Enescu: The Three Piano Suites

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With this disc of the rarely heard piano suites of George Enescu, Luiza Borac easily revitalizes interest in the composer and his music. Enescu's piano music is some of his least known (not that his orchestral music is that well-known either), so it's probably safe to say that almost anyone listening to the disc will be hearing it for the first time. And he or she should be very well pleased with it, especially if they are fans of late-Romantic/early Modern French music. The first suite, "Dans le style ancien," was completed in 1897, when Enescu was just a teenager. He had studied in Vienna and then went to Paris to enroll at the Conservatory. The "style ancien" is Baroque, particularly German Baroque, with its Fugue often compared to the music of Bach and Buxtehude in its construction. According to Borac's notes, Enescu was meticulous about his dynamic and pedal markings, and he put only one pedal mark in the entire first suite. Borac does use the pedal, but it sounds as if her intent is to imitate an organ rather than make the suite more Romantic sounding. In the Fugue, she does use the slightly detached touch that many pianists use when playing Bach. The Suite No. 2 and Suite No. 3, which is really a collection of impromptus rather than a suite, share their harmonies and almost improvisational sense of structure with the music of Fauré, Debussy, and Ravel. The Baroque dance titles of No. 2's movements give away only the tempo; they are otherwise joyous flights of fancy or sweet, nocturnal imaginings. The impromptus are more like what their titles represent -- the "Choral" is very reverent and the "Carillon nocturne" imitates slightly out of tune tower bells -- but are still highly stylized. "Voix de la steppe" imitates the drone of folk instruments, and the "Mazurk mélancolique" has the dance's rhythmic characteristics but none of its liveliness. Borac is very respectful of Enescu's writing, carefully following his instructions to create definite sounds, but more than that, she is able to bring out deep colors and evoke feelings and pictures in the music with some imagination. The sound is slightly dry, but close and not overly resonant.
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