Enescu: Symphony No. 4; Chamber Symphony; Nuages d’Automne

NDR Radiophilharmonie Hannover, Ruzicka, Peter

CPO 777966

FonoForum acclaimed our first Enescu CD as its »Recommendation of the Month«: »A better and stylistically more faithful interpretation could hardly be imagined. The Enescu recording with the German Radio Philharmonic and Peter Ruzicka is a genuine discovery.« The present recording, like the Symphony No. 5 in D major (cpo 777 823-2), is a world-premiere release conducted by Ruzicka. It emphatically underscores Enescu’s rank as a great symphonist of the twentieth century. Nothing more in his late symphonies appears to us to be Rumanian. And yet this idiom is present in a subtle manner. In many instances he employs the old church mode scales, the scales based on the Byzantine tradition, and combines them with the familiar keys of the major-minor system. Intervals such as the second, fourth, and seventh, demonized by classical harmonic doctrine but loved by Rumanian folk musicians, are frequently encountered in his music. Much later, in Paris, Enescu composed his Chamber Symphony op. 33 for twelve solo instruments, his last work. The composer was in poor health, and it in every way has the character of his last will and testament. The instrumentation has been thinned out, the musical material has been submitted to an absolute standardization, and the four movements vaguely correspond to the formal parts of the classical sonata movement, occurring in succession more or less in the manner of an exposition, a development section, a recapitulation, and a coda. The lament of the trumpet heard in the third movement, which was initially entitled »Adagio funebre,« impressively depicts Enescu’s bitter summation of his life.

CD x 1

CPO

12/08/2015

761203796625

Gramophone: 'Holiday Critic’s Choice' (2015)
MusicWeb International: 'Nominee for Recording of the Year' (2015)