(b Liveni Vîrnav [now George Enescu], 19 Aug 1881; d Paris, 3/4 May 1955). Romanian composer and violinist. He studied at the Vienna Conservatory (1888-94) and at the Paris Conservatoire (1895-9). Paris remained the centre of his professional life, though he spent much time in Romania as a teacher and conductor. He is regarded as the greatest and most versatile Romanian musician and was widely admired as a violinist. Apart from the two Lisztian Rhapsodies roumains for orchestra (1901) his music has been neglected, perhaps partly because of the complexity and diversity of his stylistic allegiances: Romanian folk music is a recurrent influence, but so too are Wagner and Reger and early Schoenberg. His output includes the opera Oedipe (1936), five symphonies (1905, 1914, 1921, 1934, 1941) and much chamber music.
Enesco, Georges (zhôrzh ĕnĕs'kō), Rom. George Enescu, 1881-1955, Romanian violinist, composer, and conductor; studied at the Vienna Conservatory and in Paris with Massenet, Fauré, and others. Enesco made many worldwide concert tours as both violinist and conductor, including appearances with the New York Philharmonic (1936-39). He composed three symphonies; chamber music; an opera, Oedipe (Paris, 1936); and other orchestral music, notably two popular Romanian Rhapsodies. Yehudi Menuhin was one of his pupils.
George Enescu is still considered the greatest of all Romanian composers. While he is widely known for just one famous opus, he was in reality a very imaginative, highly skilled composer of music possessing great depth and subtlety, as well as being one of the great concert violinists of his time. For appearances in the West he adapted his name to a form that would prompt the French to pronounce it correctly: Georges Enesco.
He was given a violin and lessons at the age of four, progressing very rapidly and beginning to compose a year later. Legend has it his first teacher was a Romany fiddler. He entered the conservatory of the Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Vienna in 1888. His primary violin teacher was Joseph Hellmesberger. He took piano from Ernst Ludwig and harmony, theory, and composition from Robert Fuchs. He made his violin debut in 1889 in Slanic, Moravia. He remained in the Conservatory until 1894, regarded as a fully formed virtuoso at the age of 13. Nevertheless, he went on to the Paris Conservatory for more violin studies, and took harmony, theory, and composition from Dubois, Gédalge, Massenet, and Fauré. This mixture of late Romantic German and French training helped give his music its distinctive quality.
In 1897 the Concerts Colonne gave a concert of his works. The work he decided to designate as his first mature piece, the Poème Roumaine, Op. 1, premiered in 1898. That same year he started conducting the Romanian Philharmonic Society in Bucharest.
Enescu quickly established one of the most important solo and chamber music careers of the time. His recital partner was the great French pianist Alfred Cortot, and he formed a piano trio with Louis Fournier and Alfredo Casella in 1902, and in 1904 the Enescu Quartet. He joined the faculties of the École Normal and the American Conservatory in Paris.
In the meantime, he took an active part in building a classical concert life in his native Romania. He formed a Philharmonic Orchestra in the town of Iasi, and a Composers' Society. He wrote his most famous works, the two Romanian Rhapsodies, Op. 11, for the Philharmonic. He also worked closely with the Conservatories in Bucharest and Iasi. In 1912 he funded a "George Enescu Prize" in composition, and played the world premieres of the winning works.
He made his first appearances in the United States in 1923, as violinist and guest conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra. The brilliant young American prodigy, Yehudi Menuhin, became his most famous pupil. Others were Gitlis, Grumiaux, and Ferras. Through the 1930s he continued work as a violinist, conductor, teacher, musicologist, and organizer, while as a composer he toiled on his powerful opera Oedipus.
When World War II broke out, he happened to be at his country estate in Romania and was more or less stuck there for the duration. After the war ended, he went to New York, where he watched a Soviet-backed government take over his country. He remained in New York, increasingly incapacitated by arthritis. He gave a farewell concert with Menuhin in 1950, then returned to Paris. He suffered a stroke in 1954. As a result of it, he spent ten months almost entirely paralyzed. ~ Joseph Stevenson, Rovi
Many of Enescu's works were influenced by Romanian folk music, his most popular compositions being the two Romanian Rhapsodies (1901–2), the opera Œdipe (1936), and the suites for orchestra.[citation needed] He also wrote five symphonies (two of them unfinished), a symphonic poemVox maris, and much chamber music (three sonatas for violin and piano, two for cello and piano, a piano trio, two string quartets and two piano quartets, a wind decet (French, "dixtuor"), an octet for strings, a piano quintet, and a chamber symphony for twelve solo instruments). A young Ravi Shankar recalled in the 1960s how Enescu, who had developed a deep interest in Oriental music, rehearsed with Shankar's brother Uday Shankar and his musicians. Around the same time, Enescu took the young Yehudi Menuhin to the Colonial Exhibition in Paris, where he introduced him to the Gamelan Orchestra from Indonesia.[2]
George Enescu Museum (Cantacuzino Palace), Bucharest
On 8 January 1923 he made his American debut as a conductor in a concert given by the Philadelphia Orchestra at Carnegie Hall in New York City, and he subsequently made frequent returns to the United States. It was in America, in the 1920s, that Enescu was first persuaded to make recordings as a violinist. He also appeared as a conductor with many American orchestras, and in 1936 he was one of the candidates considered to replace Arturo Toscanini as permanent conductor of the New York Philharmonic.[3] In 1935, he conducted the Orchestre Symphonique de Paris and Yehudi Menuhin (who had been his pupil for several years starting in 1927) in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major. He also conducted the New York Philharmonic between 1937 and 1938. In 1939 he married Maria Rosetti (known as the Princess Cantacuzino through her first husband Mihail Cantacuzino), a good friend of the future Queen Marie of Romania. While staying in Bucharest, Enescu lived in the Cantacuzino Palace on Calea Victoriei (now the George Enescu Museum, dedicated to his work).
On his death in 1955, George Enescu was interred in the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.
Today, Bucharest houses a museum in his memory; likewise, the Symphony Orchestra of Bucharest and the George Enescu Festival—founded by his friend, musical advocate, and sometime collaborator, the conductor George Georgescu[5]—are named and held in his honor. Recently, Bacau International Airport was named George Enescu International Airport.
Piano Suite No. 1 in G minor, Dans le style ancien Op. 3 (1897)
Piano Suite No. 2 in D major, Op. 10 (1901/1903)
Piano Suite No. 3, Pieces impromptues Op. 18 (1913–16)
Piano Sonata No. 1 in F♯ minor, op 24, No. 1 (1924)
Piano Sonata No. 3 in D major, op 24, No. 3 (1933–35)
Songs
Three songs setting Lemaitre and Prudhomme Four songs setting Fernand Gregh In German: Various settings of Carmen Silva (Queen Elisabeth of Romania) In Romanian - 3 songs
Trois Mélodies, Op. 4 (1898)
Sept Chansons de Clement Marot, for tenor and piano, Op. 15 (1907–08)
Axente, Colette, and Ileana Ratiu. 1998. George Enescu: Biografie documentara, tineretea si afirmarea: 1901-1920. Bucharest: Editura muzicala a U.C.M.R.
Bentoiu, Pascal. 1984. Capodopere enesciene. Bucharest: Editura muzicala a U.C.M.R.
Brediceanu, M. et al. 1997. Celebrating George Enescu: A Symposium. Washington, D.C.:[citation needed].
Gheorghiu, V. 1944. Un Muzician Genial: George Enescu[citation needed].
Cophignon, Alain. 2006. Georges Enesco. Bibliothèque des grands compositeurs. Paris: Librairie Arthème Fayard. ISBN 978-2213623214
Cosma, Viorel. 2000. George Enescu: A Tragic Life in Pictures. Bucharest: The Romanian Cultural Foundation Publishing House.
Malcolm, Noel. 1990. George Enescu: His Life and Music, with a preface by Sir Yehudi Menuhin. London: Toccata Press. ISBN 0907689329 (cloth); ISBN 0907689337 (pbk)
Malcolm, Noel. 2001. "Enescu, George." The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, second edition, edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan Publishers.
Slonimsky, Nicolas (ed.). 2001. "Georges Enesco." Baker's Biographical Dictionary of Musicians. Centennial Edition. New York: Schirmer Books.
Voicana, Mircea, Clemansa Firca, Alfred Hoffman, Elena Zottoviceanu, in collaboration with Myriam Marbe, Stefan Niculescu, and Adrian Ratiu. 1971. George Enescu: Monografie. 2 vols. Bucharest: Editura Academiei Republicii Socialiste România.
Voicana, Mircea (ed.) 1976. Enesciana, I.[citation needed]. (in Fr., Ger., and Eng.)
External links
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