# SS 26.12.20 - Enescu #1



## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

A continuation of the Saturday Symphonies Tradition:

Welcome to another weekend of symphonic listening!

For your listening pleasure this weekend:*

George Enescu (1881 - 1955)*

Symphony #1 in E flat major, Op. 13
1. Assez vif et rythme
2. Lent
3. Vif et vigoureux

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Post what recording you are going to listen to giving details of Orchestra / Conductor / Chorus / Soloists etc - Enjoy!


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

Another weekend is upon us and another Symphony is up for your listening enjoyment. Thanks to Mika for posting in my absence last weekend.

This weekend we see the return of Romanian composer George Enescu and his First Symphony. I'm not super familiar with Enescu so I'm looking forward to checking it out. I hope everyone can give this one a spin.

I'll be listening to this one:




Horia Andreescu/Romanian National Radio Orchestra


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

I shall stream this version


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## Mika (Jul 24, 2009)

From my collection


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## cougarjuno (Jul 1, 2012)

I have a couple of versions but I'll go with the BBC Philharmonic and Rozhdestvensky


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I'll spin this one later


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

This one via Spotify.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

An enjoyable and pleasant symphony this week, very much in the romantic tradition and I guess could have been considered old fashioned when it was written early in the 20th Century 
Nothing very new or earth shattering to report but a good listen and another rewarding Saturday Symphony
The recording and playing (which I streamed) seemed pretty good too


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## Kiki (Aug 15, 2018)

Listened to Rozhdestvensky and the BBCPO on Spotify. A pleasant symphony, full of beautiful but unfortunately forgettable melodies. To be fair, there are some interesting, unsettling moments as well as some heroic movements, mostly in the middle of the first movement and a bit in the outer parts of the second movement. Other than that, it is rather, pleasant. Certainly not horrible, just pleasant.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

I listened to Foster on EMI. A well crafted work, not an earth shatterer* admittedly, but Enescu is an interesting enough composer to deserve a listen. I do have to be honest and say that I feel his greatest music lies in other forms than the Symphonies though.... Oedipus, for example.

* Sorry, Haydn Man, stole your phrase sub-consciously there!


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## brucknerian1874 (Oct 21, 2020)

This one for me.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Listening to this one...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Young George Enescu leaves us a half-hour symphony in three movements – fast, slow, and then fast again. This is music by a composer of undoubted technical ability and (I read) a thorough grounding in German and French music as taught by the leading authorities of his age. I think that, in this symphony at least, Enescu couldn’t quite figure out what style he wanted to emulate – and there was little to inspire him in the Romanian tradition of serious music, since his own country had been until the beginning of the century part of the Ottoman empire.

So Enescu seems to lack a distinct style, or at least a striking one, and supplies none of his own so far as I can tell. Further, his own melodies and musical ideas are not particularly distinctive or memorable (as pointed out above), leading to a kind of fuzzy vagueness overlying the whole musical enterprise. Not unpleasant stuff, for sure, but there’s little here to call for repeating hearings or further exploration of Enescu’s life’s work.

Maybe it’s not surprising that Enescu’s greatest public triumph was later inspired by the music of his own land – not its classical tradition but, like Bartok after him, folk music of the gypsies and villages.


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