Bacewicz, Enescu, Ysaÿe: Music for Strings

Album review

If you’ve already enjoyed John Wilson and the Sinfonia of London’s three previous albums of music for string orchestra – two of English repertoire, one of French – then you’ll know to be very excited about this latest addition to the series, and the good news is that its multi-national delve into the Franco-Belgian school of string pedagogy doesn’t disappoint.
Showcasing three works by three composers who were also virtuoso violinists, the programme opens with the monumental Octet written by Paris and Vienna-trained Romanian George Enescu (1881-1955) in 1900, the year after he graduated from the Paris Conservatoire. Enescu’s Paris training had included rigorous counterpoint studies, his teacher André Gédalge reportedly making him write a different fugue on the same melody every week for a whole year. The Octet sees him take his resultant loving mastery of contrapuntal style and marry it with his virtuoso string technique; and its bold, finesse-filled writing is of such a complexity that, chamber work or not, he sometimes conducted performances of it, to ensure it stayed on the rails. For it to be performed by a full string orchestra, as it is here, was an approach Enescu sanctioned himself in 1950, on the proviso that ‘certain singing (i.e. highly melodic) parts be entrusted to soloists’ – the selection of which, interestingly, he left up to the discretion of the conductor. The joy of Wilson and the Sinfonia of London here is the unhampered freedom with which the Sinfonia sings as a tutti unit – particularly freewheelingly so over the Très fougueux second section –, all wrapped up in shimmering vibrato sheen, sharp clean swish of attack, and colour-filled rendering of the many textures and timbres. This is true group virtuosity, into which Wilson can then dot solo lines sparingly, like precious little gifts rather than melodic necessities. Beyond the magic of those moments, when they come, there’s also the sudden cloaked-toned, hymn-like peace to be enjoyed at the outset of the Lentement, and the sheer swinging, sonorous power and enveloping warmth of the final waltz, its dynamic swells and troughs coming like waves, before the exhilarating build-up to the final flourish.
Next up is Harmonies du soir (Evening Harmonies) by Enescu’s Belgian senior and champion, Eugène Ysaÿe (1858-1931). Penned in 1924, this takes inspiration from Vaughan Williams’s Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis to pit a string quartet against a string orchestra, and its rich textures and headily perfumed, scrunch-filled harmonies feel very much like a Franco-Belgian take on its English muse. Not performed in public until 1979, it didn’t receive its first recording until 2012, from the Fine Arts Quartet with the Philharmonic Orchestra of Europe and Otis Klöber. There have only been two further ones between that and this, all starring a permanent quartet. By contrast, Wilson has formed his quartet from orchestra members, and the results make an eloquent case for doing so, everyone is so very on the same performance page – further set off by capturing that doesn’t place the quartet too obviously out in front.
Then finally, the zinging, neo-classical drama of the Concerto for String Orchestra by Polish-Lithuanian Grazyna Bacewicz (1909-1969). Composed in 1948, premiered in 1950, and awarded a State Prize in the same year, this contrapuntal masterpiece at one point divides into 17 parts, and is read here with all the lucid-textured luminosity and dramatic tension you could wish for, its many ear-pricking moments including the ravishing central Andante’s subtle tutti portamenti (slides) and ardent solos. In short, Wilson and the Sinfonia of London have gone and done it again. © Charlotte Gardner/Qobuz