/8 time and evokes fiddle/bluegrass music of the American south. The second movement, “Slowish, jazzy,” relies on a swing rhythm to produce a seductive nocturne. The third movement, “Fast, with big city energy,” features a syncopated, propulsive rhythm that evokes the energy of America’s lively major cities. A hectic, polytonal middle section in mixed meter evokes the sometimes-chaotic nature of city life. I’d like to extend my thanks to the American Romanian Festival for this commission and for giving me the opportunity to compose this invigorating piece.
Octet for Strings, Op. 7 (1899–1900)
Program Note by David B. Levy
Romanian composer, violinist, conductor, and educator George(s) Enescu was born on August 19, 1881, in Liveni-Vîrnav (later renamed “George Enescu”) in the old Kingdom of Romania and died in Paris on May 4, 1955. His first name acquired an added “s” in France. There is no disagreement that Enescu was the most gifted musician ever to emanate from his native Romania. His impact on contemporaneous Romanian musicians and subsequent generations remains strong even today, and his ability to retain a vast repertory of music in his memory was prodigious. Enescu’s influence, however, was truly international in scope, earning him praise of musicians from across the globe. As a teacher of violin, Yehudi Menuhin, Ivry Gitlis, Arthur Grumiaux, and Ida Haendel were among his most illustrious students. His activity as a conductor was widespread, having especially been active in Paris and New York, where he came under consideration as the successor to Arturo Toscanini as music director of the New York Philharmonic in 1936. As a composer, Enescu is best known for his two Romanian Rhapsodies, whose popularity have overshadowed his other compositions, much to the composer’s annoyance. His Octet for Strings was composed between 1899 and 1900, and its first performance took place on December 18, 1909, in the Salle des Agriculteurs in Paris, as part of a festival concert of Enescu’s chamber works in the Soirées d’Art concert series. The performers were the combined members of the Géloso and Chailley Quartets. The Octet is dedicated to André Gedalge, a composer and educator whose students included Enescu, Charles Koechlin, and Maurice Ravel.
Enescu’s Octet for Strings proudly takes its place as one of the masterworks of the rich repertoire of string chamber music. According to the biographical article on the composer in the New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, “melodic line was, for Enescu, the vital principle of music: as he wrote in his autobiography, ‘I’m not a person for pretty successions of chords … a piece deserves to be called a musical composition only if it has a line, a melody, or, even better, melodies superimposed on one another.’” This principle certainly applies well to the Octet, a piece whose first movement offers the listener no fewer than six melodies, or melodic ideas, all of which inform the events of its vast four-movement canvas. Speaking of his year-and-a-half-long work on the 40-minute piece, Enescu is quoted as having said, “I wore myself out trying to make work a piece of music divided into four segments of such length that each of them was likely at any moment to break. An engineer launching his first suspension bridge over a river could not feel more anxiety than I felt when I set out to darken my paper.”
The most famous string octet in the repertory, of course, is the wonderfully exuberant Op. 20, composed by the young Felix Mendelssohn when he was a mere 13 years old. Enescu was not too far behind his predecessor, having finished his Octet when he was only 19. An accomplished violinist, the Romanian master certainly knew how to exploit the full range of possibilities in writing for string instruments. The Octet certainly taxes the virtuosity of its performers. Even more, it reveals Enescu’s considerable skill as a master of color and counterpoint. Having lived in Vienna and Paris, he was also keenly attuned to the styles of his contemporaries, including Gustav Mahler and Claude Debussy. While the influence of these styles is occasionally discernible by listeners familiar with those idioms, the Octet retains its own palpable freshness and originality. The four movements are titled (in French): Très modéré, Très fougueux (ardent), Lentement, and Mouvement de Valse bien rythmée. This final movement is, indeed, a true fin de siècle tour de force, whose wildly frantic final measures could be seen as a precursor to Ravel’s symphonic poem La valse.
