Proceedings of the George Enescu International Musicology Symposium 2017

Proceedings of the “George Enescu” International Musicology Symposium Bucharest, Romania, September 3-4, 2017

“George Enescu” International Festival Bucharest, Romania, 23rd Edition, September 2-24, 2017

Proceedings of the “George Enescu” International Musicology Symposium Bucharest, Romania, September 3-4, 2017

“George Enescu, from knowledge to recognition” Edited by: Prof. dr. Mihai Cosma

Organizer: Romanian Composers and Musicologists Society Partners: Romanian Academy National University of Music Bucharest Romanian Broadcasting Society Producer: The Romanian Government The Romanian Ministry of Culture and National Heritage

by ARTEXIM

Editura Muzicală Bucharest, 2017

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Cornel Țăranu

Section 2. Analytical studies

Section 1. Cultural synthesis.

At the Crossroads: Covent Garden’s Oedipe and the Growing International Recognition of Enescu’s Opera

ABSTRACT. Though it took 80 years for Oedipe to reach the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden, the arrival there on 23 May 2016 of Enescu’s opera was one of the theatre’s most undisputed recent artistic successes. The opera’s neglect in Britain (there had only been one previous concert performance, at the 2002 Edinburgh International Festival), though, needs to be seen in the context of its slow international progress generally, a topic that can be understood only in terms of the composer’s more general worldwide reputation and misunderstandings that grew out of his phenomenal achievements as a performer during his lifetime. Enescu’s relationships with Britain meant that audiences there have constantly been open to his music, even if they did not always know how to categorize it. A possibly analogous case is that of Karol Szymanowski, whose King Roger was not heard at Covent Garden until 2015. The reviews of Oedipe and the production by La Fura dels Baus were overwhelmingly positive, and an excited reception by the wider public indicates the Oedipe’s time may finally have arrived internationally.

Submitted : June 15, 2017 Admitted : June 30, 2017

KEYWORDS : COVENT GARDEN, LA FURA DELS BAUS, HUSSAIN, REUTER. THIS first British staging, on 23 May 2016, of Enescu’s only opera was by any standards a great night for the Royal Opera House, and felt like not just the highlight of its 2016-17 season but the most important event there in some time. This is a house and an audience sometimes criticized for its taste in ‘culinary opera’, but here on this occasion it was good to sense how absorbed the whole theatre was in the performance, with the vast majority present discovering for the first time Enescu’s transcendent masterpiece a full 80 years after its premiere in Paris.

Yet this very success also begs the question of why it took so long for Oedipe to reach Covent Garden. All opera houses have had their blind spots and omissions, yet despite the country having already heard Enescu’s opera in concert (at the 2002 Edinburgh International Festival) this was a fairly major omission. Operas of the 1920s and 1930s—it is of course hard to pin an exact date on Oedipe given its long gestation, unless one opts for the year of its premiere, 1936—have in many cases struggled to find a central place in the repertoire, but any list of operas roughly contemporaneous with Oedipe must include such wide-ranging works as Korngold’s Die tote Stadt, Prokofiev’s Love for Three Oranges, Zemlinky’s Der Zwerg, Roussel’s Padmavati, Strauss’s Intermezzo and Die Aegyptische Helena and Arabella, Berg’s Wozzeck, Janáček’s Katya Kabanova, The Cunning Little Vixen and The Makropoulos Case, Ravel’s L’Enfant et les sortlièges, Busoni’s Doktor Faust, Puccini’s Turandot, Szymanowski’s King Roger, Kodály’s Háry János, Hindemith’s Cardillac, Krenek’s Jonny spielt auf, Weill’s Die Dreigroschenoper, Weinberger’s Schwanda the Bagpiper, Shostakovich’s Lady Macbeth of Mtsensk, Respighi’s La Fiamma, Gershwin’s Porgy and Bess, Virgil Thomson’s Four Saints in Three Acts, Alfano’s Cyrano de Bergerac—the list could go on, but we should not in this context forget Leoncavallo’s Edipo Re and Stravinsky’s Oedipus Rex. Coincidentally, it was almost exactly a year before Covent Garden staged Oedipe that it finally got around to performing Szymanowski’s operatic masterpiece for the first time, a work (composed in 1920-24 and premiered in 1926) full of parallels and one that also took a long time to win international appreciation but which is no longer quite the rarity that Oedipe remains. (This is despite the potential stumbling block for international casts of King Roger’s Polish libretto; Oedipe’s text by Edmond Fleg, in French, presents no obstacles to international progress.)

A more likely obstacle to Oedipe’s progress both in Britain and the wider world is that, with the notable exception of Lawrence Foster, Enescu has so far lacked an international champion. The present concert performances of Oedipe in Bucharest and London suggest that in Vladimir Jurowski— who has already conducted some of the composer’s orchestral works with the London Philharmonic— another such champion has emerged. (In Szymanowski’s possibly analogous case, it helped when Simon Rattle took up his cause and performed and recorded so much of his music.) Without such high-profile proselytizers, audiences—even well-informed music-lovers—sometimes find it difficult to ‘place’ a composer such as Enescu, whose abundance of talent worked in some ways against him. Already during his lifetime, the international perception of Enescu had been skewed, and he himself famously regretted, of course, that his best-known compositions were the early ‘nationalist’ scores; he also recognized that his success as a violinist not only restricted the amount of time he could devote to writing music but had actually overshadowed his achievements as a composer. His recordings stand testimony to his violin playing, but his accomplishments on other instruments (his pianism was envied by Alfred Cortot no less) and in other fields add up to a picture of a figure who was paradoxically perhaps just too talented. No one knew how to categorize him.

Although it took until 2016 for Oedipe to be staged in Britain, Enescu’s engagement with British audiences can be traced back well over a century before that, to his first concert tour of England in 1903. He returned to Britain during the early years of the century, and his works were quite widely played by orchestras in England (as in many other countries) during the years leading up to World War I. Enescu’s connections with English music extended to coaching Menuhin in the Elgar Violin Concerto around the time of the young violinist’s famous recording of the work, and then indeed coaching the Orchestre de Paris ahead of the French premiere in 1933, with Menuhin as soloist and which Elgar came to conduct (Enescu conducted the rest of the programme). Forced to remain in Romania between 1940 and 1946, Enescu resumed his tours of England from 1947, when he conducted the London Philharmonic, and he returned to England each year until 1953, not only for his summer courses at Bryanston (1949-52) but to conduct several different orchestras, sometimes in his own works. By this time his health dictated that his concert-giving took the form of conducting rather than playing, and on his last visit to England the already ailing composer suffered a stroke in his hotel room one evening.

Oedipe’s neglect by British companies ought, at least, to be put briefly in the context of its wider performance history, which might usefully be summarized here. After the opera’s premiere at the Paris Opéra on 13 March 1936, with André Pernet in the title role, it fell silent for almost two decades until a concert performance was broadcast live on French Radio in May 1955, just two weeks after the composer’s death. Brussels revived it on stage the following year, and in 1958 it was at last taken home to Bucharest to earn a permanent place in the repertoire there. The first German production took place at Saarbrücken in 1971, and it was staged by the Teatr Wielki in Warsaw in 1978 and reached the Lausanne Festival in 1981. Although the first official recording was made in 1964 under the baton of Mihai Brediceanu, it was Lawrence Foster’s starrily-cast 1989 recording (with José van Dam in the title role) that finally helped to stimulate wider interest, and a major turning point was Götz Friedrich’s production at the Deutsche Oper Berlin in 1996, also seen a year later at the Vienna Staatsoper. The 2002 Edinburgh Festival concert performance (conducted by Christian Mandeal) has already been mentioned above. The first North American performance was given by the University of Indiana at Urbana-Champaign in 2005; Buenos Aires first saw it in 2012 in the Fura dels Baus staging that originated in Brussels in 2011 and came to Covent Garden in May 2016.

Before getting to my own impressions of that Covent Garden performance, its worth noting that the press reaction here showed rare unanimity. Around 30 reviews are listed on the website www.theoperacritic.com, most of them are highly favourable. Under a Guardian headline, ‘Spellbinding staging of a 20th-century masterpiece’, Andrew Clements wrote that: ‘As the Royal Opera’s superb production demonstrates, the score that was Enescu’s central achievement as a composer, on which he worked for two decades, is truly one of the great operas of the 20th century, and the fact that it has only been heard in Britain once before—in a concert at the 2002 Edinburgh Festival—is hard to understand.’

Writing in the Evening Standard, Barry Millington said, ‘Enescu’s operatic masterpiece Oedipe is known by most, if at all, only from hearsay, but this new production … brings it thrillingly to life.’ A few raised question marks about the work (though not the performance), for example Fiona Maddocks in the Observer, who said that ‘Enescu struggled with the score for some two decades. It had the feel of a ripe fruit grown too large’. There was only one real dissenter, George Hall in The Stage. He was critical of both the score (‘Unfortunately there are few memorable ideas—the score has a tendency to meander endlessly without ever really getting to the point’) and the staging (‘The problem is that many of these images have long been clichés of contemporary opera staging, their impact diminished through overrepetition. The result is a gloomy spectacle.’).

The Covent Garden production marked not only Enescu’s debut but also that of La Fura dels Baus, a fortuitous introduction for the Catalan directorial collective since by no means all its stagings to

date have been as successful. Here, however, the production team found a remarkable way of invoking the opera’s fascinatingly rich cultural contexts. At once monumental and intimate, the staging by Àlex Ollé and Valentina Carrasco found the ritualized dimension of a piece that is sometimes more oratoriolike than traditionally operatic—interestingly, Stravinsky labelled his utterly different Oedipus Rex an ‘opera-oratorio’—and captured fully the journey of the title character from birth to death, and its overwhelming sense of destiny. This Oedipe was both timeless and of now, connecting the two—which is, after all, surely the point of myth.

In the sets of Alfons Flores, Oedipe’s journey took him and us through a history of western civilization. In the opening image, also the production’s greatest coup de théâtre and one on an audacious scale, what appeared to be scenes carved on an ancient fresco or terracotta iconostasis came to life before the audience’s startled eyes as all the principals and expanded chorus began to sing. Lluc Castells’s costumes here suggested Ancient Greece, and the dimly-lit scene (some of Peter van Praet’s other lighting schemes were perhaps a little low in the wattage department) suited the static first act well, the red mud also suggesting ecological disaster. By Act 2 we were clearly in the composer’s own time, with a white-coated Mérope interviewing Oedipe on Freud’s couch, and the Sphinx portrayed as a wild woman pilot whose wings were those of her Stuka dive-bomber, its propeller even evoking the pattern of the crossroads. For the Catalan production team, this warplane with its Spanish Civil War resonance became an obvious symbol of the devastating plague visited on Thebes. In turn, Créon’s uniform suggested yet another 20th-century military coup, but for the final and moving scene of Oedipe’s merging with the elements we were back in a more timeless space that drew together many of the production’s images. Any reservations about this production—the portrayal of Oedipe at the crossroads as a drunk was perhaps an easy cliché, and the lack of room, visually, for the music’s pastoral colours was regrettable—were minor compared to its clear strengths.

Oedipe is a long and taxing role, and Johan Reuter was fully up to this character’s journey through the entire opera, giving a performance that projected the mythical figure as a victim of fate as well as an Everyman blundering his way through history. The part calls for Wagnerian stamina, and that is what was provided here by this fine Danish artist, through all his trials to the peace he eventually finds at Colonnus, where he sang with great tenderness in the scene with his daughter Antigone. Throughout the evening Reuter exuded bass-baritonal warmth, and showed that—at least for a singer in full command of his instrument—this is an eminently singable role.

In contrast, most of the other roles are short and need to make their impact with immediacy.

Covent Garden’s casting was meticulous. In the opening scene, the small parts of the Shepherd (Alan Oke) and Theban Woman (Lauren Fagan) were well sung, and Nicolas Courjal’s Theban High Priest registered authoritatively. Samuel Youn’s Créon was vengeful yet never villainous. Hubert Francis and Sarah Connolly were Laïos and Jocaste, and the mezzo sang with formidable focus to evoke the queen’s suffering; despite Enescu supplying Jocaste with some sensuous music, Connolly kept a lid on that sensuality and was detached and dignified as the mother-wife. John Tomlinson’s Tirésias seemed like a figure out of Ancient Greek theatre, projecting a voice of doom and compelling presence; another bass role, Phorbas, was sung with dignity by In Sung Sim. Claudia Huckle’s interesting performance as a psychoanalyst Mérope was one of the vocal highlights, musically rich and warm. As the Sphinx, Marie-Nicole Lemieux plumbed the depths of the role with her remarkable lower register, rising to a fearful howl. Sophie Bevan sang radiantly as Antigone and was all the more affecting for being a rare figure of hope here. Stefan Kocan was commanding in his cameo as the Watchman and Samuel Dale Johnson’s patrician Thésée had lyrical firmness.

This also marked the welcome Royal Opera House debut of the conductor Leo Hussain, who has made Enescu’s opera something of a specialty. After Oedipe himself, there are two other main protagonists, the chorus and orchestra; working with an orchestra on top form and a chorus (trained by Genevieve Ellis) that sang with sonorous unanimity, Hussain wove everything together and held the score’s complexity and clarity in perfect balance. Enescu’s masterpiece is an Expressionist tragédie lyrique in the post-Wagnerian tradition yet utterly its own work—the composer’s love of Romanian folk music lends the score its unique colouring and helped him to find a path that was new yet not dodecaphonic—and Hussain recognized all that in his surely paced performance. It was a pity the wonderful Act 1ballet music was cut (not the conductor’s fault, probably rather a necessity of the production’s remarkable opening tableau, which would not have accommodated dancing). For the Royal Opera House’s now-departed director of opera Kasper Holten, whose own production of Szymanowski’s King Roger had similarly filled a major gap in Covent Garden’s repertoire a year earlier, the introduction of these neglected interwar masterpieces will surely be his true legacy in the house.

Few who encountered this fascinating masterpiece at Covent Garden will not have felt that, as Harry Halbreich put it, in Oedipe ‘the 2,000-year-old myth comes to life in all its quivering humanity, its grandiose horror, and its overwhelming emotional force’.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Allison, John. Oedipus complex. London, Opera, Vol. 67 No. 5 (pp. 568-573), 2016

Clements, Andrew. Review of Oedipe. London, The Guardian, 25 May 2016 Hall, George. Review of Oedipe. London, The Stage, 24 May 2016 Loppert, Max. Review of Oedipe. London, Opera Vol. 42 No. 4 (pp. 474-5), 1991 Maddocks, Fiona. Review of Oedipe. London, The Observer, 29 May 2016 Malcolm, Noel. George Enescu: His Life and Music. London, Toccata Press, 1990 Millington, Barry. Review of Oedipe. London, Evening Standard, 26 May 2016 Samson, Jim. Music in the Balkans. Leiden and Boston, Brill, 2013

Aphorismen von Enescu über die künstlerische Interpretation in Musik

ABSTRAKT: Enescu schrieb: „Es ist kein Sakrileg, wenn du dich mit dem Schöpfer einer Meisterwerkes verwechselst. Ganz im Gegenteil, es ist eine fruchtbare Illusion, die dir erlaubt, dass du dich mit dem Zauberer, dessen Werk du demütig interpretierst, identisch findest.“ Der Ausgangspunkt seiner aphoristischen Reflexionen über die Interpretation in Musik lässt sich als Neusetzung oder Umschreibung der hegelischen Thesen über Interpretation definieren.

Hegel meint, dass wenn der musikalische Interpret das Musikwerk interpretiert, durch seine Repräsentation, "macht aus sich selbst ein lebendiges Kunstwerk". Enescu untersucht den Prozess der musikalischen Interpretation im Zeichen dieser (Wieder)Belebung der Intentionen des Künstlers. Seine Kunstlehre über die authentische Interpretation eines Musikwerkes konkretisiert sich in allen Parametern der Formen und in der Kunstmittel. Als typische Bilder der Interpretationsweise von Enescu sind hier - unter anderen - die Aphorismen von Enescu über das Spieltempo und über die Art und Weise der Vorbereitung und der Ausarbeitung des eigenen Repertoires analysiert: 'Das Wichtigste ist - behauptete der Meister -, dass die Interpretation lebendiger, plastischer bleibt, und ist nicht unverändert, denn das würde zur Mechanisierung leiten. ' Die Vorstellung folgt eine diskursive und eine diakronische Streife, die die historisch-stilistische Stadien von Barock bis zur Gegenwart vorstellt. Diese dienen als interpretatorischer Grund des reichen musikalischen (Geige, Klavier, Dirigent) Repertoires von Enescu.

Eingereicht : May 27, 2017 Angenommen: June 27, 2017

SCHLÜSSELWÖRTER: APHORISMEN, INTERPRETATION, NEUSETZUNG, UMSCHREIBUNG, REPERTOIRE, TEMPO, BAROCK, KLASSIK, ROMANTIK, MODERNE SCHÖNBERG behauptete, daß man die Melodie mit einem Aphorismus verwechseln kann: von der Problemstellung ist er sehr schnell zu ihrer Lösung geraten (Schönberg, 1967). Unsere Meinung ist, daß dieser Vergleich umkehrbar ist: Ein Aphorismus über Musik ist ebenso ein winziges und kohärentes ideatisches Produkt, dessen Helligkeit über angespielte Theorien sich strecken kann.

George Enescu bietet eine breite Stelle der Ausarbeitung seiner aphoristischen Gedanken über die Erklärung der praktisch-künstlerischen Problematik der musikalischen Vorstellung im Kontext der algorithmischen Triade Schöpfung – Vorstellung - Rezeption. Seine Ideen widerspiegeln redselig seine tiefe Teilnahme an der künstlerischen Wiederkomposition, Wiederleben und Wiedergeben der ästhetischen Botschaft der auserwählten Meisterwerke – er identifiziert sich mit dem Künstler des vorstellenden Werkes. (Gavoty, 1982)(Niculescu, 1980) (Pann, 1845) (Sava, Teritorii muzicale românești, 1980) (Rădulescu, 1980) (Gherea, 1968)(Sava, 1984) „Enescu schrieb: Es ist kein Sakrileg, wenn du dich mit dem Schöpfer eines Meisterwerkes verwechselst. Ganz im Gegenteil, es ist eine fruchtbare Illusion, die dir erlaubt, daß du dich mit dem Zauberer, dessen Werk du demütig interprätierst, identisch findest" (Sava, Teritorii muzicale românești, 1980, p. 41) 1 Die Beobachtungen von Enescu lassen sich durch konfessionsartigen und auch intruktiven Nuancen beschreiben. Seine Erinnerungen deuten nicht nur an wichtigsten historischen Stilrichtungen und an kreativen Haltungen deren Vertreter, sondern auch an den Paradigmen der Geige- und Kammermusik, an das instrumentalen und vokal-instrumentalen Großorchester.

Welche sind die operativ-erreichten analytischen Parameter, die von Enescu in der aphoristischen Untersuchung des Stils oder der Ausdrucksmittel und vor allem in dem möglichst tiefen Verständnis der übertragenen Botschaft des interpretierten Stückes gebraucht sind? Hier einige davon: das Tempo, die Klangfarbe, die Dynamik, die genuine Charakterologie der Komposition, des persönlichen stilistischen Abdruckes des betroffenen Komponisten. Und noch viele mehr.

Der erste Textabschnitt der Aphorismen wäre von der historisch-stilistischen Dimension des Barocks, vor allem der Meisterwerke von Bach, repräsentiert. „Seit einem halben Jahrhundert ist Bach mein tägliches Brot – sagte Enescu Bernard Gavoty." (Sava, Iubiți muzica secolului 20, 1984, p. 92) Enescu näherte sich an Bach im Hellmersbergers Haus in Wien und danach versucht er sein ganzes Leben die einzigartige Kraft der Denkweise von Bach zu verstehen. „Um die geeigneten Akzente zu setzen, bekämpft die Geschwindigkeit.

Präludium von Bach, das ohne Akzente gespielt wird, ist wie fließendes Wasser vom Wasserhahn. Unter diesen Umständen stimme ich mit der Meinung der Profanen zu, dass die Musik von Bach ausdruckslos und langweilig ist.” (Gavoty, 1982, p. 70) Die minutiöse Weise seiner Beschäftigung mit dem analysierten Meisterwerk ist auch dadurch erkennbar, wie er den jungen Geigenvirtuosen das Studium des Chaconna von Bach empfehlt: „Als ich die Musik von Bach spielte oder dirigierte, erzielte ich vor allem ein klares und logisches Debet – sagte Enescu -. Selbstverständlich war in meiner Periode von Zögern nicht alles bestätigt; aber ich habe eine Grundregel; wenn man bezweifelt ist, soll man komplexeren Musiknoten verweisen. In diesen integriert sich die musikalische Linie in Kontrapunkte. Man wird von den Kontrapunktierungen geleitet. Meiner jüngeren Kameraden, die Chaconna spielen, empfehle ich oft: seid ihr verirrt? Fühlt ihr, daß ihr euch erstickt?...

Schreibt den Text der verschiedenen Stimmen auf vier Notenlinien; überwacht die Klangfarben der Stimmen; denkt, daß ihr letztendlich einen Sopran 1 und 2 und eine Altstimme 1 und 2 habt... dann klärt sich alles...”

(Sava, Iubiți muzica secolului 20, 1984, p. 92) Die Musik von Bach war Teil seines Repertoires, das er vielmals in Kleinstädten vor Zuhörer, die wenig über die Schönheit der Barockmusik wußten, spielte. So erscheint seine Sentenz „für die musikalische Gesundheit des Publikums.” Hiermit zitieren wir das vielmals wiederholte Gespräch unter ihm und seinem Impresario, Cohen: -„Meister, wozu dient Bach in deinem Programm? Erklär es mir auch. Ich garantiere, dass von hundert Personen niemand wird es mögen. Aber wenn Sie die Humoreske oder einige Stücke von Kreisler so spielen würden wie Sie sie spielen können, würden Sie alle verzaubern.

- Enescu: tut mir Leid, dass ich Sie langweile, kann nichts dagegen tun. Auch sie sollen Bach als Arzneimittel berücksichtigen. Sie wird ihrer musikalischen Gesundheit gut tun. ”(Gherea, 1968, p. 57) Ebenso umfangreiche sind seine Anmerkungen über die Werke des Klassizismus, vor allem über die Meisterwerke von Beethoven. Wir begegnen hier auch die Problematisierung des Tempos: Gavoty gibt zu: „Seine größte Leistung ist, dass er unsere Aufmerksamkeit auf die Geschwindigkeit, eine der unbestraften Tugenden unserer Zeit, widmet. (…)

Diese morbide Betrunkenheit beherrscht die besten Musikanten und kompromittiert ihr Talent. Ich nahm an mehreren Kursen teil und niemals hörte ich Enescu von Virtuosität zu sprechen. Niemals. Das interessierte ihn nicht. Von Anfang an konnte er in die Tiefe eines Werkes tauchen, er konnte das Wesentliche in zauberhaften Formen wiedergeben. Ich erinnere mich an einen jungen Geigenspieler aus Italien, der das Konzert von Beethoven spielte. Der Andante-Teil klingt schön, aber, weil er glänzen wollte, spielte er ein bisschen zu schnell. Enescu begleitete ihn mit dem geschlossenen Mund um die Klangfarben des Orchesters nachzuahmen. Und auf einmal: «Es ist sehr schön, sagte er und näherte er sich zu ihm, aber es ist nicht was es sein muss...Das Geheimnis dieser Melodie ist nicht draußen, sondern in sich selbst... such, grab, erforsche.»”. (Gavoty, 1982, p. 17) Seine Vorliebe für langsame Tempi in Musikvorstellung hatte auch semantische Gründe, denn er versuchte die Botschaft des Musikstücks in ihrem Reichtum von Ideen und Gefühle wiederzugeben.

Mein Professor, István Nagy, Chordirigent und Geigenspieler, erzählte uns seine Erinnerungen über Enescu. Als er nachfragte warum Enescu die langsamen Teile der Sonaten für Violine solo von Bach viel langsamer als üblich spielt, antwortete dieser mit seinem typischen Lächeln: „denn ich habe was zu sagen...”

Die intrinsische Tendenzen seiner immer klangfarbiger Interpretationsweise (im Fall von allen benannten Meisterwerke) – das Geheimnis der Lieder liegt in ihren Inneren, und nicht draußen – , und auch die dauernde Beschäftigung mit der plastizisierende Rolle der Klangfarbigkeit – er begleitete mit dem geschlossenen Mund um die Klangfarben des Orchesters nachzuahmen -, seine Aufmerksamkeit gegenüber die Klangfarbigkeit repräsentieren eine eigene Tugend, die auch auf dem Feld des Komponierens auch auf dem Feld der Interpretation gültig ist. Die ungleichbare sehnsüchtige Art, die in der Lyrik und Epik des melodischen Diskurses anwesend ist, besteht bei Enescu aus der Beziehung unter musikalischer Intonation und poetischer Deklamation.

Vor allem die Klangfarbe von Metaphern die Traurigkeit und Melancholie tragen. Sein Aphorismus, in dem man die Klangfarbe der Sehnsucht erkennt, ist mit dem jammernden Landmann, der wegen dem Schmerz sich klagt, verbunden: „Daß die Musik eine sehr einfache, ob nicht rudimentäre, Ausdrucksweise ist, ist eine Sache der Erfahrung. Wenn ein Landmann, ein Mann der Erde, sehr lebendige Schmerzen fühlt, spricht er niemals! Er jammert, und das ist eine Art von singen. Auch ich bin gleich, denn ich betrachte die Musik als das einzige Mittel, durch das der Ruf des Herzens, mit jeden seiner geheimnisvollen Wellen, ausgedrückt werden können...” (Niculescu, 1980, p. 160) Die klangliche komponistische Einstellung verknüpft uns mit der alten Bestimmung der Melodien von Anton Pan, el nennt diese Weinenrede. „Es ist nicht schwerer als wenn jemand alle Historiker der Welt aufstöbere um den Anfang von einem Gewerbe oder von einer anderen Sache genau erklären zu bestrebe; Genauso, viele, die über die Musik schreiben und ihre Anfänge zu erfinden und ihre Urquellen zu zeigen versuchen, verirren sich im Chaos der alten Zeiten, sodass sie die Anfänge nicht finden können.

Wir aber wissen, daß die Musik auf der Welt ist, seit die lebenden Wesen da sind. Sie ist die Stimme und das Wort, die selbst Gott in die Menschen eingeblasen hat, denn alle Stimme und alle Wörter natürliche Melodien sind, also alle, die sprechen können, sind Musik, die ihre Organe nützend und ihre Rachenhöhle und Nasenlöcher die Luft schlagend nach oben und nach unten tönen, und ihre Worte starker oder leichter, demütig und weinend ihrer Körpergefühl und Leidenschaft gemäß sich ausdrücken. ”(Pann, 1845, p. IXX) Kehren wir zurück zu den aphoristischen Kanonen über die Art und Weise der Vorstellung der Musik von Beethoven. Das unvergessliche „Enescu-Quartett”, das am Anfang der 40er Jahre tätig war, spielte wichtige Rolle in der Konzipierung und Erklärung dieser Kanonen.

Der Aphorismus „wir beginnen mit den schwereren Quartetten. Wenn wir die großen Burgen erobern, die kleinen fallen von sich selbst” (Sava, Teritorii muzicale românești, 1980, p. 39)– repräsentiert eine poetische Ars, die im Rahmen der bekannten Wiederholungen der letzten Quartette von Beethoven geboren sind. Als „Vorlaufszeit” spielten sie immer die Große Fuge Op. 133. Enescu schrieb auch über die Vorteile und die Nachteile dieser Studienweise, auch über die Möglichkeit zwischen zwei Repertoire-Varianten zu unterscheiden. Dieser Differenzierung gemäß klingt die zweite (Variante) gleich mit der früher erwähnten poetischen Ars: „Es gibt zwei Arten von Musizieren und Konzerte halten, beide haben ihre Vor- und Nachteile.

Die erste: du arbeitest mehrere oder wenigere Musikstücke und du schaffst dir ein Repertoire. Diese Stücke muss man perfekt studieren und alle Einzelheiten in einer stabilen Art und Weise nach reifen und langen Überlegungen endgültig bestimmen. Es scheine dir närrisch auch die winzigste Einzelheit der Vorstellung im letzten Moment oder während des Konzertes zu verändern. Du hast – deiner Meinung nach und deiner Möglichkeiten gemäß - die perfekte Form der Vorstellung gegeben... und Schluss damit.

Die zweite Umgehens weise ist, unter anderen, auch von mir geübt. die technische Mustergültigkeit betreffend habe ich einige Konzessionen gemacht Als Gegenzug aber habe ich ein so großes Repertoire, daß dieser Name nicht mehr passend ist. Nur so konnte ich in einem einzelnen Winter in Bukarest so ungefähr 60 Sonatas in einer Konzertreihe. Aber die Weite und Breite des Repertoires ist nur der sekundäre Vorteil meines Systems. Der Hauptvorteil ist, daß die Vorstellung viel lebendiger, plastischer, ohne endgültige Petrifikation, die leicht zu Mechanisierung führt, bleibt.” (Gherea, 1968, p. 53-54) Die Meinung von Enescu über die „musterhafte” Spielweise wird in folgender bedeutungsvoller Aufwertung abgeklärt „Ich habe ihn nach seiner Meinung über Yasha Heifetz gefragt: „Ja, er ist wunderbar... ein berühmter Geigenvirtuose! Aber er macht keinen Fehler. Das ist kein gutes Zeichen!”

(Gherea, 1968, p. 54) [Eine kurze Zwischenbemerkung von meiner Erfahrung als Lehrer. Als die prächtige VinylSchallplatte mit dem Konzert für Violine und Orchester von Beethoven, das von Yehudi Menuhin mit der Leitung von Constantin Silvestri gespielt wurde, erschien, erzählten mir an einem Seminar meine ehrgeizige harmlose Studenten, daß sie die Schallplatte kontrollierten und mehr als hundert Fehler in der

Vorstellung (im Vergleich zum originellen Text) fanden. Ja, antwortete ich ihnen, vielleicht, wenn ihr noch aufmerksamer die Vorstellung untersucht, findet ihr noch mehrere, und – an Enescus Aphorismus deutend – beschließ ich folgenderweise: vergisst aber nicht, daß die winzigen Fehler ergeben „einen multiplizierten” Fehler, der typisch für die lebendigen, also seltsamen Vorstellungen ist, die das ästhetische Vergnügen durch das unendliche Unerwartete in der Vorstellung paradoxal steigern.]

In den aphoristischen Schriften von Enescu sind beide Epochen, also die romantische und die postromantische, ebenso reich repräsentiert. Seine Liebe gegenüber der Musik von Wagner und Brahms, von Fauré und Dukas, von Chausson und Franck widerspiegeln sich in den langen Seiten seiner Konfessionen.

Hier steht aber ein Foto: Enescu Poeme von Chausson spielend. Ein Foto mit der Kraft der polysemantischen aphoristischen Reflexionen über die musikalische Vorstellung.

Gavoty ladet uns an die Verkostung des Bildes ein: „Ist es noch notwendig, daß wir den Geigenvirtuosen George Enescu beschreiben und die seltsame Schönheit seiner Interpretationen hervorrufen Ich glaube, es ist genug, wenn wir dem Leser vorschlagen, eine kurze Meditation vor dem Porträt zu machen. Scheint es nicht als ob eine Reproduktion aus Bronze wäre, mit ihren grünlichen Reflexe, mit metallartigem Glanz und mit dem geschlossenen Augen, die der Statuen spezifisch ist. Aber nein, das ist das lebendige Bildnis von einem Mensch, der sich über seine Geige beugt. Ein Fotograf aus Amerika erwischte Enescu als er Poeme von Chausson (Gavoty, 1982, p. 14-15) spielte: er festigte für immer das Bildnis des Schmerzens und des Genies. Seht ihr diese erschöpfte Maske an, diesen Kopf, er ist als ob von dem Bogen geschnitten wäre, und sich ruht, als ob er von der lackierten Decke der Geige sich spalten würde. So viele grausige Adjektive! Aber diese Vision leitet uns weit, sehr weit von den Konzertsälen. Wohin? Auf anderen Landschaften... Es ist ein Vorrecht der hervorragenden Künstler, daß sie uns den Weg zu geheimen Landschaften, die nur für die Zauberer der Musik offen ist, zeigen. Dies ist das Wunder Enescu.” (Gavoty, 1982, p. 14-15)

Figure 1 Das Bildnis des Schmerzens und des Genies – dieser Enthüllung über das Porträt von Enescu können wir die Gedanken von Ioan Dobrogeanu-Gherea, ein von seinen Begleiter, über den Genie, der lebt und überwacht zugleich die übermittelte Leidenschaft, verbinden: „Eines Tages übten wir ein Werk von Chausson, Poeme, und Enescu spielte großartig. Ich sah ihn von vorne so daß als ich meine Augen auf sein Gesicht aufhob, war ich von seiner tiefschmerzenden Leidenschaft tief berührt; aber in demselben Moment sprach er ruhig zu mir: «Hier moderiert ein bisschen die linke Hand». Selbstverständlich war die Leidenschaft und der Schmerz auf sein Gesicht ehrlich, das wird von seiner bewundernswerten Spielweise überprüft; aber diese Gefühle standen tief in seinem Gewissen. Neben einem leidenschaftlichen Enescu gab es dann einen ruhigen und vorsichtigen Enescu, der auf meine Begleitung aufpasste.” (Gherea, 1968, p. 74) Zum Schluss erwähnen wir einen Moment in dem Enescu mit dem Klavier einen VioloncelloKünstler auswendig begleitet. Die Anwesenheit dieses Ereignisses in der Gedankenreihe von ihm und über ihn weist nicht nur auf das berühmte Gedächtnis des Meisters, sondern auch auf ihn als absolut

ganzer Musiker: er kultiviert bis zur Vollkommenheit als Geigenvirtuose, als Interpret nicht nur sein Instrument, sondern alle andere, die nötigenfalls studiert werden müssen. Das Zitat brauchte keine weitere Erklärung, hier steht es: I. D. Gherea erinnert sich, „daß in der Pause von einem Konzert auf dem Lande kam der ausgezeichnete Violoncellist Papazoglu um Enescu zu sehen.

Er lud uns zu ihm ein und verwies Enescu, daß er ein Konzert für Violoncello von Saint-Saëns, das er für eine Audition vorbereitete, spielen wird; er wollte kennen, was Enescu über seine Interpretation meint. Am nächsten Tag fanden wir Papazoglu tief berührt und mit dem Violoncello vorbereitet, und auf dem Klavier lieg der Begleitungnoten offen. Aber Enescu schloss den Band und begleitete auswendig das ganze Konzert von Anfang bis Ende. Papazoglu sagte mir später: «Wenn mir jemand es erzählte, würde ich ihn es nicht glauben! Ich verstehe, daß eine Geigenvirtuose ein Konzert für Geige auswendig kennt, aber ein Konzert für Violoncello! Und noch dazu auch ein Konzert von Saint-Saëns, der nicht unter den Lieblingskomponisten von Enescu war!»" (Gherea, 1968, p. 64) *** Nach dem ungeschriebenen Gesetze der Komponist – Künstler-Beziehung beginnt im Regel der sogenannte Wechsel der Wesentlichkeit vom Künstler: viele Künstler, auch die berühmtesten, versuchen aus verschiedenen Gründen ihren schöpferischen Kraft, „das fast Unmögliche”, das Komponieren. Im Fall von Enescu scheint die Sache uns anders zu sein. Er übt die Interpretation als primordialer Komponist. Er macht es nicht weil er neugierig ist oder weil er sich in verschiedenen Hypostasen imponieren will. Er bestimmte sich selbst als Musiker in der Vielzahl seines Wesens von SchöpferKomponist und Pädagoge, Volkslehrer bis Künstler als Dirigent, Klavier- und Geigenvirtuose. Die Konfessionen von Enescu stehen als Zeugnis für die Bestimmung des Wichtigkeitsgrades der aufgezählten Ipostasen. In dieser Schrift wurde die Interpret-Hypostase vorgestellt.

Apud Rădulescu, Alexandru: Seriile de cvartet, marea bucurie a lui Enescu (Die Quartetreihen, die große Liebe von Enescu).

1.

Gavoty, B. (1982). Amintirile lui George Enescu. București: Editura Muzicală.

Gherea, D. I. (1968). Amintiri. București: ESPLA. Niculescu, Ș. (1980). Reflecții despre muzică. București: Editura Muzicală.

Pann, A. (1845). Bazul teoretic și practic al muzicii bisericești sau Gramatica melodică. București: Tipografia de muzică bisericească.

Sava, I. (1980). Teritorii muzicale românești. București: Editura Eminescu.

Sava, I. (1984). Iubiți muzica secolului 20. București: Editura Albatros.

Schoenberg, A. (1967). Fundamentals of Musical Compositions. London: Faber&Faber Ltd.

George Enescu – the conductor of the world premiere of Paul Constantinescu’s Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of Our Lord”

ABSTRACT: On March 3rd, 2017, we celebrated 71 years since the Byzantine Easter Oratorio by Paul Constantinescu was played for the first time, under the baton of the brilliant GEORGE ENESCU. This masterpiece of the 20th century Romanian music has as base an old medieval text from 13th century offered to the composer by the Byzantine theologian Ioan D. Petrescu. Constantinescu has “matched” this medieval text with the Triodon and the text of Holy Gospels officiated during the Holy Week in the Romanian Orthodox Churches. The Oratorio requested 6-7 years of sustainable work, without counting the years of prior preparation.

Performed at Romanian Athenaeum in Bucharest, the inaugural concert from March 3rd, 1946 “was a real well-deserved triumph” and was highly appreciated by the Romanian society of that time, the composition being compared with works of Bach and Handel.

During 1947-1948 P. Constantinescu rewrote the score of the Oratorio adding a 4thpart - Praise the Resurrection - to the 3 parts of the original version: Calvary, Death and Burial. The new score has been published in 1971 in Germany (also performed in a concert). In Romania, the first audition took place during April 12-14th, 1990 at the Romanian Athenaeum, with “George Enescu” Philharmonic conducted by Cristian Mandeal.

Submitted: May 30, 2017 Admitted: June 30, 2017

KEYWORDS: EASTER ORATORIO, ENESCU CONDUCTOR, BUCHAREST PHILHARMONIC

IN March this year, just a few months ago, we celebrated 71 years since the evening of March 3rd 1946 when on the great stage of the most prestigious temple of Romanian architecture, culture and art – the Romanian Athenaeum of Bucharest – important UNESCO monument, under the baton of the genius Romanian composer GEORGE ENESCU, the Byzantine Easter Oratorio - Passion and Resurrection of our Lord was played for the first time – in three parts for orchestra, choir and soloists, written by the unforgettable composer Paul Constantinescu (1909-1963).

It was a memorable day – at the start of the lovely season of spring, with blossoming flowers and festive nature – as mentioned half a century ago, in July 1967 by dr. Vasile Tomescu, the eminent doctor in musical sciences from the Sorbonne University and Honoris Causa Doctor of the Music University in Bucharest, in his "Paul Constantinescu” Monograph – a study of absolute encyclopedic value. As Octavian Lazăr Cosma, member of the Romanian Academy, mentioned in his speech from June 2009 on 100 years celebration from the birth of the composer: "The Day of March 3rd, 1946, was forever inscribed in the history of Romanian music as a special moment created in public, under the baton of George Enescu, with a musical piece equivalent as force and artistic originality to the gender of oratorio with Oedipe for tragedy genre or A Stormy Night for comic theater play or At the market for satirical ballet, the 3rd Sonata for piano and violin or ”Childhood Impressions” for the chamber music”. Mr. Cosma was referring to the Byzantine Easter Oratorio - Passion and Resurrection for soloists, choir, and orchestra, on new Byzantine texts from medieval age, translated by Ioan D. Petrescu (1884-1970).

Educated at the Music Conservatory of Bucharest between1924-1928, by well-known Romanian music maestros: Dumitru Georgescu Kiriac, Ion Nonna Otescu, Ion Popescu-Pasărea, Gheorghe Brătianu etc., between 1928-1931, the Byzantines theologist Ioan D. Petrescu was studying the Gregorian song at Schola Cantorum and the Sorbonne University. Following the recommendation of the Gregorian song French Professor Amédée Gastoué, Ioan D. Petrescu conducted scientific research in the Archives of Paris and discovered important new musical Byzantine texts from the medieval age.

From the old medieval musical texts, “I chose – mentions theologian Ioan D. Petrescu – the 261 a.n.c Greek Funds manuscript from Paris, written in 1289. I gave voice to this document in my transcript. For some small and rare parts I also used Coislin 41 manuscript to eliminate repeating formulas or tempos. The rhythm of the Byzantine musical text was religiously preserved, as this is the role of a good transcript. Only by preserving the original rhythm you have the faithful image of the medieval melody. In rare, extremely rare parts and only when there was no other alternative, I did not transpose the original rhythm. As the great beauty of the old melody lies in the diversity of rhythms and the combination of various values of which an infinite and unexpected novelty results. The word is inseparable from the sound and the sound is inseparable from the word. …The rhythm, with its instructions and natural requirements, is the one that gives wings to the melody and not the beat, which restricts and strangles the melody. The choirs and the arias of this oratorio preserve thus the authentic documentary rhythm of the 13th century.”

Thus, the basis for this oratorio is this Byzantine musical text from the 13th century. Confronted by the author with similar texts from all the manuscripts of the era – manuscripts from the National Library of Paris, the Vatican Library, the Ambrosia Library from Milan, Grotta Ferrata Monastery Library, and Berlin State Library, the Byzantine theologian Ioan D. Petrescu noted, "a resemblance that goes up to sameness”, thus same musical text irrespective of the place of origin.

At the beginning of 1932, after graduating from the Courses of Paris Schola Cantorum (19281931) with the final exam successfully passed in the presence of the eminent professor and French composer Vincent d’Indy (1851-1931), the Byzantine theologian Ioan D. Petrescu returned to his native country and successfully continued his vast activity at the well- known Bucharest “St. Visarion” Church from 1910 until his passing on May 8th, 1970.

In parallel with his responsibilities as priest and servant of God, Ioan D. Petrescu maintained a constant interest in promoting old Byzantine music, holding numerous conferences, proceedings, concert lessons, scientific research papers, musical auditions with his own compositions specific to the sermons held in our Orthodox Church, etc. He also signed numerous studies and articles, essays and reviews published in various publications. Ioan D. Petrescu taught at Bucharest Religious Music Academy where he was Dean between 1935-1941.

During these years started the rewarding collaboration between the Byzantine theologian Ioan D. Petrescu and one of the most talented young composers of that time, Paul Constantinescu, brilliant graduate of the Bucharest Conservatory (1928-1933) and of the advanced studies of the Wien Music Academy (1934-1935).

From the beginning of his university years, Paul Constantinescu constantly remarked himself in the Romanian musical life, first in the complex art and science of musical compositions. Every year he participated in the prestigious National Composition Contest initiated in 1911 by the brilliant Romanian musician George Enescu and was awarded the 2nd Certificate of Merit in 1931 for the “Romanian Suite” , the 2nd Prize (the 1st Prize was not awarded) in the following year, 1932 for a group of six musical pieces: Overture for Piano, Four Tales, Byzantine Style Trio for Strings, 39 Psalm 39, Two Songs on lyrics by Tudor Arghezi and Quintet for flute, oboe, clarinet, bassoon and violin) and, on November 27th 1938, the 1st Prize, by a jury presided by George Enescu for the Ballet Suite Wedding in the Carpathians.

Ioan D. Petrescu – who discovered in Paris an old Byzantine musical text from the 13th century that had preoccupied him ever since 1931, which he tried to sing in the Maundy Thursday in the Romanian Chapel from Paris and then in 1933 in Bucharest at “St. Visarion” Church and in some radio broadcasts – remarked the real talent and the great potential for creativity of Paul Constantinescu – who, at that time, was the conductor of the “St. Visarion” Church - and gave him the entire material for composing an oratorio.

Paul Constantinescu studied with utmost attention the texts received from the Byzantine theologian Ioan D. Petrescu and criticized them, in the creative sense of the word. Here is a citation from the great composer: ”The Priest has graciously given me several musical translations of Byzantine manuscripts from the 13th century, which I have used as themes for the arias and choirs between the Gospels of the oratorio. Certainly these themes were

transposed according to my musical feelings and needs, as I also have works with folklore or religious music, being chosen, shortened, placed differently, being many times transformed as tempo, being modulated and counterpointed into a choral and orchestral polyphonic work, respectively in one word, I took them out of their initial monotony and melt them into form; for the Gospels I wrote a personal, easier music, without taking into account the documents, so that I could give a more dramatic sense, emphasizing the roles of the soloists and the choirs of the people, while the text (…) I compiled the Gospel of Carol I published in 1914, shortening the fragments, adding some fragments from the Gospel of John (as in part II), preserving though the logic of things. I combined all these elements together with the orchestral interludes into an oratorio form, to which I as well found the title “Passion and Resurrection”.

A significant number of moments in the oratorio were created “entirely” by Paul Constantinescu. Among these there are: The Choir of the 12 Apostles, The Last Supper (“Surely you don't mean me, Lord?”), The Doom Choir (The Crucifixion) and the Choir of Releasing the Criminal (Barabbas).

All the choirs and arias of this oratorio are documents from the 13th century, except for the Alleluia song from the beginning of Part II and for the final of Part III (the Sermon of the Good Friday), that are part of the musical documents from the 17 th century. ” As Bach did– mentions the composer Paul Constantinescu – I started from The Last Supper and I continued up to the burial. I tried to preserve the solemnity of the text with a modern technique that shall not alter the essential character of the document. The difficult part was to find the musical correspondence for the gospel, so that music to have, at the same time, a dramatic sense”.

It put a four-year sustainable work for composing its initial form and almost three years more only for writing the choirs, soloists, orchestral parts, thus in general six-seven years without counting the years of preparation. We should start counting ten years back, respectively from the moment I started to initiate myself and write folklore and religious music that represented the basis of the required composition technique”.

From the analyzed documents, it results that the entire creation of the composer Paul Constantinescu has as base two fundamental sources: the Romanian folklore – starting with the oldest musical genres and the Byzantine music. The interest in initiation in this domain – of the Byzantine music- started as far back as the last years of high school, due to eminent professor, conductor and composer Ioan Cristu Danielescu (1884-1966) – who was named by one of his brilliant students - the composer, conductor and university professor Dumitru D. Botez – as one of the classic composers of the Romanian choral music. The library of composer Paul Constantinescu contained, as back as that time, first of all a manuscript page of religious music entitled Axion Estin, 5th Voice, “How to sing in Jerusalem”, memory from father Chrysostom, April 1 st, 1927, the volumes “IPMOLOGIONUL”, ”ANASTASIMATARUL” printed in 1823 in Wien by Macarie The Theologist and “DIOMELARIUL” translated from Greek language into Romanian by Dimitrie Suceveanu, as well as other works signed by Anton Pann, Petre Vintilescu, important pages from books printed abroad by well-known Byzantine musicians: A. Gastouée, J. B. Rebours etc.

Opposite works supported Paul Constantinescu in adopting the composing technique for this music genre: Two Byzantine Style Studies – 1929, Mass in Psaltic Style for Mixed Choir a Capella – 1936, Free Interpretations of a Byzantine melody from the 13th century for harp, two horns, gong, strings, and solo cello – 1940.

Paul Constantinescu has also known the Oratorios on same theme written by J.S. Bach and other composers from the romantic and classical period.

The Oratorio was finalized on October 14th, 1943.

At the beginning of 1941 and in October 1943, at the request of the press – the composer Paul Constantinescu played some fragments of his new work on piano. He received recognition, especially in the review from the “Event” newspaper dated October 11th, 1943 “It is the amplest of Paul Constantinescu’s compositions… it is an ample music, grandiose, simple and significantly dramatic”.

In this context, in the Program of the concert from the evening of March 3 rd, 1946, in the article Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection” – after Byzantine musical texts from the 13th century, the Byzantine theologist Ioan D. Petrescu mentions:

“The Oratorio Passion and Resurrection is totally different from everything that has been said until now on the same theme or on any other biblical or hagiographic subject.

First, it has a paleographic character. Its base is a Byzantine text from the 13th century which has caught my interest as far back as from 1931.

Secondly, this oratorio has a scientific technique side. It is not Bach, nor Handel, Haydn, Mendelssohn, Beethoven nor Debussy, just to mention the most representative names. Mr. Paul Constantinescu has clothed the medieval music text in the most adequate adornment. His technique does not resemble anything else, making an important contribution for this art genre. His harmonies combine the flavor of medieval melody with the simplicity of the classical technique and with the most advanced combinations of the modern technique…The ethos of the medieval modes is accurately preserved; its polyphony does not interfere and does not eclipse its specific and characteristic. The entire piece, in its wholeness, is impregnated by the spirit of the Byzantine Mass art that brings the entire piece to life and verifies it.

Everything that has been written on the text of the Gospel is the personal creation of Mr. Paul Constantinescu, using the rhythm formulas of various modes, especially of Lydian, Hypolydian, Hypophrygian and Dorian modes.

The usage of half tone in the scale gives a particular color, specific for medieval art and preserving the diatonic. Powerful dramatic effects are obtained with simple techniques. The Choir of the 12 Apostles, The Last Supper (“Surely you don't mean me, Lord?”), The Insult Choir (Be happy, Emperor of Jews!) The Doom Choir (The Crucifixion) and the Choir of Releasing the Criminal (Barabbas) are entirely written by the composer who uses chromatisms for creating an atmosphere of oriental folklore and differentiate the gospel characters from the people. The introductory choir of the second part (Alleluia) was inspired by a manuscript from the end of the 17th century or the beginning of the 18th century, while the Choir “In the Grave, Life” at the end of the oratorio is inspired by a manuscript from the end of the 17th, shortened by myself and transformed by Mr. Constantinescu with his polyphonic technique. Thirdly, this oratorio gives evidence of the subject of religious music in the Orthodox Church of the Orient and offers an unexpectedly fresh piece to the composers of religious music and masters of church choirs.”

After a long rehearsal program that started in the 4 th quarter of 1945, the first audition of the oratorio was publicly announced for Sunday, January 13 th, 1946.

Due to various reasons – difficulties in finding artists for the orchestra, choir and soloists – the inaugural concert was rescheduled for March 3 rd, 1946 in the most famous concert hall of Bucharest – the Romanian Athenaeum – the temple of Romanian architecture, culture and art.

For this event the following contributed: the First Philharmonic of the country – Bucharest State Philharmonic, “Romania” Mixt Choir coordinated by the professor, composer and conductor Nicolae Lungu and the well-known Romanian soloists: Nicolae Secăreanu – bass (the Gospel-teller), Pr. Ioan D. Petrescu – bass (Jesus Christ), Mella Dumitriu – alto (the Mother of Jesus Christ), Mircea Buciu – bass (Pilate), Marieta Carpiş, Elisabeta Moldoveanu – sopranos and Valentin Teodorian – tenor.

The musical director of this ample orchestra was George Enescu, the most famous Romanian musician, composer, and performer.

The concert from that memorable night of March 3rd, 1946 was unanimously appreciated by the Romanian society of art, science, culture, by the Orthodox Church and the press of the time and represents a crucial moment in the history of Romanian music of the 20th century.

“I believe this work is, without exaggeration, the most important musical masterpiece of the last 25 years” – were the words of well-known musical critic Emanoil Ciomac, the director of Bucharest State Philharmonic.

“Despite the resistance, I succeeded in imposing Mr. Paul Constantinescu’s oratorio to the orchestra and the success exceeded the expectations. The three auditions, first with George Enescu and the following two with Constantin Silvestri, took place in an enthusiastic and passionate atmosphere, many of us comparing this Romanian piece with works of Bach and Handel”.

“You have made a great contribution to art. You have brought to light and to a specific public the important and longtime scientific work of a dedicated priest. You brought to life the creation of an extraordinary musician and we are kindly asking you to give our deep spiritual appreciation and all our admiration to Mr. Paul Constantinescu. We hope that Mr. George Enescu,

our noble and genius artist, will learn about our gratitude for his all-time activity and for the remarkable performance from the night of March 3 rd, 1946 as well”- is mentioned by P.F. Nicodim, the Patriarch of Romania, in the letter dated March 5th, 1946 addressed to Emanoil Ciomac, the director of the State Philharmonic.

“A new coronet of science, art, generosity and glory” – was written in the Morning Journal of March 4th, 1946 by the well-known writer Gala Galaction.

“With this oratorio, the Romanian music enters through the main gate the temple where universal value art lives” – V. Cristian, March 9, Last Hour newspaper.

“With this new creation, the composer Paul Constantinescu gave universal value to esthetic principles and intentions from the early times of the East Byzantine civilizations. It is an absolute, new, and original thing. This event is comparable as revolutionary importance with opera Oedipe of George Enescu performed on the stage of Paris Opera.” – J.V. Pandelescu, March 7th, The Journal.

“It is one of the most important works of Romanian music of all times. It has from now on the aspiration for posterity.”– V. Cristian, March 9th, Last Hour newspaper.

An important appreciation for composer Paul Constantinescu was also the message of the members of The Romanian Musical Association Committee from March 10 th, 1946 - “Following the audition of the Oratorio composed by yourself, we would like to express our compliments for your masterpiece, which represents an important date in the history of Romanian music…we are kindly asking you to receive as tribute our award, unanimously voted.”

The press and the broadcasts of the national radio station have emphasized with appreciative words first of all, the mastery and authority of George Enescu in directing the orchestra and choirs that “raised the level of interpretation and preserved a unitary tension from the first notes until the last choirs”. The State Philharmonic orchestra “adapted quickly to the colorful specific of the partition, discreetly accompanying and strongly emphasizing the dramatic elements. The state philharmonic orchestra had its decisive voice, proving once again its reputation of the best orchestra in the country. Mr. Paul Constantinescu, who received long applause and was called on the stage at each break, has received a well-earned real triumph.” (J.V. Pandelescu, The Journal, March 7th, 1946).

Referring to George Enescu's talent as director, Yehudi Menuhin, the renowned disciple of George Enescu, was saying that “like a magician, he knew how to obtain certain sonorities from an orchestra that other directors, much more famous, did not dare to dream. Enescu has an enormous force of imagination and an unusually intense musical experience.”

The priest Ioan D. Petrescu has also received several appreciations from the critics, “the clear and dramatic recitatives realized by bass Nicolae Secăreanu – in the role of the Evangelist – the warm voices of soloists Nella Dumitriu and bass Mircea Buciu, as well as the admiration for the performance of ”Romania Choir”, thoroughly prepared by maestro Nicolae Lungu”.

After the inaugural concert from the evening of March 3 rd 1946, the Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection” by Paul Constantinescu was scheduled in other two public concerts, held at the Romanian Athenaeum as well, on April 7th, 1946 with maestro Constantin Silvestri (as George Enescu was on a tour in Russia) as director and same artists' distribution - except for the bass Mircea Buciu replaced by Jean Bănescu and on May 27th, 1946 with Constantin Silvestri as director as well – concert held on the occasion of celebration of the Romanian Patriarch Nicodim.

Because the preparations for the first concert from March 3 rd, 1946 were done in a hurry, the departments in the State Philharmonic that supervised the editing and the printing of the concert’s bill and program, did not notice that the name of priest Ioan D. Petrescu was mentioned only as soloist for the role of Christ, at the artists’ distribution part in all the publicity materials. This regretful situation – that was further mentioned in some musical critiques, caused several hurtful moments between the two reputed musicians with longtime collaboration, Paul Constantinescu and Ioan D. Petrescu.

In his complaint addressed to the management of Bucharest State Philharmonic the priest Ioan D. Petrescu emphasized his contribution to the partition of the Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection” which he considered significant to be mentioned as well as composer and not only as the soloist for the role of Christ. The composer Paul Constantinescu answered with an explanatory letter with arguments since Ioan D. Petrescu's contribution was limited to sourcing the old manuscripts from the 13th century and did not contribute to the actual creation of the music.

Personally, unpleasantly surprised by the content of both letters, I continued to research this problem in the documents published in that period. I also asked for information from several important

Romanian musical figures: Vasile Tomescu, Ph.D., – the author of a monograph about the life and the opera of the composer Paul Constantinescu published in 1947, assistant professor and PhD Viorel Cosma – the Patriarch of the Romanian musicology – title that he received from the Patriarch of Romania, university professor Grigore Constantinescu, Ph.D., – the President of the Association of Musical Critics, Dumitru Nedelcu from Ploiesti, a well-known figure in psalm music and friend with Ioan D. Petrescu.

Further to these investigations I have discovered the following: For the publicity of the inaugural concert from March 3 rd, 1946, composer Paul Constantinescu has prepared in due time the draft of the concert’s bill and of the first page of the Concert Program that were to be printed by the Bucharest State Philharmonic at the “Bucovina” Publishing House in Bucharest; As mentioned in Paul Constantinescu's letter addressed to Emanoil Ciomac, the director of the Bucharest Philharmonic, “under the title of the piece “Passion and Resurrection Oratorio” by Paul Constantinescu was written the following text: in three parts, on Byzantine musical texts from the 13th century, recovered, translated and arranged by theologian Ioan D. Petrescu. Priest Ioan D. Petrescu saw the draft of the concert’s bill and of the Concert Program and was satisfied. More than that, he wanted to sing the role of Christ although he was not a professional soloist”.

Preparing for this important musical event in the spiritual life of the Capital city and of the country requested enormous efforts – first from the management of the Philharmonic and a series of major problems, including artistic problems, were to be solved under urgency.

Probably, due to the hurry and not intentionally, people from the concert organization team overlooked the printing of the concert’s bill in due time and neither after it was publicly exposed, no one signaled the lack of the text mentioning the contribution of the priest Ioan D. Petrescu and his name appeared only as soloist for the role of Jesus Christ.

Due to reasons difficult to explain, neither priest Ioan D. Petrescu, who supervised the printing of the Concert Program, in which, at pages 2-8, was included a significant text with information about the history of the Oratorio and of the content of the three parts of the piece – from literary and musical point of view, as well as the contribution of Paul Constantinescu to the creation of this monumental work – did not notice this omission.

In the evening of the concert professor Alexandru Teodorescu – on behalf of the Philharmonic read the following rectification: “Due to a regretful negligence, in the published concert bills it was not mentioned the following: This Oratorio is constructed on Byzantine musical themes from the 13th century recovered, translated and arranged by theologian Ioan D. Petrescu who, although is not a professional soloist, accepted to sing the role of Jesus Christ”.

In the following days – as mentioned by maestro Ion Dumitrescu, who was present at this historical event, some “friends, insinuators” signaled this deficiency.

In this context, priest Ioan D. Petrescu wrote a letter to the management of Bucharest Philharmonic in which he was emphasizing his important contribution to the accomplishment of the oratorio, contribution for which he wanted to be recognized as author of the piece.

In this letter, as opposed to the way the incontestable merits of composer Paul Constantinescu to the creation of the Oratorio were presented in the article “Passion and Resurrection Oratorio on Byzantine musical texts from the 13th century”, priest Ioan D. Petrescu mentioned that “the role of composer Paul Constantinescu to the realization of the Oratorio was a minor one, a decorator of a construction started by himself. If I hadn't been there, then the Passion and Resurrection Oratorio could not have existed”.

In the answer written by composer Paul Constantinescu, the musician stated, in a documented manner, that the contribution of the priest consisted in the submission of documents from the 13th century …

The entire musical construction of the Oratorio – including writing the score and the parts for the orchestra, choir and soloists is the conception solely of composer Paul Constantinescu, on which, as he declared, he worked almost six-seven years, without taking into consideration the years of preparation.

At the same time, Paul Constantinescu mentions that the omission of the priest's name from the concert bill is not his responsibility, but the one of the priest, who supervised directly the printing of the Concert’s bill and Program. Feeling misjudged by priest Ioan D. Petrescu and in a certain way offended by the way the priest described his contribution to the Oratorio in the letter addressed to the State Philharmonic, he decided to stop any collaboration with priest Ioan D. Petrescu and to rewrite the Oratorio, to which he added a fourth part – The Resurrection of the Lord – without using any part from the medieval musical texts offered by priest Petrescu. In the same letter, he mentions that the Oratorio cannot be performed anymore without his personal approval.

In the Program printed by priest Petrescu and musicologist I. D. Ştefănescu in May 1946 for the third concert occasioned by the anniversary of Patriarch NICODIM, the priest does not take into consideration the text of the concert’s bill and Program proposed for the concert from March 3 rd, 1946 and, without discussing anything with composer Paul Constantinescu, he changes the title as: PASSION AND RESURRECTION – ORATORIO BY PAUL CONSTANTINESCU AND IOAN D. PETRESCU. EXPLANATIONS AND SUNG TEXT.

In the following year – 1947, October – took place the wedding of maestro Ion Dumitrescu, celebrated at “Domniţa Bălaşa” Church in the Capital by priest Ioan D. Petrescu. Godparents: Paul and Marica Constantinescu. The second day after the wedding, maestro Ion Dumitrescu who was under the impression that Paul Constantinescu and the priest have reconciled (as they had shaken hands) received a phone call from Paul Constantinescu, who informed him that he decided to burn a work in which he put all his energy and his artistic skills and he will start to rewrite the Oratorio without any input from priest Petrescu.

This sad news was mentioned in the entire musical press of the time, however in 2004 when were inventoried the musical texts of Paul Constantinescu stored in the archives of the Union of Romanian Composers and Musicologists, assistant professor Sanda Hârlav-Maistorovici, Ph.D., discovered the partition of the Oratorio, which the composer did not burn. It was his work for almost a decade. On the first page, he wrote the following: “This partition cannot be performed. Copying, even partially is forbidden. Signed: Paul Constantinescu, June 20, 1948”.

Note: In the conversation on this subject from June 9th, 2017 with maestro Viorel Cosma, he said that he personally knew about the existence of this score from the musicologist Titus Moisescu (1922-2002), who was the director of the Musical Publishing House of Bucharest for almost three decades.

In his new structure, the Oratorio has four parts and the title of “PASSION AND RESURRECTION OF LORD – THE BYZANTINE EASTER ORATORIO”.

In the general catalogue of works composed by Paul Constantinescu written by the author in the last part of his life and displayed from December 1993 in the permanent exhibition of the Memorial

Museum “Paul Constantinescu” from Ploiesti, being received by myself personally from maestro Paul Codreanu on the occasion of celebrating 30 years from the passing away of the composer – it is written “Passion and Resurrection of Lord – The Byzantine Easter Oratorio (totally rewritten from Passion and Resurrection). Four Parts, 1 hour and 30 minutes. 1948.

For the new version of the Oratorio, Paul Constantinescu chose the themes and the moments from the publications and books signed by the most reputed Romanian composers of psalm music from centuries XVIII-XIX: Filotei sîn Agăi Jipei (1713), Petre Efesiul (1820), Macarie Ieromonahul (1823), Anton Pann (1846), Dimitrie Suceveanu, Nifon Ploieşteanul, Ştefanache Popescu, Gavriil Musicescu, Ion Popescu-Pasărea etc. and from the four Gospels – as printed in 1914 under the period of King Carol I. For your information and documentation, the main moments from the four parts of the Oratorio are summarized below: PART I Introduction and Choir: Alleluia – Andante The Evangelist - Recitative: „Și se apropie praznicul azimilor ce se cheamă Paștele” (Luca XXII; joi la Utrenie) Aria – Andantino (Lumininda, voice 8, Monday at Utrenie) Scene - The Evangelist – Jesus: „Și a venit ziua azimilor” Choir: „Nu cumva sunt eu, Doamne?” – Allegro (Matei XXVI) Choir: „Ospătînd la cină pre ucenici” – Allegretto (Sedelna, glasul 7, Slujba Patimilor) Scene – The Evangelist – Jesus: „Atunci au venit Iisus împreună cu dînșii…”( Matei XXVI, joi seara) Aria alto solo: „Temîndu-ne, fraților, de pedeapsa smochinului celui uscat” – Andante (Glasul 8, stihul 1, luni seara la stihoavnă) Scene - The Evangelist – Jesus: „Și au venit către ucenici și i-au aflat pre dînșii dormind” – Lento (Matei XXVI) Choir: „Iată, mirele vine în miezul nopții”(Tropar, glasul 8, luni la Utrenie) Scene - The Evangelist – Jesus - Juda: „Și venind Iisus a aflat pre dînșii iarși dormind” (Matei XXVI) Choir: „Nimeni să nu fie neîmpărtășit” – Allegro (glasul 8, joi la Utrenie) PART II Introduction – Maestoso Recitative and aria Jesus : „Acum s-a proslăvit fiul Domnului” (Ioan XIII – vineri la Utrenie) Choir with solo bass: „Boierii popoarelor s-au adunat împreună”- Andante (Slujba Patimilor, Antifonul 1) Recitative - The Evangelist: „Deci oastea și căpetenia…,”(Ioan XXVII) Choir: „Adună-se acum, soborul iudeilor” – Allegro energico (Laude, glasul 2, joi la Utrenie) Recitative and scene – The Evangelist and the servants: „ Iar ei, prinzând pre Iisus…” (Matei XXVI) Choir: „De trei ori făgăduindu-te…” – Andante (Slujba Patimilor – Antifon 7) Recitative and scene – The Evangelist, Pilate, Jesus: „Deci au dus pre Iisus ”(Ioan XVIII) Choir: „O dumnezeiescul, iubitul, o prea dulcele tău glas” – Andante doloroso Scene and choir – The Evangelist, Pilate: „Iar la praznic…”(Matei XXVIII) PART III Scene with choir – The Evangelist, Jesus: „Iar ostașii l-au adus…” (Marcu XV) Choir – „Astăzi l-au spînzurat…”(Slujba Patimilor- Antifon 15) Scene – The Evangelist and the bandits: „Iar unul din tîlharii răstigniți…” (Luca XXIII) Choir: „Întru o zi , ai învrednicit, doamne…”(Luminînda, Slujba Patimilor, glasul 3) Scene with choir – The Evangelist, Jesus: „Și stau lîngă crucea Lui” – Lento (Ioan XIX) Aria – alto solo: „Pre lemn răstignit, văzîndu-te Hristoase pre Tine…” (Stihira 5, glasul 2 din slujba Patimilor) Scene – The Evangelist and Jesus: „Iar de al șaselea ceas…” – (Matei XXVII) Scene – The Evangelist and Jesus: „Atunci s-au întunecat soarele”(Luca XXIII) Choir: „Răscumpăratu-ne-ai pre noi, cu scump sîngele tău…” – Adagio (Sedealna Podobie, Slujba Patimilor) Recitative – The Evangelist: „Și a venit Iosif…” – Andante (Prohodul, sîmbătă la Utrenie) PART IV Recitative – The Evangelist: „Și dacă a trecut și sîmbăta…” (Marcu XVI) Trio - Mironositele „Cine ne va prăvăli, nouă, piatra de pre ușa mormîntului?”

Recitative – The Evangelist and scene – Plîngerea mironosițelor:„Necuprinsă este, de îngeri și oameni, taina” Andantino (Vinerea Patimilor, după Vecernii) Arie – Mother of the Lord (alto): „Din împunsă coasta ta…”

Choir of women: „Hristoase, viață dai…”

Scene – The Evangelist and the Angel: „Și intrînd în mormînt…” (Marcu XVI – duminică la Utrenie) Choir: „Hristos a înviat” (duminică la Utrenie, glasul 2; tema secundă, glasul 5) Choir: „Ziua învierii, noroade să ne veselim” (Catavasia Învierii Domnului, glasul 1) Choir: „Hristos a înviat” * In his new version, the Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” has in its four parts recitatives, arias, scene and choirs, that translate using a complex emotional and expressive technique the byzantine hymns from the traditional songs. The choirs render in such impressive vocal language: the pray – almost whispered, despair, irony, sarcasm, glory, brightness, the apotheosis.

The orchestra – with all its instruments - sustains and considerably enriches the sound, including the recitatives and the soloists’ parts. The orchestra has as well its standalone moments: preludes, interludes, endings of scenes and acts etc., in which the author used his own sound language completely in accordance with the texts selected from the four Gospels and with the dialogue of characters.

Unfortunately, due to the social political contexts that followed the year 1948 until after the Revolution of December 1989, the new version of the Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” was not performed publicly for 42 years, until April, 12, 13, 14, 1990 when “George Enescu” Symphonic Orchestra from Bucharest performed the masterpiece under the baton of conductor Cristian Mandeal and with Valentin Gruescu as master of choir in the honor of the heroes of the December 1989 Revolution and their families.

Several famous Romanian artists participated in this concert as soloists: Gheorghe Roşu – baritone (The Evangelist), Mircea Moisa – bass (Jesus), Vladimir Popescu-Deveselu – tenor (Judas), Georgeta Orlovski – mezzo-soprano (Mother of Christ), Silvia Voinea (a servant), Melania Ghioaldă – soprano (a servant), Dan Zancu – bass-baritone (Pilate, a bandit), Vladimir Popescu-Deveselu – tenor (a bandit, an angel).

The press remarked with appreciative words this memorable concert, emphasizing the indubitable artistic performance of the conductor Cristian Mandeal, of the orchestra, the choir (choir maestro Valentin Gruescu), and of the soloists, mentioning that the concert “remains one of the highest moments of that concert season” (Ileana Ursu, “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord”, newspaper Life of the Capital, 19.04.1990).

In the next year 1991 a concert took place in Cluj with Cluj Philharmonic Orchestra – conductor Emil Simon, choir led by university professor Cornel Groza, Ph.D., and soloists Gheorghe Roşu (The Evangelist), Mircea Moisa (Jesus), Monica Matei (Mother of the Lord), Călin Folea, Adrian Croitoru, Ana Rusu and Valer Bocşa in the other roles.

After that, in 2007, Paul Constantinescu’s masterpiece has also been interpreted by the “Moldova” State Philharmonic Orchestra from Iasi together with Choirs of the Opera and of Iasi Philharmonic and the soloists: George Cojocaru (the Evangelist), Octavian Dumitru (Jesus), Florentina Onică (Mother of the Lord), Tudor Florenţa (Judas), Mihail Frunză (Pilate), Adrian Ionescu (The Angel) with conductor Bogdan Chiroşcă. A similar concert was performed in Timisoara by the local Philharmonic and Choir with Remus Georgescu as conductor and Diodor Nicoară as choir master.

An extraordinary performance of this oratorio took place on April 4 th, 2004 in “Mihail Jora” Concert Hall from Bucharest, with the participation of the National Radio Orchestra under the baton of conductor Horia Andreescu and the Radio Academic Choir conducted by choir master Dan Mihai Goia.

In 2010, Casa Radio Publishing House taped a double CD with the Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” by Paul Constantinescu released on Friday, March 26th, 2010 at the Concert Studio Hall. University Professor Valentina Sandu Dediu, Ph.D., and conductor Dan Mihai Goia spoke at the event, before listening to the concert. From the distribution of the CD we mention: the baritone Eduard Tumagian, the mezzo-soprano Gabriela Popescu, the bass Mircea Moisa, sopranos Alina Bottez and Simonida Luțescu, tenor Răzvan Săraru and bass-baritone Constantin Cocriş (who was also present at the concert from April 4th, 2004).

Three years before – 2014 – the Choir “Code Apulum” from Alba Iulia directed by professor Iosif Fiţ successfully launched the cultural project Byzantine Easter Oratorio by Paul Constantinescu with the purpose of promoting a representative Romanian vocal-symphonic creation in the Romanian and foreign cultural space that could raise the interest of the young generation for this musical genre whose value provokes contemporary world waiting horizons”. This interesting project was sustained also by: “Timotei Popovici” Choir of Sibiu Metropolitan Cathedral, “Simion Ştefan” Orthodox Seminar of Alba Iulia and by the Music High School of Alba Iulia. A first event was organized in 2014 on September 13th – 14th, in Switzerland with the participation of the Philharmonic Orchestra of Wattwill, under the baton of Hermann Ostendarp. In the next year 2015 two concerts were performed in Romania, on May 14th and 16th at the Roman – Catholic Church of Alba Iulia and at the Orthodox Metropolitan Cathedral of Sibiu with the participation of the Swiss.

In the evening of March 3rd of 2016, continuing a beautiful tradition, the Memorial Museum “Paul Constantinescu” organized an anniversary event entitled “70 years from the first audition of the Byzantine Easter Oratorio Passion and Resurrection of the Lord”.

The history of this vocal-symphonic masterpiece was presented by professor Al. I. Bădulescu, Ph.D., musicologist, member of the Union of Romanian Composers and Musicologists and of the Union of Romanian Professional Journalists. You have listened to parts of the Oratorio score in the custody of the Golden Library of Romanian Radio Broadcasting Company.

On May 15th, 2016, in Sibiu, an anniversary concert took place in the Cathedral of Sibiu occasioned by the anniversary of 70 years from the first audition of the Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord from March 3 rd, 1946. The Most Holy Laurențiu Streza – the Metropolitan of Transylvania, His Holiness Visarion - the Bishop of Tulcea, as well as other important figures of the religious, political, cultural and artistic life of Sibiu and from other regions of Romania attended the concert.

The concert has been performed by: Sibiu Philharmonic, “Timotei Popovici” Choir of Sibiu Cathedral prepared by choir master and deacon Dan-Alexandru Streza, „Codex Apulum” Choral of Alba Iulia prepared by master choirs professor Iosif Fiț and prof. Nicolae Topîrcean, assistant choir master: prof. Ana Maria Fiț. As soloists, we are naming: prof. Nicolae Topîrceanu – the Evangelist, prof. IoanEmanuel Benchea – Jesus, Dan Alexandru Streza, Lorena Puican, Roxana Chicidea and Teodora Oprișor.

Matei Pop – assistant professor PhD at “Gheorghe Dima” Music Academy and famous conductor of “Transylvania” Philharmonic of Cluj-Napoca directed the concert with an obvious authority. Under his baton the orchestra, the choirs and the soloists played with full conviction the complex and difficult partition. The efforts, talent, dedication, professionalism, and the extraordinary interpretation of all the performers - the conductor, soloists, choirs and orchestra- were gratified by the audience with long lasting rounds of applause. This concert deserves to be remembered in the annals of the Transylvanian Cathedral and in the Book of Honor of 2015-2016 Music Season.

Impressed by the monumental artistic performance, The Most Holy Laurențiu Streza, the Metropolitan of Transylvania honored the conductor Matei Pop and the other contributors to this unforgettable event, with RECOGNITION LETTERS on behalf of the Transylvania Metropolitan.

I am congratulating the management of the Romanian Patriarchate TV Station “TRINITAS” for broadcasting the concert from May 15 th, 2016 from the Transylvania Metropolitan - a laudable initiative. We hope that this year, on 21st of December when 70 years from the first audition of the second masterpiece of the eminent composer Paul Constantinescu – the Nativity (Byzantine Christmas Oratorio) are celebrated, TRINITAS will offer a special TV broadcast to the music lovers.

After viewing the TV show from Sunday, September 2016, when the concert of May 15 th from the Cathedral of Sibiu was broadcast, Vasile Tomescu, the renowned musicologist– with a Ph.D. in music at the “'Sorbonne” University of Paris and at the National Music University of Bucharest, has personally shared with me in a phone conversation of that day and on October 18 th, 2016 his admiration for the extraordinary concert of May 15 th, with the Byzantine Easter Oratorio. These sincere appreciations confirm the real creativity potential and the great artistry of the conductor and the other performers.

This impressive concert was rerun on Holy Saturday and Easter Day of 2017 and recently the Romanian Patriarchate TV Station “TRINITAS” has recorded an interesting CD, successfully launched on May 27th, this year in the Theatre of Timisoara Academic Library on the occasion of the General Meeting of the Chorale Association of Romania preceded by speeches of prof. Al. I. Bădulescu, Ph.D., prof. Iosif Fiţ – the choir master of “Codex Apulum” Choir of Alba Iulia and the deacon and master choir Dan-Alexandru Streza.

Although during 1948-1949 the new version of the Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” was not publicly sung in Romania, it was however performed in Germany in Dresden Church on April 17th, 1973 under the baton of conductor Martin Flaming. The wife of composer Paul Constantinescu - Maria (Marica) Constantinescu – attended the concert. The general partition of the Oratorio was printed by Bärenreiter Printing House of Kassel (Federal Germany) and interpreted starting with 1970 in several European centers. We present fragments of the critiques published in Germany on the Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord”, performed alternatively with “the Nativity” Byzantine Christmas Oratorio Nativity sung for the first time on December 21st, 1947, under the baton of conductor Constantin Silvestri.

“Bach Oratorio is magnificent and ensures formulas, however, apart from this, there is a vast loud universe whose essence was just revealed to us now, at Dresden, after listening the two Oratorios of Paul Constantinescu” - F. Sächsischer Tageblatt, December 27th, 1981.

“Due to an exemplary interpretation, the name of Paul Constantinescu was in an instance on everybody’s lips, both music specialists and amateurs. There are contemporary composers that have never been in vogue and therefore they are now the owners of our present: Frank Martin, for example, Arthur Honegger or even this Constantinescu.” (Newspaper Sächsische Neueste Nachrichten, January 6th, 1982, Germany) “Paul Constantinescu, a brilliant expert in Byzantine melody and Romanian folklore, completing /…/an original synthesis of these two springs/…/Bach and Handel belong, of course, to their age. In front of us we have a piece of the music world of Southeastern Europe. We have seen the golden canvas of wind instrumentalists as well as a new utilization of the strings, and sometimes we have the impression that we discover a drop of Persian oil, as graciously mentioned in the opera of the roses knight” (Berlin newspaper Den Morgen, January 6th, 1982).

Of all the Romanian conductors that have directed this vocal – symphonic masterpiece in public concerts, we are also mentioning Mircea Basarab, in 1981 at Dresden (Costin Tuchilă, A Masterpiece: Passion and Resurrection of the Lord by Paul Constantinescu, in The Artistic and Literary Truth, April 21st, 1998, p. 6) We hope that in the years to come this monumental musical work – unique in the Romanian and universal music patrimony – to be more and more present in the Concert Programs in Romania, Europe and worldwide as well, to make the perennial values of the Romanian music art to become indubitable assets of universal culture.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ***. (1964). George Enescu – Monography. (G. Oprescu, Ed.) Bucharest: The Academy of Social and Political Sciences – Institute of the Art History, “Romanian Academy” Publishing House.

Bădulescu, A. I. (2012). The Music Culture of Prahova County in XIX-XX Century. Bucharest: Music Publishing House.

Bădulescu, Al. I. – A Prestigious Musical Event: 70 years from the first audition of the Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” by Paul Constantinescu, (March 3rd, 1946 – March 3rd, 2016).

Barbu-Bucur, S. (1992). Lexicon. Byzantine Music Palaeography. Bucharest : Bucharest Music Academy.

Constantinescu, Paul – The Catalogue of Composer’s Creations (offered by Marica Constantinescu to conductor Cristian Mandeal for preparing an exceptional disk who, in his turn, passed it to musicologist Petre Codreanu who further offered it on December 13, 1993, to prof. PhD Al. I. Bădulescu for the Memorial Museum ,,Paul Constantinescu”) Cosma, V. (1989-2006). Muzicieni români. Lexicon. 9 volume. București: Editura Muzicală.

Ionaşcu, S. (2005). Paul Constantinescu and the Psalm Romanian Music. Bucharest: Biblical Institute Publishing House, Romanian Patriarchy.

Menuhin, Y. (1966). About Conductor Enescu. Muzica(5), 27-28.

Sandu-Dediu, V. (2009). Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” Introduction. Byzantine Easter Oratorio “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord”. Bucharest: Casa Radio Publishing House.

Tomescu, V. (1967). Paul Constantinescu – Monograph. Bucharest: Music Publishing House.

Tomescu, V. (1990). “Passion and Resurrection of the Lord” Byzantine Easter Oratorio by Paul Constantinescu. Muzica(1), 58-76.

The Fall of Moira: Fleg And Enescu’s Twentieth Century Reinterpretation of Oedipus’s Destiny

ABSTRACT : In archaic Greece, moira was literally man’s lot. In the later Hellenic religion of Homer’s time, the personified Moira was the embodiment of fate, whose power even dominated the gods. Sophocles’ Oedipus tragedies demonstrate this omnipotence, but the modernity of the author casts a new view upon the age-old myth.

This paper sets out to demonstrate that the ever-wavering Christianatheist-Mosaic Fleg and the never wavering Greek-Orthodox Christian Enescu were to discard the omnipotence of the vengeful Olympus pantheon and revalue Oedipus’s myth from the perspective of redemption. If the pagan amphidromia/dekate is lent baptismal valences and the Sphynx becomes serpentine, Enescu’s Oriental modal sonorities sometimes migrate towards Byzantine ones.

Thus, we contend that tragic hubris is reinterpreted as redeemable sin and Oedipe will walk “to the eternal day” instead of the gloomy Hades.

The luminous conclusion comes as a perfect completion to the tormented Prelude, which reminds the listener of the Greek-Orthodox Good Friday religious service (“In the tomb – life!”), which is precisely the idea at the end of the opera. In our opinion, the Sphynx’s death symbolises the fall of a whole world and Enescu’s Prelude is a progression from an indistinct magma of sound to light, suggesting the advent of a new age.

Submitted : May 5, 2017 Admitted: June 30, 2017

KEYWORDS: LIBRETTO, ADAPTATION, INTERPRETATION, SYMBOLISM

PREDESTINATION,

RE-

IN the Greek Dark Ages and the archaic period, moira was literally each man’s lot – one’s portion of good and bad in life. Later on, in the Hellenic religion of Homer’s time, the personified Moira came to be the embodiment of fate, whose power acted in parallel with the gods and above them: the whole pantheon was subject to her predestination, including Zeus. Moreover, “In Homer, (…) moira (…) is associated with the idea of order, regularity, propriety” (Winnington-Ingram 155). Therefore, not only is fate supposed to take its fixed course, but it is good that it should be so, and R. P. Winnington-Ingram informs us there is a whole vocabulary of the inevitable in ancient Greek (150), and makes a comprehensive list of it. Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex1 and Oedipus at Colonus demonstrate this omnipotence of moira, but the modernity of the author – the father of broken chronology, of flashbacks, of the detective story and of suspense – casts a new view upon the then five-centuries-old myth of the Labdacids, thus making it a coveted source for twentieth century adaptation.

First of all, Sophocles does not mention Laius’s curse, derived from a hubristic action of his own – the kidnapping and seduction of Pelops’s son Chrysippus. The slighted father curses Laius never to have a son or, if he were to beget one, to be killed by him. Even if we may assume that the audience was aware of this causation, the fact that it is not specifically mentioned in the text shifts the focus from inherited wrath of the gods to Oedipus’s personal struggles with his fate2.

Another factor of modernity in Sophocles, in our opinion, is that unlike Creon and Antigone – correct observers of customs, oracles and orders –, Oedipus3 and Jocasta4 constantly doubt, blame, thwart, disobey and defy the gods. Nevertheless, Oedipus will die painlessly, his death place will be called “sacred” by Theseus, while his cursed, sullied corpse will be apotropaic to Athens, bestowing protection and benefices upon it.

By the time he completed his libretto, Edmond Fleg, who came from a family of non-practising Jews, had already gone through four religious makeovers: first, he had decided he was not a Jew: "I am not a believer; it is my old religion that is at fault, my poor religion, the ruin of an unfinished building. What care for forms; those absurd customs!

Alas, laws against eating ham, against tearing paper on Saturday, the custom of eating bread without leaven for seven days, have long since caused my soul to rebel though I dared not confess it." (Fleg Why5 13-14) Then he had wanted to convert to Catholicism: "‘Our Father’ was my prayer, the Sermon on the Mount was my sermon; (…)

I have wept real tears while reading about the tortures of Jesus, and I have felt ashamed of my fathers who sullied themselves with the blood of this just man (…) I am not a Jew, oh no! (…) I have heard it said that Christians alone can understand their religion, because their religion is the life of Jesus. It is also my religion because this life so radiant is the life that shall be my example; his charity, his mercy, are the objects of my admiration; I understand Jesus." (Fleg Why 13-15) Subsequently, he had discovered Auguste Comte and gone through a positivist, “liberal” (if not atheistic) phase: "Finally, Auguste Comte and his Positivism brought certitude to me. (…)

There is no other religion than the Religion of Humanity; the problem is settled. Upon this discovery of the great void an entire wall of my inner life collapsed. I should have perished but nothing happened. I was too proud of being a philosopher to complain of the errors that encompassed me. My nightly conversations with God changed in tone. The words, Reveal thyself if thou art, which I formerly repeated in my agony, were no longer a prayer; they were a summons. I defied this God, I blasphemed against Him. Then giving up the effort to obtain speech from the non-existent, I abandoned him and his silence." (Fleg Why 18) In the end, the scandal of the Dreyfus Affair (1906) made Fleg ruminate, and, through a slow process, he became a fervent Jew. But his knowledge and understanding of Christianity remained unaltered and, in 1948, he was part of the team that founded the “Amitié Judéo-Chrétienne de France.”

However, even throughout this long journey of religious quest, groping and refashioning, one thing had remained constant: “I say my prayers every night, but I pray to a God within me who is not a ruler. I have been told that God is a spirit” (Fleg Why 15). This paper sets out to demonstrate that the ever-wavering Christian-positivistic-Judaic Fleg and the never wavering, deeply pious Greek-Orthodox Christian Enescu were to reject the idea of the omnipotence of the whimsical, unfair, vengeful gods of the Olympus gods and revalue Oedipus’s myth from the perspective of redemption. For, as Linda Hutcheon asserts "Where is as important a question to ask about adaptation, however, as when.

Adapting from one culture to another is nothing new: the Romans adapted Greek theatre, after all. But what has been called “cultural globalization” (Cuddy-Keane 2003: 544) has increased the attention paid to such transfers in recent years. Often, a change of language is involved; almost always, there is a change of place or time period. [...] Almost always, there is an accompanying shift in the political valence from the adapted text to the “transculturated” adaptation. Context conditions meaning, in short."

(Hutcheon 145) At the level of documentation, Fleg’s libretto is humbling, as he not only adapts Sophocles’ two plays in Acts III and IV respectively, but also reconstructs the ancient myth from rich detailed sources in the first two. In this he had two precursors – Joséphin Péladan6 and Hugo von Hofmannsthal7.

At first sight, Fleg officiously illustrates ancient Greece, while Enescu employs numerous musical strategies – modal, oriental8 hints – to give a pagan flavour to the score: “melismata, monodies, quarter tones, recited fragments, sung words, blank voices, rhetorical figures and prosodic elements specific of ancient Greek tragedy” (Petecel*Theodoru Typologies9 149-50). Another oriental tinge is subliminally infused as the cries of joy (“Gloire!”) which announce Oedipe’s victory over the Sphynx and his ascension to the Theban throne naturally migrate towards the sonorities of Mussorgsky’s coronation scene in Boris Godunov (“Slava!”).

The Prelude is dominated by the much-discussed leitmotif of Destiny10, which will proliferate throughout the opera and metamorphose into various other motifs. Under closer scrutiny, however, we shall prove that no apparent references to Greek antiquity have the same significances as the original11.

Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex is a stunning example of deconstruction avant la lettre, as the centre of its action is missing. The pivot of Oedipus’s fate in Fleg is his confrontation with the Sphynx, which is absent in the tragedy.

The Greek playwright starts with the scene of the plague and reconstructs the whole story backwards through the technique of investigation, the inquest or the trial, in a build-up of evidence, tension and suspense. Fleg restores the normal chronology, thus being ironically less modern than his precursor (2400 years his elder). Once the curtain is raised, Laius and Jocasta take turns in wondering

what name to give their newly-born son, since his fate is a veiled god (Fleg 55) – unknown and unknowable. This "veiled god" corresponds to the third type of daemon12 described by Dodds, “who makes his first appearance in the Archaic Age, [who] is attached to a particular individual, usually from birth, and determines, wholly or in part, his individual destiny (…) He represents the individual moira or ‘portion’ of which Homer speaks, but in the personal form which appealed to the imagination of the time” (42).

Musically, this is masterfully illustrated, as the lullaby descends directly from the motif of Destiny (Bentoiu 260). Jocasta’s phrase is open, with the rising intonation of the honest question, showing that she does indeed not know what the gods have in store for her child, while Laius’s question is descending, conclusive, ending on the tonic, betraying the fact that he already knows what the gods have predicted.

Since the chronology of events is restored in Fleg’s libretto, he naturally does present the encounter with the Sphynx. Sophocles could afford not to show the scene on stage, as it was vividly present in the collective memory of his audience, used to having heard its many variants retold 13. The twentieth century librettist, however, did not have this luxury. Musically, this is the most striking and memorable scene – not accidentally, as it was the first that Enescu composed, and it evinces the gushing force of an inspiration that had been waiting to take shape: “… the dialogue between man and Monster seemed to me to be the capital moment of the drama; it was my task to make the most of it. (…) I first composed a large symphonic piece for the Sphynx scene. (…) I had to invent her yell, to imagine the unimaginable. When I laid down the pen, I thought I was going mad” (Gavoty14 89-90).

Pascal Bentoiu writes that the musical material of the Sphynx “pencils on the topless and bottomless magma of sound odd petrified shapes, appalling in their lapidary quality, but even more so when they are not heard and are only remembered as precise facts of memory in a chaotic universe 15” (269).

Composer and librettist thus place the intense tableau of the Sphynx 16 at the centre of the text and score. But they also give a name to this character – Echidna17, – which practically turns it into a different mythical creature, the Sphynx’s mother, who does not have a woman’s head and a lion’s winged body, but is a half-woman and half-snake monster. From a Judeo-Christian perspective, of course, the symbolism of the serpent becomes obvious, as the snake is Satan’s zoomorphic double and is associated with temptation, disobedience, sin, the loss of immortality and the fall from God’s grace. This metamorphosis from the Sphynx into Echidna seems to have eluded stage directors so far. Even if Enescu appears to have seen her as feline rather than reptilian, as “an implacable panther that engages in a lifeor-death confrontation with her adversary” (qtd. in O. L. Cosma 18 111), part of the leitmotif of Destiny, that originates in the Prelude and will then be sung by the Sphynx is a serpentine theme 19 that musically illustrates the slick undulating body of the monster. The fact that she is the daughter of Destiny is also illustrated musically, as the beginning of the theme of Fate in the Prelude starts with a single long note, while the Sphynx’s first line starts exactly the same way.

Moreover, in certain variants of the myth, Echidna conceives Cerberus with her own son Orthrus. The theme of incest thus makes this character a mise en abîme to the plot of Oedipus. Her significances are multiple, as Apollodorus reports her to be the daughter of Tartarus (the personification of the lowest layer of Hades) and of Gaia (therefore akin to the Erynies, daughters of Gaia and Darkness – or Nyx / Night). Fleg, however, calls her “the Daughter of Destiny” (85). She is also called “the Fourwinged Virgin” (85), which is both confusing and illogical, as the mythological Echidna did not have wings (and thus the Sphynx and her mother seem to have been telescoped into one), and neither of them were virgins, having begotten a numerous progeny.

The riddle the traditional Sphynx asks is merely a test of wit and quick intelligence: “What creature has one voice and yet is four-footed in the morning, two-footed at noon and three-footed in the evening?”20 The famous answer is "Man". Fleg and Enescu preserve the answer, but change the question, giving it an entirely different meaning: “In the immense universe, small beside Destiny, / Name someone or name something that is greater than Destiny!” (Fleg 89) Even if Sophocles stresses Oedipus’ rebellion against the gods, as well as his lack of involvement, premeditation, and intent in his predestined actions, saying that man is stronger than Fate would have been unthinkable in the fifth century B.C. It would have created a riot, and the author would have been banned and excommunicated. The defeated Sphynx’s rhetorical question – “L’homme est plus fort que le Destin?” (Fleg Libretto 89) – is an ascending phrase that reproduces the rising interrogative intonation. However, her roars of laughter, which turn into sobs and then into death rattles, are descending, as in our opinion they symbolise not only Echidna’s physical death, but also the fall of a whole world, of a pantheon, of a religion that conforms to the mindless, rancorous wrath of gods. However, the exhalation of the monster’s spirit is translated musically as an ascending thaw of the voice into the instrumental sound of a solo singing saw. The symbolical

significance of this death is also subtly emphasised by the fact that in Greek mythology Echidna is immortal, while in the modern opera, she dies21.

Fleg’s brilliant intuition urges him not to make the shift to the new age definitive, and the dying Sphynx delivers another non-Sophoclean riddle: “The future will tell thee whether the dying Sphinx (trembling) / Weeps in her defeat or laughs in her victory!” (Fleg 91), which leaves Oedipe troubled, confused, and worried. According to ancient Greek mentality, this dilemma is a tease meant to enhance curiosity towards the final outcome of the play. In the light of the modern adaptation however, it symbolises the position of this scene at the crossroads between the ancient Greek myth (in which man is defeated) and the Judeo-Christian twentieth century (in which man is triumphant).

Before she expires, Echidna talks about Moira: “even the gods are chained to Destiny” (Fleg 89) and she announces the fall of Olympus: “[Destiny] will shatter the lyre of Phoebus. It will break the arrows of Artemis. / It will splinter the wand of Hermes, the lance of Athene. (…) / And soon, in his turn, fading in its fatal embrace, / The great Zeus himself shall crumble in the night” (89). Such a prophecy, albeit in perfect consonance with a tragedy based on the force of oracles, is anachronistic – a modernist retrospective irruption into Greek mythology.

This addition to the play cannot be accidental. We contend it is proof of the way in which Fleg had internalised Wagner’s legacy as the adapter of mythology for opera libretti22: "the composer said he had followed the example of Wagner’s symphonic drama aesthetics and confessed to the tribute he owed to the colossal wizard of Bayreuth. Like Wagner, he meant to place his music in the service of the word. He wanted the text to be understood and fully perceived, as in a play carried out flawlessly, so that everything – declamation, singing, gestures, settings, props – should compete in creating the drama and an allencompassing atmosphere." (Ciomac23 170) Throughout The Ring of the Nibelung, there are recurring predictions of the fall of Walhalla.

When Wotan no longer fears this foretold fall, but has come to wish it, he goes to inform Erda (in Siegfried) and the scene has a lot in common with Fleg’s significances24. Both Echidna and the Erinyes25 are daughters to Gaia, while Wagner fashions Erda26 under the influence of the Greek primordial goddess, as Teutonic mythology did not include Earth as a divinity. Erda is an all-wise being, the primordial mother of the universe and the only one above Wotan. When he goes to her for guidance, he must wake her up from a deep slumber (like Echidna’s), an age-long symbol of existential knowledge and wisdom. She is also the mother of the three Norns, the Norse equivalent of the three Greek Fates, who weave the rope of destiny.

As Enescu was enthralled with Wagner’s genius, it is possible he may have also followed the work of an assistant and emulator of Wagner’s, Engelbert Humperdinck, as the way in which both composers introduce their malignant supernatural characters (Echidna and the Gingerbread Witch in Hänsel und Gretel) is structurally similar: both previous scenes reach an acme of harmonic turmoil, which is hushed to complete quite before one single brass sound introduces the villain.

Octavian Lazăr Cosma makes a compelling case for Enescu’s tackling the theme of man’s struggle with fate through the influence of Wagner and Brahms: "It is well known that most of Wagners’ musical dramas raise the question of man’s fate, discussing the meaning of life, man and eternity on a philosophical plane. (...) [In] Opera and Drama (...) Wagner explains in detail the Oedipal myth, its human and philosophical meaning; he also sees it fit for musical treatment! (...)

Brahms (...) was an admirer of the Antiquity, impassioned precisely with the matter of destiny, reflected towards the end of his life in works such as Symphony no. 4 in E minor. The first movement and the last one (the famous passacaglia) are dominated by a sense of tragedy – a direct consequence of his having read Sophocles’ tragedies."

In Fleg’s libretto there are many reinterpretations triggered by the creation of the opera in the twentieth century. One of them is what we may call the free circuit of genius in nature – true of Wagner’s drawing inspiration from Greek mythology while also providing it in his turn. We consider the same is applicable to Shakespeare, who must have been inspired by Sophocles when writing Macbeth, as his Weird27 Sisters are the mirror image of the Moirai28 – the three Fates Clotho (the spinner, who spins the thread of life from her distaff onto her spindle), Lachesis (the allotter, who measures the thread of life allotted to each person with her measuring rod) and Atropos (the unturnable, who cuts the thread of life), described as ugly old women, sometimes lame. Likewise, the Weird Sisters’ quality of “imperfect speakers” (1.3.70) must certainly also be borrowed from Sophocles, whose Oedipus Rex stands under the sign of Apollo Loxias (the Oblique, the Unclear), and the quintessential phrase in the Scottish play – “Fair is foul and foul is fair” (1.1.11) – must have its roots in the dozens of ambiguous and paradoxically ambivalent statements in Sophocles’ texts. It seems clear to us that more than three centuries after it was written, Macbeth come back as an influence upon Fleg’s libretto, which will add

the figure of Hecate29 to the scene of Laius’ murder. Since there are so many similarities between these two plays, dedicated to prophecies, the addition of the goddess of witchcraft, crossroads, road-side tombs and gates to Hades seemed inevitable, being triggered by the intersection of three roads near Thebes. At the level of music, Enescu’s haunting quarter tones express the same relativity, doubt, and uncertainty as the puzzling dilemma of the roads.

Another element that is intensely exploited and reinterpreted in Enescu and Fleg’s Oedipe is the symbolism of the number three. In Sophocles’ play, this symbolism is already extremely rich, meant to be a constant subliminal reminder to the spectator of the three Moirai who were incarnations of destiny, controlled the thread of life from birth to death, watched that the fate assigned to every being took its course without obstruction and ruled over men and gods equally.

The Erinyes, chtonic goddesses of vengeance, who were numerous, were also usually portrayed in groups of three, and their cult was very similar to that of the Moirai 30 (Petre 162).

The baby is sent to his death three days after his birth. Laius is murdered at the crossroads of three roads. The Pythian oracle predicts Oedipus will commit three horrifying deeds – kill his father, marry his mother and beget his siblings. The Sphynx’s riddle refers to the three stages of life – youth, maturity and old age. Oedipus’s whole life is spun within the geographical triangle of three cities – Thebes, Corinth and Athens. And when the old blind man feels his blessed, delivering end draw near, he is asked three times by what signs he knows he will die – the first time by Antigone and the other two

by Theseus.

Fleg takes over several of these elements31, and in his turn enhances even this pagan layer of symbolism. Apollo appears in Laius’s dreams three times to warn him not to beget children, Tiresias has lived three human stages or life-spans32 (117), the number of people in Laius’s chariot changes from five to three, while Oedipus’s soul and his dreams need three days to become pure again after he leaves Corinth33. Likewise, Fleg adds Hecate to the supernatural gallery of the tragedy – a triple goddess depicted as three-bodied, three-headed or three-faced, and Ovid writes about her three faces guarding three roads (Petre 188), just as in the libretto. Wandering towards that crossroads, Oedipe sings his woeful quarter-tone song on the misery of life: “Happy is he who dies on the day of his birth; / Thrice happy he who dies before he is born34...” (Fleg 83). When he guesses the answer to the Sphynx’s riddle, Oedipe hollers frantically, in a savage triumphant sound, “L’homme! L’homme! L’homme est plus fort que le Destin!” (“Man! Man! Man is stronger than Destiny!”, Fleg 89) All these additions to the number three are meant to reinforce the omnipresent symbolism of fate.

But Fleg also seamlessly instils a Christian dimension of the number, symbolising the Holy Trinity. The Prologue presents the Amphidromia or Dekate – the name-giving ritual of ancient Greece.

The ancient details are meticulously documented, and the setting includes a domestic altar, purifying water, household gods (Lares), olive branch decorations for a boy, and Apollo’s flame brought from Delos. Tiresias sits presiding over the ceremony “like a living phantom of DESTINY” (Fleg 45), while the ritual water comes from Dirce’s spring, often used metonymically to refer to the city itself. But since it resulted from the metamorphosis of Dirce’s blood, as she was killed by being tied to the horns of a bull, this element becomes an ill omen. All this material enhances the vividness of the pagan ritual.

However, during the ancient Greek amphidromia, the baby was carried around the hearth, presented to the household gods and received its name while the guests danced around the fire (Golden 22), all of which happens in the libretto too. Only Fleg adds the Christian ritual of baptism: “Pour the Waters of Dirce / Upon the newborn” (47) – a gesture that suggests the Catholic ritual –, while the water of Dirce is mentioned three times on exactly the same musical phrase. At a very subtle level, this covertly anticipates Oedipus’s absolution at the end of the opera, when Apollo is shown to repent (163) – a stance that would be impossible in Greek mythology. Oedipe’s body is “sanctified by unjust torments” (163) – a clear shift towards the virtues of Christianity – and the protagonist pronounces his fierce disclaimer of guilt: he did not have any part in the crimes ordained by Destiny, but was a victim constantly striving against the gods who controlled him, and therefore he is innocent. “The conqueror of Destiny shall bring victory again” (169-171). In fact, the highly modern Sophocles allows his outraged protagonist to proclaim his innocence time and again. The only way the prediction can come true, and fate be fulfilled is through trickery. As Knox bluntly puts it, “The characteristic Oedipean action is the fait accompli” (15). It is one thing to kill a stranger who insults you and threatens to run you over and quite another think to know he is your father. Oedipus’s case resembles syllogistic fallacies, whose reasoning seems flawless, but whose premises are false. It is also akin to trials in which the defendant is convicted on technicalities and circumstantial evidence, but after the execution he is proven innocent. That is why, as Irina Boga remarks, “The Enescu-Fleg libretto adds to Laius’s verbal attack the word ‘slave’, which partially explains his violent outburst through [sic!] the implied insult of a king’s son” (133). According to Greek mentality, pride and retaliation are honourable, even if this excess leads to yet another instance of hubris. According to the Christian dogma, pride is one of the most serious sins, but it is nevertheless far milder than deliberate parricide.

Musically, the opera concludes with the blessing of the Christian number three, as in our opinion the Athenians’ procession within the cult of the Eumenides – “Bienveillantes, bienveillantes”

(157-175) – is repeated three times in order to seal forgiveness (the defining Christian virtue) and the goddesses’ metamorphosis from divinities of vengeance and death to figures of clemency and mercy.

Enescu’s wife, Maruca Cantacuzino, “noted how strange it was that Enescu, a staunch Christian, had evoked a world of pagan classicism through his music, while Fleg, the intellectual liberal Jew, had instilled in the final scene a fundamentally Christian feeling of redemption” (Malcolm 144). It is true that the text – “Heureux celui dont l’âme est pure” (“Happy he who is pure in soul” – Fleg 157) – is part of Psalm 66 (Les Béatitudes), but Enescu’s heterophonies also imitate church music, and the “Christian halo” (Costantino 142) that is created brings the significance of the play full circle from the earlier “Happy is he who dies on the day of his birth; / Thrice happy he who dies before he is born” (Fleg 83).

Thus, we claim that in Enescu and Fleg’s opera, tragic hubris is reinterpreted as redeemable sin. Incontestable proof is the revaluation of the symbol of light 35 at the end of the opera: “defeated Destiny shall restore to him the light” (Fleg 155). Oedipus, marred by his hubris and sullied by his crimes, descends unburied into the gloomy, misty Hades in Greek mythology. Even if the Asphodel Meadows36 are mentioned in Fleg’s libretto, Oedipe goes “to the eternal day” and “shall die in the light” (173).

The luminous conclusion to the opera comes as a perfect completion to the tormented Prelude, which reminds the listener of the first phrases of the Greek Orthodox Good Friday religious service 37 – “In the tomb, life!” – which is precisely the idea at the end of the opera, when Oedipe does not die, but disappears into nature, and the place where his existence ends brings new life and prosperity to Athens.

Moreover, Enescu’s Prelude is a progression from an indistinct magma of sound to light, suggesting the advent of a world, of a new age, and the luminous conclusion of the opera comes to confirm this promise.

Having reached the symbol of light, a legitimate question must be raised in connection with the god of – among others – sun and light, Apollo. Winnington-Ingram is right to ask: "But why Apollo? Why does Oedipus attribute the accomplishment of his evils, including (if the passage has been rightly interpreted) his own act of self-blinding, to Apollo? Apollo is divine foreknowledge of what is destined to happen. Is he also an agent? Or is Oedipus under an illusion? If so, it is an illusion under which generations of readers have suffered. It is, surely, impossible to read the play without feeling that, in some more or less incomprehensible way, Apollo is at work." (178) He goes on to answer his own question by saying that Apollo was also the god of truth and selfknowledge and thus he led human beings towards them regardless of the hardships. However, seen from an ancient Greek, and thus more pragmatic, perspective, the reason might be simpler. Chrysippus’s name means ‘from golden horses’, thus he is “a true sun of the Son” (Kerényi 94). His kidnapping, seduction and ravishment, which have fatal effects, may instil a thirst for revenge in the god of music, poetry, art and oracles, a fury resulting in relentless pursuit and the plague. However, once Oedipus sees the truth, knows himself for what he is and pierces his eyes38, replacing physical sight with spiritual insight, he does precisely what his father Laius, the original offender, has not done and can therefore be pardoned.

Due to the valences lent to Oedipe by Enescu and Fleg, Moira crashes and his hubris, reinterpreted as sin, can be washed away through remorse, penance, expiation, forgiveness, absolution and – finally – redemption, the Christian trajectory that comes to superpose the Hellenic one.

There are other operas that blend several cultural and religious registers, such as Mozart’s Idomeneo on a libretto by Giambattista Varesco after Antoine Danchet: the action takes place in Crete, so the Pantheon is the ancient Greek one, but all the Gods are called by their Roman names (Neptune, Minerva). Even an intersection with the Oresteia and the Erinyes is managed through Elettra’s character, who is ridiculously cast in the part of an unhinged woman scheming to seduce Idamante. But the central theme, however, is Hebrew: the whole libretto is an adaptation of the Old Testament episode in which Abraham is ordered by God to sacrifice his own son, Isaac. On the other hand, the constant invocations of God and heaven are testimony of the librettists’ Christian faith. But in Idomeneo, this hodge-podge is only the result of careless libretto writing, claiming no aspiration to consistency, verisimilitude, or logic.

Fleg and Enescu, on the contrary, consciously take over the revered millenary myth and imbue it with new, deliberate values and significances.

As Zoe Dumitrescu-Bușulenga put it, when it comes to Sophocles: “you always come up against the opposite of what you have just asserted: on freedom or necessity, on the discovery of limits, the quality of the choices, the causes of the fall of heroes, on destiny or responsibility, on the tragic poet’s piety or rational stance” (Dumitrescu-Bușulenga 173).

The reason for this is the author’s awe-inspiring versatility and modernity. His most famous play was therefore bound to become fertile ground for adaptation in the twentieth century. After twentysix years of work (1910-1936), Enescu and Fleg created a masterpiece that would last, thus filling in another corner of the puzzle, another facet of the kaleidoscope that has been rotated for millennia by this myth of pollution, maculation, rebellion, horror, as well as relief, comfort, consolation and illumination.

ENDNOTES 1

Or Oedipus Tyrannus Brian Vickers remarks that “Sophocles (…) rigorously avoids any suggestion of inherited guilt” (496), which is apparent in both plays, but then surprisingly opposes the idea that Oedipus’s curse is a repercussion of Laius’s seduction of Chrysippus (548). However, since it is Laius who is told by the Delphos Oracle he must not beget children or else he must be killed by his incestuous offspring, it is self-evident that this is initially Laius’s plight, not his son’s.

3 In this study we shall use the form Oedipus to refer to the character of the myth and of Sophocles’ tragedies, and Oedipe to refer to that in Fleg and Enescu’s opera.

4 Whose name means ‘frivolous woman’.

5 Quotations from this book will always be given under the code Why, as against Fleg’s libretto to Oedipe, which will have no code.

6 Œdipe et le Sphinx, tragédie selon Sophocle, en prose, Beauvais, Imprimerie professionnelle, 1897. In his monumental book Oedip-ul enescian, O. L. Cosma gives 1903 as year of creation, but that was a reprint.

7 Ödipus und die Sphinx (1906) – play. Hofmannsthal was the author of six of Richard Strauss’s libretti, out of which three were inspired from Greek mythology.

8 In an interview granted to Petru Comarnescu in 1927, Enescu said: “I am working at the orchestration of my opera Oedipe, whose style is simple and rather harsh. Oriental colour, but not beyond the limit” (qtd. in Bălan 133). All quotations from Bălan will be given in my translation.

9 All quotations from this article will be given under the code Petecel Theodoru Typologies, as against the same author’s book – George Enescu – reverie și mit – that will have no code. All quotations from both works will be in my translation.

10 The toil of identifying all the leitmotifs in the opera was undertaken by O. L. Cosma, 102-188, 383-448.

11 It is noteworthy that Goethe has the same devious approach to his Iphigenia in Tauris, in which he seemingly gives a faithful rendition of the age-long revered myth, as taken over from Euripides, while actually shifting the significance of the play towards the mentality of the nineteenth century.

12 Daimon: “This word (which may or may not mean ‘apportioned’) has a stronger suggestion of personal agency but is conceived in this association vaguely, as a divine power co-existent with a man and determining the course of his life: when it determines for good, he is eudaimon, but dusdaimon when it determines for ill” (WinningtonIngram 151). These are the first two types of daemons.

13 In literature (both oral and written), taking a theme over from earlier sources was not seen as a flaw but – on the contrary – as a guarantee of quality and authority, since originality had a completely different meaning and consisted in how a story was told, not in what was told.

14 All quotations from Gavoty will be given in my translation.

15 All quotations from Bentoiu will be given in my translation.

16 Unlike the Egyptian sphynx, which was male, the Greek one was female. The French language is well suited to suggest this, since in French there are three forms: le sphynx, la sphynx and la sphinge, out of which Fleg prefers the third. The name of this unique demon of destruction and bad luck comes from the verb σφίγγω (sphíngō), meaning “to squeeze”, “to tighten up”, probably suggesting the sphynx’s lion-like way of killing, and I take special delight in the fact that it has the same etymology as the Italian spinto, my own vocal Fach (spingere meaning “to push”.) This mythical creature has the head of a human being and the body of a winged lion and according to Hesiod, she was the daughter of Orthrus and either Echidna or the Chimera or Ceto. In other sources she appears as the daughter of Echidna and Typhon – all chthonic figures from the earliest Greek myths, before the Olympian pantheon.

The Sphynx was sent to Thebes by Hera or Ares from Aethiopia, and Greeks always emphasised the foreign origin of the Sphynx.

17 Ekhidna in Fleg’s spelling.

18 All quotations from O. L. Cosma will be given in my translation.

19 “De toutes mes victimes tu seras la plus belle” (with a Byzantine ring to it) / “La bête et la poussière, et l’astre au ciel serein sont menés par sa main” (Fleg 87, 89).

20 The variants differ slightly from one source to the other.

21 Once again, in Christian symbolism, the snake is associated with the loss of immortality, and the Greek mythological Echidna is a serpentine figure.

22 Even if he did not like them, however in awe he may have been of his musical genius and dramatic innovation: “Before finalising the issue of music, I must see to the libretto. Once again its length was frightening me and I did not feel so close to Wagner’s genius as to fill a far too static action with music” (Enescu qtd. in Gavoty 133). “No pathos, no repetitions, no useless discourse – the action must be bound together quickly” (Enescu qtd. in Bălan 125).

23 All quotations from Ciomac will be given in my translation.

24 David Sansone considers that Fleg and Enescu’s scene is meant to recall another scene in Siegfried, that in which the title character awakens Fafner transformed into the Dragon (Wurm). He bases this argument on the serpentine connotations of both monsters, but we think the significances do not generally coincide, let alone the fact that Echidna’s snake-like appearance is not exploited in the libretto and that the vocal Fachs of the two characters are mezzosoprano and bass respectively. But a good point is that Siegfried does not yet know who he is, while Oedipe thinks he does, but is in fact just as ignorant in that respect (Sansone 4). We might however add an idea that does not appear in Sansone’s article – namely that Fafner’s warning: “Merk’, wie’s endet! Acht’ auf mich!” (“See how it ends! Beware my fate!”) could find its echo not in Echidna’s warning, but in that of another clairvoyant – Tiresias: “Do not laugh at the blind, you whose eyes / Before the end of the day shall see the day no more!” (Fleg 123) 2

25

According to another variant of the myth, the Erinyes are sisters to the Moirai and are born of Nix (Night or Darkness). And yet another version – also given by Hesiod in his Theogonia – claims that the Moirai are the daughters of the primordial goddess Anangke (from whose name the Romanian word ananghie was derived), wife to Chronos and holds a spindle. As Winnington-Ingram says, she “carries the notions of constraint, compulsion and rigidity” (154).

26 In German, die Erde (feminine) = Earth 27 Wyrd is the Anglo-Saxon word for fate.

28 Roman equivalent – Parcae 29 It must be mentioned that Hecate is occasionally conflated by scholars with the goddess Ceto, Echidna’s mother, which would be particularly relevant to the libretto.

30 Their sisters. See Note 24.

31 The crossroads, the oracle and the triangle.

32 The text is ambiguous: “trois âges d’homme”, which can mean the three stages of life – youth, maturity and old age – being a direct reference to the Sphynx’s riddle, or three life-spans, emphasising Tiresias’s transcending nature.

33 Very strangely, having heard the oracle’s prediction and back in Corinth, Oedipus is troubled by disturbing dreams: he sees Polybos become his adversary and himself stab him, as well as embrace Merope in his blood-stained arms at night. A psychoanalytical interpretation might lend itself to this episode, suggesting either Oedipus’s overburdened conscience that plays tricks on his unconscious, or Apollo’s mischievous interference, or a blurred interpretation of his dreams, in which he thinks the figures are Polybos and Merope, while in fact they are the yet unknown Laius and Jocasta.

34 This melancholy chant falls into the category called by Despina Petecel Theodoru “the lament with a funeral ring to it, a combination between the dirge and the threni, born from the unfathomable depths of the human being incapable of discovering the cause of evil within itself, or maybe ignoring it on purpose for fear it should face its self – or rather its own shadow – or on the contrary, persevering in searching for it and decrypting it, as an exorcism, with a view to redemption” (Petecel 70).

35 For an inspired and informed analysis of light in Oedipe, see Petecel Theodoru 135-14.

36 The first level of Hades, the section of the underworld where ordinary souls go after death. In the Odyssey it is described as “that foggy place the sun never shines” (12.3).

37 Prohodul: “În mormânt – viață!”

38 On the symbolism of the eye and of other organs we shall write another study.

(1) books Bălan, George. Enescu. Colecția “Oameni de seamă”. Bucharest: Editura Tineretului. 1963.

Bentoiu, Pascal. Capodopere enesciene. Bucharest: Editura Muzicală. 1999.

Ciomac, Emanoil. Enescu. București: Editura Muzicală a Uniunii Compozitorilor din Republica Socialistă România. 1968.

Cosma, Octavian Lazăr. Oedip-ul enescian. București: Editura Muzicală a Uniunii Compozitorilor din Republica Socialistă România. 1967.

Dodds, Eric R. The Greeks and the Irrational. Berkeley & Los Angeles: University of California Press.

1951.

Dumitrescu-Bușulenga, Zoe. Sofocle și condiția umană. Colecția “Contemporanul nostru”. Editura Albatros. 1974.

Fleg, Edmond. Oedipe. Libretto. English translation by John Rushby-Smith. CD booklet, CDS 7 54011 2, EMI France. 1990.

Gavoty, Bernard. Amintirile lui George Enescu. Bucharest: Editura Muzicală. 1982.

Golden, Mark. Children and Childhood in Classical Athens. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press. 1990.

Hutcheon, Linda. A Theory of Adaptation. New York: Routlege Taylor & Francis Group. 2006.

Kerényi, Károly. Gli dei e gli eroi della Grecia, vol. II. Milan: Il Saggiatore. 1980.

Knox, B. M. W. The Heroic Temper, Studies in Sophoclean Tragedy. Berkeley: California University Press. 1964.

Malcolm, Noel. George Enescu. His Life and Music. London: Toccata Press. 1990.

Petecel Theodoru, Despina. George Enescu – reverie și mit. București: Editura Muzicală. 2014.

Petre, Zoe, Alexandra Lițu & Cătălin Pavel (eds.) Dicționar de mitologie greco-romană. Zei, eroi, mituri. Bucharest: Editura Corint. 2011.

Shakespeare, William. Macbeth. The Oxford Shakespeare – Complete Works. W. J. Craig (ed.). London: Oxford University Press, 1971. Print.

Sophocles. Oedipus à Colone in Robert Pignarre (ed.) Théâtre de Sophocle. Paris: Librairie Garnier Frères. 1934.

Sophocles. Oedip Rege in D. M. Pippidi (ed.) Tragicii greci. Editura de Stat pentru Literatură și Artă.

1958, pp. 343-424.

Vickers, Brian. Towards Greek Tragedy. Drama, Myth, Society. London and New York: Longman.

1979.

Winnington-Ingram, Reginald Pepys. Sophocles: An Interpretation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 1998.

(2) conference proceedings Boga, Irina. “Oedipus or the Problem of Destiny, between Myth and Illusion” in Mihai Cosma (ed.) The Proceedings of the George Enescu International Musicology Symposium, vol. 1. Bucharest: Editura Muzicală, 2011, pp. 131-133.

Costantine, Salvatore. “Enescu and Fleg’s Oedipe: Innovations and Modificationsto the Sophoclean Version of the Myth of Oedipus” in Mihai Cosma (ed.) The Proceedings of the George Enescu International Musicology Symposium, vol. 1. Bucharest: Editura Muzicală, 2011, pp. 139-144.

Petecel-Theodoru, Despina. “Typologies narratives dans l’opéra Oedipe” in Mihai Cosma (ed.) The Proceedings of the George Enescu International Musicology Symposium, vol. 1. Bucharest: Editura Muzicală, 2011, pp. 149-158.

(3) scores Enescu, George. Oedipe. Tragedie lirică în 4 acte și 6 tablouri. Reducție canto-pian de Henry Lauth.

București: Editura Muzicală a Uniunii Compozitorilor din R.P.R. 1965.

(4) web documents Fleg, Edmond. Why I Am a Jew. Translated from the French by Louise Waterman Wise. New York: Block Publishing Company.

1933.

Web. <https://archive.org/details/whyiamajew028020mbp>. 29 June. 2017.

Sansone, David. “Ringing the Changes on the Oedipus-Theme: Wagner, Fleg and the Greeks”. 2005.

Web. <http://www.classics.illinois.edu/people/emeritus/Ringing.pdf>. 29 June 2017.

George Enescu and Dinu Lipatti, A Model of Spiritual Communion

ABSTRACT : This paper presents some aspects of the biographies of George Enescu and Dinu Lipatti, showing the strong personal and artistic bond between the two great musicians. Sources are letters, memoires, press articles of the time, as well as the research of some important musicologists, preoccupied by Dinu Lipatti.

Submitted: June, 06, 2017 Admitted: June 22, 2017

KEYWORDS : ENESCU, LIPATTI, MUSICESCU, RECORDINGS, CONCERTS „WE join Dinu Lipatti’s name next to George Enescu because thanks to a happy coincidence, on the land of this country, these two great artists were born, only 36 years apart from one another, out of two different environments but with similar qualities: the same modesty, the same determination for work, the same enthusiasm for composition, the same great love for the art they both glorified…” 1 Although the generations separated them through time, both George Enescu and Dinu Lipatti had a strong spiritual bond. They are the most known Romanian musicians worldwide. From this point of view, regarding the Dinu Lipatti Centenary in 2017, we have the mission to take a closer look at their lives and work, in the same time. Under these circumstances, I took the responsibility to study these aspects and to identify relevant details regarding the communication between the two artists, including their meetings along their careers, the cooperation and support they granted one another.

The biographic data shows that Enescu was a close friend to Lipatti’s family, especially because of their shared passion for the art of the violin. Theodor Lipatti (1872-1947) took violin lessons, as an amateur, with famous professors like Robert Klenck and Carl Flesch and even Pablo Sarasate, in Paris.

He played violin with great pleasure, was passionate about the violin making and also the trading of old instruments. That is why, the great George Enescu was a constant presence in Lipatti’s home in which there was a permanent interest for music. In the most natural way, after the first child, Dinu (Constantin), was born, Enescu’s attention was drawn to the little one’s musical education. He was delighted to see, in Dinu’s evolution, the signs of a great availability for the musical world. He was also aware that, at the age of four, Dinu was already able to invent musical games, to recognize and perfectly reproduce musical themes he heard and to improvise wisely at the piano. When he turned four years old, Dinu was baptized

by George Enescu, a moment that is captured in a photo, well known now in the media. The image shows George Enescu putting on Dinu’s head a laurel wreath, while he was holding a small violin, just because in the photograph’s studio there was no piano at that time. The happy father laid out the photo in the Jean Feder music shop, on Calea Victoriei. Later, Valentin Lipatti confessed: “This gesture of exhibitionism bothered Enescu very much, as he was so modest and simple, and he argued with my father. After a short correspondence between them, Theodor Lipatti and George Enescu never saw each other again. Nevertheless, Enescu remained very affectionate about his godson and their relationship soon turned into a great friendship and cooperation. I think my father suffered from the loss of Enescu’s friendship but he was too proud to admit he was wrong. However, he let Dinu become the admirer, student and friend of the great musician.” (Lipatti V. , 1993, p. 23) As we well know, Dinu received his musical education from Mihail Jora (1891-1971): music theory, solfege, harmony, composition and piano lessons from 1925 to 1928, while the child was 8 to 11 years old. Then, after an exam, he was accepted to the Royal Academy of Music and Drama, where he studied, under official terms, with Mihail Jora (still the theoretical subjects) and Florica Musicescu (1887-1969) for the piano lessons. During his four years of study, as his professors noted his overwhelming musical gifts, Lipatti was submitted to a severe discipline and was drastically limited about his public appearances from his two teachers. They were concerned about Lipatti’s education and they didn’t want the concert activity to disturb his educational process. Meanwhile, on the compositional area, Dinu is more and more active, having spectacular results due to his determination and with backup from Mihail Jora. In 1932, at the age of 15, he participates at the annual competition for the George Enescu Prize. Enescu himself initiated this contest in 1913 to support young Romanian artists in the compositional area. Now, the founder himself was head of the jury and the one that played the piano for

all enlisted works. Dinu Lipatti is granted 1st Honorable Mention for a complex three-part piano Sonata.

Next year he writes Sonatina for violin and piano and he is granted 2nd Prize at the same competition (the 1st Prize was not granted that year). In 1934 he is the absolute winner of the competition, 1 st Prize for Șătrarii Symphonic Suite, composed in that very year. George Enescu led the evaluation committees and was surely happy to see his grandson so well placed.

Right after these professional recognitions the soul and conscience of the young musician were deeply touched; there are written documents that tell us about his great success. Therefore, right after he is announced with the 1st Prize, Dinu writes to Mihail Jora, from Paris:” I don’t know how to thank you and the entire Committee for the great kindness you showed me! I will surely show my appreciation to Maestro Enescu as soon as he will return to Paris.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 42) He then made an intimate confession: „I am afraid of some influenced I might have, especially from Enescu’s piano sonatas. I will do my best to detach all these and be me, for as much as I can.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 42) The young musician desired to be in a permanent contact with the art of his mentor and this stands out as he is asked to perform Enescu’s Piano Suite op. 10 by the headmaster of the famous École Normale de Musique. It was a concert dedicated to Enescu’s work. “I warmly thanked Mr. Mangeot for this lovely perspective but I also told him that I have never worked on the suite and, instead, I can play the Sonata in F-sharp minor. It was, therefore, settled that on Wednesday evening, right after the last concert that maestro Enescu held with Beethoven’s piano sonatas, we will agree on the final concert repertoire and that Enescu will tell me the specific day I will perform. It was a dream of mine coming true sooner than I expected.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 45) Shortly after that, August Mangeot’s plan turns into reality. On February 25th 1935, Dinu Lipatti performs Enescu’s sonata in a public concert, deeply appreciated by the same Mangeot in an article in Le Monde musical: “Although yet unknown to the public in Paris, the young Dinu Lipatti recorded six enthusiastic encores, addressed both to him and the composer… We are pleased to say that we should grant the Sonata in f-sharp minor a leading place at the top of the most beautiful contemporary music works for piano. Is this 18-year-old young performer not the spiritual son of George Enescu? This day, of February 25, that united them in the same triumph, will remain unforgettable.” (Cophignon, 2006, p. 413)2 Soon after this great success, at 20 May 1935, Dinu Lipatti ended his recital with Pavana and Bourrée from Suite op. 10 that he, now, had included in his repertoire.

From his correspondence, we also find out about the visits he paid to the Maestro: “A few days ago I visited Maestro Enescu. Kind as always, he granted me the great joy of seeing him and to receive his advice regarding the performance of some musical works (Lipatti D. , 2017, pg. 57-58). This will be a leitmotif of Lipatti’s letters, this permanent need to be around his mentor, to receive his advice, to communicate, to plan events together. His is extremely happy to have received from Enescu the acknowledgement for several important matters: “A few days ago, Mr. Lazar saw our Maestro and asked him to conduct a concert at Triton Association. The Maestro accepted and as Mr. Lazar asked him to perform one of his piano sonatas, he responded that ‘Lipatti performs the Sonata in f-sharp minor better than I do’.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 167) Lipatti is happy to listen to the radio the concerts that the great violinist gave abroad. He rejoices as he tells the story about Triton’s Association concert in Paris: “It was a beautiful evening. The concert started with Sonata de piano. I was in a good mood and I performed like in my best days. Maestro, kind as usual, didn’t seize to praise me, for the rest of the evening, and told us he has only one regret: that I should have performed the entire program! How he is kind!” Therefore, Lipatti will enjoy a sweet prize: “Two days after the concert, Maestro sent me a beautiful box of chocolate. I was extremely touched by his gesture.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, pg. 189-190) During this period of attempts of acknowledgement in the musical life of Paris, a recommendation from Enescu to the conductor Paul Paray supports him a lot. Lipatti receives a letter, through Florica Musicescu, and thanks her: “I thank you from all my heart for the letter Maestro Enescu promised, thanks to which I will surely have great chances for a warm welcome from Paray. Thank you from all my heart and as soon as I will get the letter I will also thank our dear Maestro, who is so kind to all of us.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 157)3 Very soon Lipatti is again charmed with his mentor’s personality, as he confesses to his professor in Bucharest: “After everyone left he invited me to the piano and I started to play. He conducted me and from time to time gave me guidance; I was hypnotized with his wonderful performance, I had the feeling I was performing a different Sonata, for the first time… So much power of expression, such generosity in each fragment, as the Maestro was guiding me! For me, yesterday was one of the best lessons ever… He told me I could come visit and work with his whenever I want to and that he will advise me about my performance and my compositions.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, pg. 163-164) The next period is followed by concert proposals in Bucharest with Enescu’s works, performed

by Lipatti and with Șătrarii symphonic suite conducted by George Georgescu in numerous symphonic concerts. This perspective is a great happiness to Dinu. He also followed carefully all musical events that took place in Paris with Enescu’s works. On April 5th Lipatti writes to Mihail Jora with great enthusiasm: “I attended the premiere of Oedip and I was more than thrilled. It is a great moment for the

history of music!” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 73) And he continues to describe to Mihail Jora, with details, the entire evening of the premiere in Paris.

When Professor Jora mediates a proposal for Dinu to perform a Mozart work in a concert Enescu will conduct, he is thanked: “I am truly grateful for the ‘good word’ you would have said for me about the concert. The last time I spoke to the Maestro I forgot to ask him if he will conduct a concert in Bucharest.” And then: “The Mozart concerto is the one in d-minor. I would be very happy if the Maestro will agree on this proposal. I thank you very much for what you intend to do!” (Lipatti D. , 2017, pg. 7778) On 2nd of April 1938 Lipatti proudly announced back home, writing to Mihail Jora, the concert he held at École Normale in which he, Lipatti, conducted his own Suita clasica and Enescu conducted his Octuor. (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 101) Between 1938 and 1943, the destiny made possible that the two of them, Lipatti and Enescu, had a beautiful cooperation, meetings, recitals and recordings. There were, happily, a few – too few, unfortunately, on the other hand – marvelous recitals at the Romanian Atheneum in Bucharest, with great echoes in the press of that time. Each spectator out of the thousands that witnessed these great evenings kept in his memory the charm of their music, the staggering message that came out of the communion of two great geniuses. Mihail Jora wrote, after the first recital: “There is a certain artistic and spiritual connection between these two artists, despite the years that separate them and despite the lack of contact they now have. Lipatti grew away from Enescu, with very few moments in his company, in which he could assimilate the qualities of his great ancestor. Therefore, we cannot put into discussion that type of bonding that is so often met between teacher and student… What can be more useful for Dinu Lipatti than to accompany Enescu in a sonatas concert. On the other hand, the joy Enescu must feel to be able to perform and not to be eased by some beginner’s act (Jora, 1968). Also, Madeleine Lipatti remembers the same event: “An extraordinary image, the arrival of the two on the stage of the Athenaeum. Enescu, solid and strong but already with his back curved, with his head bent to his left like he was permanently playing the violin, and this young boy, delicate, shy, with his big black eyes, as he is apologizing to be there and perform along with the Maestro. The magic of their music wiped out all these differences. You can hardly imagine a communion so perfect: two sensible souls that combine, complete in order to build the musical world.” (***, In Memoriam Dinu Lipatti, 1970) Of great importance for the history of music are the records that these two have made in Paris and also at the Romanian Radio, in 1943. After these great efforts we have, now, the recordings of the two sonatas for piano and violin and also Impressions d’enfance, two of the greatest works composed

by George Enescu. There are also parts of Suite op. 10, as examples of unsurpassed mastery and true models for other performers of their posterity. Out of these recordings and other fragments found in the decades that followed there have been made numerous vinyl discs and later CD’s that enrich the musical archives of the world.

In order to achieve this type of performing communion, there were years and years of experiences and compositional challenges between the two. Maestro watched, from far away but with a careful look, the evolution of his godson. He mentioned Dinu many times in his interviews when he was asked about the perspectives of the Romanian musical school, about the performing certainties of young composers and performers. (***, George Enescu - Interviuri, 2005, pg. 276, 313, 322, 340, 351, 355, 357) We only mention one of his appreciations stated by Enescu in 1945: “I will now mention the young gifted musicians Silvestri, Paul Constantinescu, Dinu Lipatti… that show us great perspectives for the years to come, in the Romanian musical environment.” (***, George Enescu - Interviuri, 2005, p. 382) After these great achievements, the destiny made Dinu Lipatti leave Romania for good in 1943 and Enescu in 1946. There was a time of great sorrow, in exile, with sadness, emptiness and suffering, along with great frustrations and the painful feeling of separation from their country. While in Geneva, seriously ill and not being able to attend several concerts that were already scheduled and also great projects that he was being proposed, Lipatti writes to Mihail Jora, on 4 th of November 1948: “I have seen and listened to George Enescu; still a joy but he is diminished a lot. He left over the seas last week for four months. What a life, at his age, carried away by these terrible agents. I am also fighting them, in writing, to defend myself.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 135) Just a little earlier, on the 1st of January 1948 he wrote to Dona Flora (Florica Musicescu): “Enescu held a recital in Geneva, a very successful one. An exceptional evening, we were both so happy; so many memories, so many lost things, forever, for the both of us! He left across the ocean until spring.” (Lipatti D. , 2017, p. 325) Soon after these letters the pianist dies. Enescu weeps for him, himself very tired, burdened and without any special expectations, as he attends the conversations with Bernard Gavoty at Radio France: “Oh, Dinu Lipatti left us so soon; he was Romanian, and he was also my godson. When he was born, I was not in Romania, he was four when I saw him for the first time, he talked and walked. He made surprising progress in such a short time. He was so dear to me, as I watched him hesitate in front of so many talents he had; for a while I thought he will be a violinist. But after he graduated the music theory classes, he proved to have a great talent in composition, also. Finally, he became the great pianist we have all cheered. Ah, the way he performed Bach’s piano Suites was wonderful!” (Gavoty, 1982, p. 104) The pain keeps on pouring, the

grief has no cure: “The fact that Lipatti left us is a mourning of the heart for his friends and a great loss, never to be retrieved again in the music history. He was, indeed, one of the greatest performers if his time. But I would like to be forgiven the fact that in my memories, the reputation of the performer is not going to put into shadow the promises of the composer that was Dinu Lipatti. To play an instrument is great. To imagine, to create, to give life to your own musical ghosts is even better and rare. I will dearly keep in mind the memory of the Suite for orchestra that I conducted several times, the Concertino for piano, of a certain Sonatine for violin: I performed it with pleasure and hope, with the great will that my home country will find in Lipatti a worthy poet, capable of singing its endless nostalgia, its landscapes and unhappiness… Goodbye, dear Dinu, you were one of these poets. You had a star on your forehead…” (***, In Memoriam Dinu Lipatti, 1970, p. 63) Two stars of a great glare on the first page of the musical world, two absolute geniuses, two noble souls, passionate about their restless work in order to achieve perfection in creation and performance. Two examples of modesty, humanity and generosity have placed themselves at the bottom of the musical school in Romania, to serve as models in the endless desire towards the peak of perfection.

We will celebrate both by knowing more and more about their message and the deep meanings of their art.

ENDNOTES 1

Mihail Jora, a speech held in 1967, at the 50 years anniversary of Dinu Lipatti, a fragment from the radio broadcast Dinu Lipatti – a legend of immortality (Dinu Lipatti – o legendă a nemuririi), Bucharest, 1999.

2 See D. Tănăsescu „Une prestigieuse collaboration artistique : Georges Enesco – Dinu Lipatti”.

3 Letter to Florica Musicescu

BIBLIOGRAPHY ***. (1970). In Memoriam Dinu Lipatti. Geneva: Labor et Fides. ***. (2005). George Enescu - Interviuri. (L. Manolache, A cura di) Bucharest: Ed. Muzicală. ***. (București). ENESCIANA II-III. Georges Enesco, musicien complexe. 1981: Ed. Academiei Române.

Bărgăuanu, G., & Tănăsescu, D. (2017). Dinu Lipatti. (e. r. Bărgăoanu, A cura di) Bucharest: Ed. Grafoart.

Cophignon, A. (2006). Georges Enesco. Paris: Ed. Fayard.

Cosma, O. L. (1995). Universul muzicii românești. Bucharest: Ed. Muzicală.

Gavoty, B. (1982). Amintirile lui George Enescu . Bucharest: Editura Muzicală.

Grigorescu, O. ,. (2011). Dinu Lipatti. București: Ed. Didactică și Pedagogică.

Gritten, J. (1998). A musician before his time. Constantin Silvestri. Conductor, composer, pianist,.

London: Warwick Editions.

Jora, M. ( 1968). Concert Enescu- Lipatti, Octombrie 1939,. In Momente muzicale (p. 225). Bucharest: Ed. Muzicală.

Lipatti, D. (2017). Scrisori (Vol. 1). Bucharest: Ed. Grafoart.

Lipatti, V. (1993). Strada Povernei 23. Bucharest: Ed. Garamond.

Malcolm, N. (2011). George Enescu. Viaţa şi muzica. (C. Paţac, Trad.) Bucharest: Editura Humanitas.

Păsculescu-Florian, C. (1986). Vocație și destin. Dinu Lipatti. București: Ed. Muzicală.

Păsculescu-Florian, C. (1993). Mărturii despre Dinu Lipatti. București: Comisia Națională a României pentru UNESCO. Tănăsescu, D., & Bărgăoanu, G. (1992). Hommage a Georges Enesco et Dinu Lipatti. Une prestigieuse collaboration Nr. 2/1992. Muzica(2).

Iconic Images of Enescu’s Chamber Music

ABSTRACT: Doina (inscribed on the representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009) is an essential element of Romanian folklore and ethos. The melodic expressiveness and the emotional magnitude are impressive. Romanian Doina music echoes resound from generation to George Enescu other contemporary composers, whose works we find archetypes in which conserve melodic expressiveness sound authentic national values. Creation Enescu chamber defers us analyze some of the iconic images taken from Doina, configuring an analysis of morphological type, and type aesthetic and semantic. The conclusions highlight your connection profound idea (not only in the melodic) between the substrate and Romanian peasant folk cult creation signed by G. Enescu.

Submitted: May 15, 2017 Admitted: May 29, 2017

KEYWORDS : DOINA, LE MENETRIER, THE THIRD SONATA 1.INTRODUCTION: DOINA (GENERALITIES)

ROMANIAN Doina was inscribed on the representative list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2009. Doina is a improvised, solemn and lyrical folkloric song, marking the essence of Romanian folklore. It can be sung in any social context, with or without instrumental accompaniment, with expressive ornaments. The emotional magnitude is very impressive. There are various regional types of doina, with different specific elements. Doina is representative for the peasant’s soul, expressing his most intense and mysterious emotions. Doina is part of the non-occasional Romanian folkloric genres, which gives it an extraordinary freedom of interpretation, outside any specific social context. Doina is more than a folkloric genre, it is “mainly a lyrical melodic style, a song, an open form, based on improvisation and typical melodic elements, more or less variable” (Cernea, 2011, p. 42).

“Lyrical introspection is specific for doina” (Oprea, 1983, p. 299). Doina is a non-occasional traditional genre, it does not depend on a certain moment or social context, representing an intimate reaction of the singer. Doina is highly improvisational, depending on each individual creation. The specificity of the doina is its intimate state (in both its expressiveness and interpretation): it is sung for itself, as an outpour of feelings, with no audience (except for today’s concert situations, which are not part of the authentic traditional genre).

Doina is a song passed down orally from generation to generation, it preserves the authentic values of the Romanian people over the centuries. That’s why it’s so important to know and make known the Doina – an authentic Romanian peasant’s value. The melodic analysis is very complex, and we can draw same contexts in which doina appears in the Romanian modern musical environment (from George Enescu’s generation to contemporary composers).

2.A.THEORETICAL ELEMENTS: MANIFESTATIONS OF THE DOINA SPIRIT IN MUSIC The spirit of the doina can be present in many ways in the musical discourse, beyond the direct way through citation, which can be activated in musical creations. Here are some of the possibilities analyzed at a theoretical level: 1. the linearity, the predominantly melodic development of the sonorous discourse. This might also include heterophony: “in the avant-garde decades, the complex sphere of sonorous expression focused on structuring typologies created through polyphony. (…) Modernism profiled the structural pattern of polyphony in its own way” (Beldean, 1960, p. 52).

2. the parlando-rubato system, “widely spread across the entire country, present in most of the genres (laments, epic songs, doina, simple songs, some ritualistic songs, new style carols, (…) but also in certain areas on the globe (Asia, America, Africa, western Europe) – which shows the universality of the laws and procedures of this system and its ancient origin” (Comișel, 1967, p. 141). Thus, Enescu can make

his creation universal by using this system not only as an influence of the doina spirit, but also as a dominant feature of his melodic art.

3. the ornamental spirit (musical ornaments) 4. the lyricism, the introspective spirit specific to the doina.

“Defining temporality and its conditions for existence is very difficult, it is an undertaking thousands of years old, with many attempts that only partially covered the aspects it supposes. The two reference fields of the temporal concept are: the objective, scientific one (relating to Physics); and the subjective, spiritual-artistic one (of a theological, artistic and ideational nature). The two fields can be assimilated to the analysis of two aspects: cataphatic (objective); and apophatic (subjective)” (Coroiu, 2016, p. 141). In this point we can integrate the apophatic dimension related to the doina spirit in the musical art, an universe which is less able to the conceptualized, subjective, incompatible with the rational means of expression, which concern the grace and the supratemporal. In a study dedicated to the apophatic or cataphatic sonorous manifestations in musical creation, we stated: The appeal to the sensitivity of the meditative, internalized and confessional spirit of the doina opens the way to apophasis in Enescu’s creation – in our opinion, this is specific to any creation with an ample spiritual dimension.

2.B. ANALYTICAL ELEMENTS: THE INFLUENCES OF DOINA IN ENESCU’S MUSIC It is hard to establish a direct influence of the doina on Enescu’s creation, but we can talk about the doina-like nature of Enescu’s music if we ‘assimilate’ it with the improvisational feature of the Romanian folklore based on a parlando-rubato rhythm, in most of its genres (ballad, lament, simple song, and doina).

From the Romanian Poem to the Villageoise Suite, the Sonata for piano op. 24, Sonata no. 3 "in Romanian folk style”, "Childhood impressions", and from the Concert Overture to Symphony no. 4 and no. 5 to the Caprice roumain for violin and orchestra, Enescu’s creation is imbued with the spirit of the doina. More so, Enescu’s chamber music (closer, perhaps, to the assimilation of the introspective spirit of the doina) offers multiple and complex examples in this respect. Even in his Conversations with Bernard Gavoty, Enescu exemplifies personally, in his unmistakable voice, fragments of doina and round dance music, and certain passages from his works which are infused with this folk style, stylized and filtered through his own creative exigencies.

Its name can be traced to writings which go back as far as the end of the 17th c. and the 18th c., signed by the great Romanian scholar Dimitrie Cantemir. The romantic period gave rise to the idea that doina as a song is specific only to Romanians, which was refuted by Bela Bartok – who had a vast knowledge of Romanian folklore that he had collected.

The spirit of the doina occurs in Enescu’s creations not so much at the level of the folkloric material or its expression, but rather at the level of the Romanian internalized ethos specific to the genre.

We will select only the examples which illustrate this spirit of the doina in Enescu’s chamber music.

Within the Impressions d‘enfance op. 28 – 1940 we find two important moments which preserve all of the four features of the doina we analyzed previously: melody, the parlando-rubato rhythm, the ornamental style, and the lyricism (introspection). The first such moment occurs right in the initial part, ”Le Menetrier”, which is highly improvisational, very ornate, unrestrained (with the exception of the metro-rhythmic sections in which the musical discourse is organized).

Example 1: G. Enescu, Impressions d’enfance op. 28, ”Le Menetrier” (Enescu)

The second segment is the second chamber music cycle, ”Vieux mendiant”. The tempo indications and the expression contribute to creating the introspective intensely poetic atmosphere of the music: malinconico, dolce, mesto, tremando, calando, esitando. In this case the discourse involves the presence of both partners of the music score (piano, violin), so that the impression of micro-polyphony (imitative or no) of the musical discourse is deeper.

Example 2: G. Enescu, Impressions d’enfance op. 28, ”Vieux mendiant” (Enescu, Vieux Mendiant)

In the Third sonata for piano and violin op. 25 (in Romanian folk style) – 1926, the doina nature of the dialogue between the two instruments is visible from the very beginning of part I (Moderato malinconico), being revealed by the descending melodic line of the piano (measures 1, 2, 3, 6), but also by the responses of the violin. The part begins “like a whistle from afar” (Bentoiu, 1984, p. 324).

Example. 3: Third Sonata for piano and violin op. 25, part I

After a first display of the initial melodies, in measures 15-16 the piano reflects again the discourse imbued by the faltering internalized spirit of the doina, but also by the developing elements (ornaments of the type appoggiatura, changes at the level of metro-rhythmic formulas). The segments marked by the indication senza rigore show the freer improvisational spirit of the doina. Interpretation and tempo notations, such as piangendo, lusingando, armonioso, grazioso, dolce, nostalgico, esitando, pensieroso, tranquillo, dolcissimo, show it belongs to the esthetics of the subjective lamentation of the doina.

The second part (Andante sostenuto e misterioso) preserves mainly the confessional atmosphere of the doina (which derives from the rhapsodic spirit specific to Enescu), especially at the level of the melodic micro-variations at the beginning of the violin score (con intimissimo sentimento), played against the background of piano accompaniment.

In his Octet, George Enescu developed a horizontal musical thinking which refers to one of the dominant elements of the doina (not being a doina’s metamorphpsis): the linearity, the predominantly melodic development of the sonorous discourse. Martin Kowalewski mentions in one of the studies presented at the musicology symposium dedicated to the great Romanian composer that: “Heterophony and register-choreographies are the main sources for distinguishing gestalts that structure acoustical space. Without doubt, Enescu decision to write an octet was not accidental: both the genres of the quartet and the octet generally invite to a monodic way of thinking and composing. The octet, using eight instruments instead of four, increases the possibilities of heterophony and registered choreography to separate gestalts from each other. In addition, the interplay of horizontal and vertical dimensions allows Enescu to produce a synthesis between European Classical Music and Romanian Tradition in his way” (Kowalewski, 2013, p. 94).

CONCLUSION “In the history of humanity’s spiritual culture, as in the history of the culture of each people, the first moment of artistic creation is the folklore. Its origin, from this point of view, can be said to overlap with the origin of art itself, because, seen as a synthesis of traditional artistic creation, folklore represents a primary substantial and important chapter” (Sandu, 2013, p. 7). Doina “is a phenomenon of the Romanian folklore” (Rastadter, 2013, p. 182), is “a symbol of Romanian spirituality, the Romanian form of a quasi-universal musical style” (Oprea, Folclor muzical românesc [Romanian musical folklore], 1983, p. 302). “The wealth of the Enescian modal inspiration, based on the modal melodic expressiveness, exploits all the resources of linearism and latent polyphony, becoming representative as

an essence of Romanian folk musicality poured into instrumental interpretative formulas of Western influence” (VÂRLAN, 2015, p. 183).

Many Romanian researchers noted reverberations of the authentic folkloric universe in Enescu’s creation in general, including fundamental features of the doina such as: “the variational thinking of the great composer contains the seeds of the constructive vision of the present, anticipating the modern principles of uninterrupted variation and of continuously developing forms; the rubato folk and improvisational archetype of Enescu’s variation is the common factor between this technique and the random one” (Țăranu, 1971, p. 1152).

Enescu’s creation synthesizes deeply the universality and – at the same time – the nationalism of the music discourse, the primary expression archetypes and the originality which marked the creations of the 20th century: “in his creations, Enescu highlighted the latent virtues of the folkloric monad, as well as the virtues of the Byzantine monad further developed by the Romanian people. He underlined archetypes, features of the original stylistic matrix, rhythm and modal structures, unrestrained sonorous entities. His art illustrates unique means of amplifying the melody through heterophony, such as the space of the doina in Blaga’s creation, the enhancement of the accompaniment, of the recitative with its origin in the doina, the crystallization of the form as a process of perpetual variation, similar to the long Romanian song.” (Tomescu, 2005, p. 9). The conclusion belongs to the great composer: “Romanian music should be as close as possible to its source. We should preserve as much as possible of its nature” (Foni, N., & M., 1964, p. 64).

BIBLIOGRAPHY *** George Enescu – monografie [George Enescu – a monography], vol. II, Ed. Academiei RSR, Bucharest, 1971 *** Proceedings of the George Enescu International Musicology Symposium – Bucharest, 2013, Ed. Muzicală, Bucharest 2013 Beldean, Laurențiu. Heterophony in the Instrumental Show of Mauricio Kagel. Sur Scėne (1960), in Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov – Supplement Series VIII: Performing Arts • Vol. 8 (57) No. 2 – 2015 Bentoiu, Pascal. Capodopere enesciene [Enescu’s masterpieces], Ed. Muzicală, Bucharest, 1984 Cernea, Eugenia, Doina din Maramureș, Oaș și Bucovina [Doina from Maramureș, Oaș și Bucovina], Ed. Global, București, 2011 Comișel, Emilia. Folclor muzical (Musical Folklore), Ed. didactică si pedagogică, Bucharest, 1967 Coroiu, Petruța. Time in musical art: Cataphatic and Apophatic aspects, in Studia musica 1, 2016, ClujNapoca Oprea, Gheorghe. Folclor muzical românesc [Romanian musical folklore], Ed. Didactică și pedagogică, Bucharest, 1983 Sandu, Eugen Petre. Elemente sturcturale ale folclorului muzical românesc [Structural elements of Romanian musical folklore], Ed. Eurostampa, Timișoara, 2013 Tomescu, Vasile. George Enescu – un geniu al artei sunetelor [George Enescu – a genius of the art of sounds], Ed. Institututlui cultural român, Bucharest, 2005 Vârlan, Petre-Marcel. Folk modalism expression in George Enescu’s Works, in Bulletin of the Transilvania University of Braşov – Supplement Series VIII: Performing Arts • Vol. 8 (57) No. 2 – 2015

Paradigms of Enescu’s Synthesis

ABSTRACT: This paper looks at Enescu’s works from a special perspective, investigating, with examples, the ideas of originality, personal touch, Romanian traditional music as a source of inspiration, synthesis, modernism. There are various kinds of synthesis, between different layers, as it can be seen in the examples below.

Submitted: May 16, 2017 Accepted: June 25, 2017

KEYWORDS: SYNTHESIS, EVOLUTION, INFLUENCES, MODERNISM, FOLKLORE I WOULD take the liberty to make a short digression, as co-founder of this Symposium, now when 5 decades passed since I published the book “Oedip-ul enescian”.

It’s a well-known fact that George Enescu felt a deep frustration facing the public that considered him a violinist and not a composer. This dissatisfaction is present also when it comes to the incapacity of some people to understand his composer’s profile, as may be read in the concert notes for a concert of his, in 1934, in Chicago... “Some people were intrigued and bored, because they could not standardize me, the usual way. They could not determine, specifically, what kind of music I make”.

The expression “what kind of music I make”, appears of crucial importance, when every composer is considered, catalogued and placed into a folder, a current, a style, an epoch. George Enescu is complaining that he is not. Why? There could be many reasons. It may be about not offering a personal stylistic pattern, entirely settled, applicable to several scores; or, he is not enough present in concerts, with several scores; or, his works are extremely complex, of high difficulty, not easy to follow, asking for multiple re-auditions. There is one ore: the work is of absolute originality, above all common stylistic patterns, above all classifications.

Naturally, it is not at all easy to know and to understand, to be familiarized with the patterns of a composers, with his style. Especially with Enescu’s style, which evolves perpetually; no work copies the previous one, the composer being in a permanent quest for new sound worlds. Naturally, he has his models, great personalities, by he is not a follower, even if he learned their techniques, their manners, to the point that he would have been capable to compose “à la manière de…”. Now we come to a delicate point, that cannot be seen other than positive: the great performed that George Enescu was (internationally renowned soloist), new, by his vast cultural horizons and by his fabulous memory, as violinist, pianist, conductor, a huge musical literature; he was able to re-construct forgotten music sheets, after only one audition or personal rendering, this being a real danger for a composer, literally crushed under his knowledge of music. George Enescu may have been followed, haunted by the personality of the scores he knew so well. But the talent comes from within, you are born with it and you can polish it, to enhance it, to augment it with techniques and so on, if you stand on your feet and you are able to select and to be self-exigent, as George Enescu appears to be.

Certainly, for the Romanian musician, born in the Northern part of the country, there were no higher standards. He had the highest gifts so when he reached Vienna and next Paris (those being the 2 international capitals of music), as a music student, he was initiated and soon after was out bursting, showing his gifts and his craftsmanship, also learning the music of all times. Moreover, he became oriented towards composing, knowing that he is destined to have a larger view on music than a performer; mainly in Paris, where he displayed his fantasy, his full control of the technical means. He also had the chance of entering refined musical circles, to make acquaintance and to be appreciated by highly laminated minds, taking advantage of their influence. The abundance of the works of those years, the school years, displays an early talent, doubled by a remarkable working strength and an unstoppable will to overcome, including as a creator.

Rapidly assimilating the composer’s tools, the young George Enescu understood that it is imperative to find a personal matrix, the only one to offer him a personal look; to find his stamp, that would protect him from mediocrity, from the eclecticism he hated – a proof being the huge number of abandoned projects. He becomes preoccupied by finding his own path and he realizes that the only way to go further ahead is to approach and be under the auspices of his homeland’s music universe,

connecting it efficiently to the contemporary impulses. For this he had to follow the new directions in music, to see new scores, to understand the new successfully acknowledged vectors in composition and, eventually, to reach the stage of being capable to crystallize and to identify an imprint able to personalize him and to represent him. For this, he needed to obtain a personal synthesis, in which he could recognize himself.

More and more conscious about this necessity, which asked for huge research and exploration, efforts and preoccupation present all along his life, seen in large inner processes towards synthesis and deep stylistic exploration. This way, almost every new work equals with a synthesis, with a new reconfiguring of his composer’s outline. Moreover, mainly in the stages of the debut, there are works with fundamentally different technical options, advancing in various even opposite directions in the field of the elements, so diverse and so complex, that gives the sense and the life of a score.

The path of Enescu’s synthesis admits a permanent ascension, possible to be conceived through the existence of some steps, thresholds, periods, stratifications, very difficult to observe, theorize, classified and delimited. And this, because the evolution of the composer George Enescu, set very early on peaks, is hard to analyze and to set within determined parameters. Nevertheless, after rigorous research, they can be identified.

The synthesis is visible as soon as his Op.1, The Romanian Poem, written at the very young age of 16, a piece that brought him an instantaneous celebrity, internationally, after its first performance in Paris, under the famous conductor Edouard Colonne and nationally, a month later, in Bucharest, under George Enescu, at his debut as a composer. So, this was a double debut, with a score that transpired a double synthesis: between West and Orient, between the professional means of the sonorous art and the layers of Romanian traditional sound ethos. Why a double synthesis? Maybe better said multiple synthesis? Because George Enescu in this Suite with accents of symphonic poem with program, approaches, in the description of the planes, of the homeland, of the moonlight and of the furious storm, the music of Mendelssohn, Debussy, Beethoven și Berlioz, and later cites and uses the parlando and the giusto of the vocal Romanian tradition and of art of the indigenous lăutari – more specific the doina, with its rocking slow pace, the hora and the sârba. Moreover, there are heard resonances of the vocal songs of the priests, of the church music and the bell toll. All those sound zones, all those sonorous exterior objectives, are cleverly assembled, harmonized and orchestrated, dominated by intervals that will become emblems of Enescu’s style, such as the balance between the major 3 rd and the minor 3rd. To all this, forming a real sonorous conglomerate, mottled, only apparently homogenous, it comes as an addendum the final episode, where is cited, in extensor, the Royal Anthem, Romania’s National Anthem, clear sign of musician’s loyalty. This was an approach to the music of his antecessors. The Romanian Poem, a score not included among the chef-d’oeuvres by Pascal Bentoiu, with its role of flagship, was the most performed of Enescu’s scores during his lifetime, with a view towards the future.

At the same time, 2 other scores, this time chamber music, are making synthesis, obviously in a different way, showing that in the shadow of revered masters peaks can grow up: the 2nd sonata for piano and violin, with its amazingly generous themes, cyclical architecture and technical velocity, and the Piano suite ”in ancient style”, settled on baroque structures with impeccable rigor, displaying nevertheless strong emotions and variational resources, that will become unmistakable stylistic imprints of Enescu.

Another projection that reveals stylistic synthesis is visible with the apparition of the two Romanian rhapsodies, in A major and in D major. First, lyrical and swift, a burst of ethnophonic urban dances, but with fragments of rural music, too, probably heard and noted down by the composer himself, brilliantly orchestrated, combined with an ambience of nostalgia, evocative, with subtle polyphonic treatment at its climax. Here, too, Enescu is making a bow in front of his predecessors, namely Alexander Flechtenmacher, the author of the cited melody of the beginning. Next to the rhapsodies stand 2 pearls: The String Octet in C major, with its Finale in waltz movement, where the whole thematic material branches out, via unstoppable counterpointic juxtapositions combinations, built within a large sonata form, with unusual motivic iridescences; and the Dixtuor for winds, where the Enescu’s pattern becomes more authoritarian and the nostalgic lyricism and the doina-like flux unveils the ambience of the planes, valleys & hills of mioritic kind. Just that the rhapsodism, championed by the French editor in an announcement about a new score full of citations, was not representative for Enescu syncretism. So, the composer was considering other horizons of the synthesis.

Indeed, George Enescu, was aiming towards complex genre, that will appear in the synthesis demonstrated with his 1st Symphony in E flat major, as well as in the 1 st Suite for orchestra and in the cycle of the 7 Songs on Clément Marot, but in the Symphonie concertante for cello and orchestra. The unstoppable heroic impulses of the Symphony’s first movement, displaying grandiose motivic arch lines, with large variational thicket, in a gradual outburst doubled by lyric effusions of the discourse that goes along polyphonic lines of unstoppable scale, in an instrumental illustration of expansive explosions. The Finale, imposing, impetuous, shows a breath of brilliant sturdiness. The style appears plenary and ravishing.

The “Prelude in unison” from the Suite, based on a motivic structure that appeals to formulas with doina-type overflowing and oscillations, in an epic-allure symbiosis, may be considered as one of the most powerful outbursts of Enescu’s genius. A synthesis that should have become relevant for the imprint of the composer, as well as the model it illustrates. The Songs are remote, but they bear enough of the attributes of Enescu’s morphogenetic emblems, where the general doina typology becomes the strengthen of the sung declamation. The Symphonie concertante, full of profound ethno stylistic cells, marks up a decisive step towards modernism, via the exuberant orchestral explosions of Straussian scent.

This score implies an enlarge coefficient of synthesis, Enescu’s style with evident approaches towards Romanian oral music versus the unmistakable style of composer’s personality.

The next step of the synthesis is strongly connected with the pure Romanian environment, since the virtuoso musicians was forced to stop his chain of European tours as an effect of the travel restrictions imposed by the combat flames of WW1.

George Enescu plays the violin, the piano, in public gatherings and recitals, but he mostly composes and conducts, in Bucharest and in Iasi. It is a fruitful phase, with a modern touch, not aggressively displayed, because George Enescu is not avid of it, continuing to believe that the Great Music should be appreciated and continued, because it represents the forefront of the values, while the innovations must be known and even assimilated.

Also in this stylistic perimeter should be viewed the Piano Quartet no. 1, imposing but controversial, with its extraordinary slow movement, Andante, due to the melodic flow that highlights the instrumental cantability, so generous, full of enchanted ethnophonic sounds, that praises the unison.

Here, too, the Enescu’s style is truly delimited and jubilates.

The next stage of the synthesis is foreshadowed after terrible attempts that kept the composer’s attention tensed, without bringing satisfactions, without finding himself, something that lead to abandon of projects such as Strigoii, on Eminescu’s verses.

After this follow the masterpieces of 1915-1920: Symphony no. 2, Pièces impromptu for piano, Suite no.2 for orchestra and the magnificent Symphony no. 3, with organ and chorus. Written in A major, the 2nd Symphony, enigmatic through its destiny, conducted only twice by the composer, is remarkable by its tumultuous, convulsive, overflowing expression, with multi-motivic arches of the fundamental themes of its movements, that interferes in overwhelming counterpointal devices. Large chromatic perimeters may be distinguished, of modal type. Enescu the orchestrator appears in a clever posture, due to the timbral abundance, glorious and effective. Absolute master of the sophisticated architectural structures, George Enescu made a score of unusual density, difficult to follow in a single audition. Thus, the music critics were not able to see its exceptional artistic virtues, rushing into naming it as “revolutionary”, “red”, “Bolshevik”. And because George Enescu was not willing to accept the label of ”modernist”, he withdrew his score. It was rehabilitated after almost half a century, when it was received with unstoppable applause. Today this no. 17 is considered one of the most representative and most original for Enescu’s synthesis.

Pièces impromptues, called Suite by some people due to its succession of 7 movements, again not known for a longtime, is also innovative, mostly due to ”Carillon nocturne”, where he extrapolates strident sounds of night bells, by chord over positioning, where, the major 7 th and the augmented 8th offers a fabulous alloy. These mysterious chords are counterbalanced by a quasi-doina melody, which seems to come from depth. These troubling pages represents Enescu’s mimetic intersection with the avant-garde of the time. The Suite no. 2, authentic orchestral jewel, repositions the author in the spheres of neo-classicism, of redoubtable ludic expression and impeccable master craft, with parts that leads the sonorous fantasy forwards sublimate euphonic zones.

Symphony no. 3, tono-modal, with vast chromatic insertions, massive fresco with depths of philosophic allure, favorizing various interpretations and re-interpretations, not denied by the author – evocation of Dante’s Inferno, or the horrors of humanities most difficult tryouts during WW1. The music is highly introspective, with meditative and dramatic parallels in the 1 st movement, with memorable pages of volcanic tragism, highly transfigured in the Scherzo and with a peaceful reverie with lyric, evocating illuminations in the 3rd movement, of uncommon poetic beauty. In this symphony, the composer displays his potential, his technique, and invents not known procedures, thus significantly enlarging the axes of his synthesis. George Enescu discloses his stylistic maturity, of late neo-romantic kind.

Impressionistic thresholds are approached in the new phase of the synthesis, firmly dominated by the perimeter and the archetypes of the native sounds world. Moreover, the composer is unveiling his componistic method, the nature of his style, via specific collocations such as ”in Romanian folk character”, from the 3rd Sonata for piano and violin and the Finale „à la roumaine” of the 2nd Sonata for piano and cello, with their so sublimate character of the expression. In other words, this is the superior stage of the synthesis, embodied in wonderful scores, George Enescu finding his stylistic boundaries as well as the way to a syncretic form of parlando-rubato and giusto-silabic, the dominating enlarged modalism the full chromatic sum, extended with microtones, quarters or thirds of tones. Moreover, in

the lyric tragedy Oedipe, supreme display of the synthesis, there are added the modern and so subtle means of deciphering the vocal declamation.

The achieved language will be preserved, not without freedom, in the next scores, like the String Quartet no. 1 in E flat major, the Piano Quintet in D minor, the Suite “Impressions d’enfance” for violin and piano with its mirific portrait of the Fiddler, the Suite villageoise for orchestra with its timbral subtleness and with its energetic rustic dance from the Finale. Same means may be identified in the troubling symphonic poem Vox Maris, of an incandescent dramatism, The Concert Overture, as well as in the Chamber Symphony, where the speech dissolves in the ample soloistic heterophonies of the 12 instruments. In the synthesis equation, we must also count the so complex and perturbing scores completed by Pascal Bentoiu and Cornel Țăranu.

Instead of conclusions an answer should come to the delicate question if Enescu’s synthesis had reverberations on other Romanian composers? It is enough to remember scores of Dinu Lipatti, the most faithful follower, Constantin Silvestri, Paul Constantinescu - The concert for piano, violin and cello, Mihail Jora – the ballet The Return from the depth, Sigismund Toduță, Ștefan Niculescu, and the answer can be only positive.

Eventually, we stop in a hurry on the prediction that Enescu’s works will only be really known in the 3rd millennium. Indeed, some signals are present, including books of international authors such as the British Noel Malcolm, the French Alain Cophignon, the Italian Paolo Isotta – all of them declaring they are charmed by the value of Enescu’s music. To stop only on the last of those it must be remembered that he makes use of Pablo Casals’ authority, who said that George Enescu is the most gifted and most complex musician from Mozart inwards. Moreover, very convincingly analyzing Enescu’s scores, he reaches the conclusion that the Romania looks as the most personal and gifted composers of the 20 th century, by far. Evidently, the paradigms of the synthesis Enescu made, with ardor and eloquence, entirely proves this. But the respect we display for Enescu’s rich legacy at the times of the International Festivals should be extended to a permanent presence of this music in the concert life and on radio & tv.

BIBLIOGRAPHY ***. George Enescu – Monography. Edited by George Oprescu. Bucharest: The Academy of Social and Political Sciences – Institute of the Art History, “Romanian Academy” Publishing House, 1964.

Bentoiu, Pascal. Capodopere enesciene. Bucharest: Editura muzicală, 1984.

Cosma, Octavian Lazăr. Hronicul Muzicii Românești. Bucharest: Editura muzicala, 1973-1995.

Oedipus’ Myth: From the Ancient Tragedies To George Enescu’s Masterpiece

ABSTRACT: Oedipus, the mythical Greek king of Thebes, son of Laius and Jocasta, inspired many writers, painters and composers. From the ancient tragedies written by Sophocles and Euripides the theme was transmitted, through Seneca, to a long succession of playwrights, including Pierre Corneille, John Dryden, and Voltaire. During the Renaissance, the history of this tragic hero became a source of inspiration for musicians like Andrea Gabrieli, later composers like Henry Purcell, Felix Mendelssohn or, in the 20 th century, Arthur Honegger or Igor Stravinsky wrote musical pages inspired by various moments of Oedipus’ life. But of all these composers, George Enescu stands out by his masterpiece, « Oedipe » as the unique that shows Oedipus’ entire life, from his birth to his tragic death. This paper is research regarding how the Oedipus’ myth was transposed into the music from the early lyric works to Enescu’s opera based on the Edmond Fleg libretto.

Submitted: June 21, 2017 Admitted: June 30, 2017

KEYWORDS: Enescu, Oedipus, mythology, tragedy, Sophocles AFTER the ancient plays of Sophocle and Seneca, the myth of Oedipus met a long silence. It came back to the top in the Renaissance when it was put on stage accompanied by music. On March 3, 1585, Oedipus tyrant, a sofoclean version edited by Orsetto Giustiniani, with stage music by Andrea Gabrieli, inaugurated the Vicenza Theater of Olimpic. In the versions elaborated in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the drama is not centered on Oedipus's individual destiny, it involves the whole court and its dynamics, as demonstrated by Pierre Corneille’s Oedipus, represented in 1659 and inspired by Sofocle and Seneca, and Emanuele Tesauro’s Oedipus of 1661. The rejection of the myth on the European scene is witnessed by the production of some twenty versions in the 17th and twelve in the following century.

Among these stands out for the innovative character of John Dryden's and Nathaniel Lee’s Oedipus, staged in Dorset Garden in 1678 with music composed by Henry Purcell. The work is based on the typical contrasting of the time, between barbarism and modernity, as summarized by Friedrich Hegel: "There can be no hero in the State; he only appears in the state of barbarism”.

Complete the dramaturgical reconnaissance of Oedipus myth, the publication of Jean Cocteau's infernal Machine. Preceded in 1925 by a free translation of Oedipus King and by writing the booklet used by Igor Stravinskij to compose Oedipux Rex (1927), this important 20-th-century reworking was written in 1932 in Saint-Mandrier, near Toulon, and then represented two years later by Louis Jouvet.

Most importantly, since the Renaissance, the myth of Oedipus has been represented on theatrical scenes using still the musical language: from the music of Andrea Gabrieli and Henry Purcell to George Enescu's masterpiece on Edmond Fleg's libretto.

MUSIC AND THEATER IN THE ANCIENT GREECE It is well known that Greek tragedy was not just recited, or at least not exclusively. Actors and chorus, in fact, were mostly expressed in a sort of difficult declamation that today is difficult to imagine. The characters on the stage (all played by men) were entrusted to monodies, duets, and thirds. The choreas unfold their song at the time of the entrance to the orchestra ("parody"), between acts ("stasimi"), to the exit ("exodus"). Initially, such interventions were characterized by the strong emotional tension, then they took on more lyrical tone, freeing themselves from the rest of the action. Of that music, of which the same tragediographers were the authors, there is only a plethora of posthumous and decipherable problems coming from the Euripides’ Orpheus. However, we have a rich set of literary testimonies.

Some of them are definitely anecdotal: for example, the one that tells how the song of Furies in the Eumenides of Aeschylus produced such a frightening effect that the children who were watching the

show had to fall into convulsions for the fright. Others help us understand the function and specificity of music in the Greek theater of Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides. Of the first (525-456 BC) we know the severity of style, obtained through the repetition of the same rhythmic-melodic patterns mostly accompanied by the hollow. Sophocles (496-405 BC), admired by contemporaries for the sweetness of his melodies, brought the number of twelve to fifteen coreutes, introducing even more players into the tragic orchestra. The greatest innovations, however, were with Euripides (482-406 BC), which included virtuous arias, even in popular or exotic tones, in his tragedies, in order to obtain the utmost emotional engagement of the public. This aroused the blame of many, including the bland Aristophanes. In comedy, on the other hand, only occasionally the actors were required to sing - and the chorus exclusively in interviews between acts.

Even in the Roman theater, spoken dialogues alternated with sung sections. In Luciano's dialogue on dance De Saltatione (circa 165 AD), a tragedy actor is described: "Screams, bends back and forth, sometimes even sings his jokes, making melodies his misfortunes (which is of course, the fullness of indecency ... [...]

To tell the truth, as long as he plays an Andromaca or a Hecube, his song can also be tolerated; but when he pretends to be Hercules in person, he throws a cane [...], a balanced man can truly judge it as a bad thing. " (De Samosata, 2007).

Regarding the chorus, it is still unclear whether or not it participated in the tragedies, and to what extent. For sure, however, to perform in acts of comedies was often a large and striking orchestra.

Pipes, citharas, bagpipes, percussion instruments, and even voices, made up the accompaniment for mime and pantomime, spectacular genres affirmed in the first century BC, often with protagonists.

OEDIPUS’ MYTH DURING THE RENAISSANCE Emblematic of the classicist experiments of the second sixteenth century, the representation of the Egyptian tyrant, with which the Vicenza Theater Theater was inaugurated on March 3, 1585, was an exceptional event for the history of modern theater. In the splendid building made by Palladio, the tragedy, in the translation of Orsatto Giustiniani, made use of the famous scenes by Vincenzo Scamozzi, the scenic direction of Angelo Ingegneri and Andrea Gabrieli's music. The show perfectly interpreted the late-Renaissance Italian cultural temperament, namely the birth of the intellectual interest in classical theater and the desire to make it come to life through a form of total performance where word, music, gesture Integrate in a completely new and exclusive way, without one of the languages prevailing over the others. Giustiniani, at the request of the Olympic Academics [1], obtains a translation of the Greek text by renouncing to reproduce the cadence of the original giambic meter and using instead the free succession of endecasillables and settenaries, already typical for the intermediaries and the pastoral tale.

A choice - which cost him the critiques of contemporary purists - of modernity in tradition, dictated primarily by the will to approach the rhythm of the verses to the spoken Italian. These literary prerogative plays in favor of the musical rendering of the texts entrusted to the Choir, put in music by the famous Venetian composer Andrea Gabrieli, chaplain master in San Marco. With his Chori in musica composti sopra li chori della tragedia di Edippo Tiranno: recitati in Vicenza l'anno MDLXXXV, (published later

by Gardano in 1588), the now-old master achieves a level of musical experimentation unmatched for his time.

The last effort of the Venetian composer - Andrea Gabrieli died five months later - the Chori (see Figure 1) can be considered a true unicum: they are the only surviving example of music written specifically for a sixteenth-century tragedy. Being a composition destined for a show in which word, action, and music had to integrate perfectly, there was a strong sense of the need to make the text clearly perceived to the audience. When composing the four Chori, Gabrieli diligently followed the ideas of Ingegneri: the choruses would have «constare di voci humane solamente» [2] and, above all, the words ought to have been «così chiaramente esplicate, ch’il Theatro le intenda tutte, senza perderne una minima sillaba» [3]. Gabrieli therefore systematically entrusts to rigorous chordal vocal writing, rigidly homorhythmic, syllabic and declamatory, out of any imitative and counterproductive process, thus making a musical discourse faithfully researched on the prosody of the verses of Giustiniani, so that the length of the notes coincides with the accentuation of the verbal text. Inside the songs then there is no repeating of the poetic text, except the last two verses of each chorus, to underline its concluding moment. The only exception is the repetition of the «O, sfortunato Edippo»" verse, not by chance in a particularly pathetic point in the last choir. Though he follows a stiff, quasi-constrained, homorhythmic writing, Gabrieli manages to move with mastery, succeeding in conferring varieties on musical discourse through various gimmicks. First and foremost, through the ever-changing, alternating voices, especially in the first choir, where all the possible combinations are explored: it passes from three to four voices, from the single voice to the "duo" and, at moments in which is sung in six voices, there are different groupings even within the same section. As variations of the soundtracks are added unexpected harmonic changes, often unpleasant, such as those dizzying that in the choir first accompany the lamentations verse «Trema la mente in me stupida, et tutta / Per timor sbigottita». Finally, Gabrieli makes use of

"descriptive" figurines, not dissimilar to those of the madrigals. In the first chorus, the trend becomes more concise in the direction of «Che sì lontan le tue saette avventi», to portray soundly Febo’s feeds; analogous expedient is used in the verses «Più che ’l foco leggiere / Fuggon l’alme di Stige», followed by a slow, melancholy chromaticity descending on the words "to the sad litters. Similar "madrigalismi" are found in the verses «Si raddoppiano gl’Inni», in which one passes from two voices to four, and «In lei sopite, et spente», where voices suddenly "turn off" concretely, through a more advanced course that leads to a sudden pause.

Fig.1 – The score of Edipo Tiranno by Andrea Gabrieli (1585) Despite the obedient adherence of music to the word, at the time of representation the text was not always intelligible, according to what can be seen from the comments of time. However, as his grandson Giovanni remembers, Andrea Gabrieli was "singular in the imitation of the sound of words and concepts", even though limited by rigid formal constraints, there is no doubt here the ability of the Venetian composer to assimilate music to text, following the path of the affections, from the more confident sluts to the loudest lamentations.

OEDIPUS’ MYTH DURING THE BAROQUE PERIOD In the 17th century, the myth of Oedipus became the subject of choral compositions by artists such as Jean Baptiste Lully and Henry Purcell, who composed, respectively, music for Oedipe by Pierre Corneille and Oedipus by Dryden and Lee, respectively. In 1664, Jean Baptiste Lully writes Entractes d'Œdipe (LWV 23), Ouverture et cinq airs de danse avec entractes sur le livret de Pierre Corneille, created on the 3rd of August 1664 at Fontainebleau in honor of the Cardinal Chigi.

In 1692, the English Baroque composer Henry Purcell, composed the incidental music (Z 583) to John Dryden's and Nathaniel Lee's play Oedipus (see Figure 2), structured in four sections: 1. Prelude and Song: Hear, ye sullen powers below 2. Song: Music for a While 3. Song: Come away, do not stay 4. Song: Laius! Hear, hea The second of four movements is the famous song „Music for a while”. An ascending ground bass in C minor forms the basis of the piece, with melodic development layered above. Originally for voice and continuo, the piece exists in multiple arrangements, including for solo keyboard and violin and keyboard. The text is:

"Music for a while Shall all your cares beguile.

Wond'ring how your pains were eas'd And disdaining to be pleas'd Till Alecto free the dead From their eternal bands, Till the snakes drop from her head, And the whip from out her hands.”

One of Purcell's most admirable tunes, text and music emphasize the power of music that soothes - for a while - pain and suffering. But it is also of the eternity that Purcell wishes to talk to us: the obstinate bass, bewitching and immutable is the most obvious symbolic. The text of Dryden, visionary and prophetic, proposes an even clearer evocation. And it is this alliance of text and music, this perfectly just accord, which characterizes the genius of Purcell, which draws its inspiration from poets of universal significance, such as Dryden or Shakespeare. And we find this obstinate bass in many other composer's songs (The plaint, O solitude! ...).

Fig.2 - The play „Oedipus” by Dryden e Lee, published in 1679

OEDIPUS’ MYTH DURING THE CLASSICISM In 1785, Antonio Sacchini composed Œdipe à Colone a French melodramma (tragédie lyrique) in three acts on the libretto of Nicolas-François Guillard, inspired by Sophocles tragedy (see Figure 3). The first interpreter Louis-Claude-Armand Chardin, who had italianized his name in "Chardini" (or Chardiny), was considered by the Opéra as a bass-taille, that is, to say “low-singer” or “low-baritone”. In fact, the Thésée's score seems to be written rather for a tenor voice, the tenor key (C on the fourth line) appears on the original score. After the death of the composer, it was again represented, this time triumphantly, in the Salle de la Porte-Saint-Martin, at the provisional seat of the Académie, the evening of February 1, 1787 [3]. From then on, the work was staged on the highest Parisian theater each year from 1787 to 1830, as well as in July 1843 and in May 1844, for a total of 583 readings, becoming the most famous work of Sacchini and One of the most durable billboard of the eighteenth century. [3] . The work also had a great European fortune and was translated into Dutch, German, Swedish, Russian and Italian (translation by Giovanni Schmidt) but almost completely emerged from the repertoire in the 1930s of the nineteenth century. Despite its enormous initial success, it, like all of Sacchini's music, did not enjoy significant attention in the modern era: there are not theatrical performances but only a couple of performances in concert form (including one Radio in Italian in 1971, with Renato Bruson as protagonist) [4] and two recordings in 2005 [5] and 2006. [6]

Fig.3 - Cover of Booklet Edition 1788 Œdipe à Colone is scored for 2 flutes, 2 oboes, 2 horns, timpani, and strings. Like most classical period works, the presence of continuo instruments like bassoons and harpsichord is assumed as well.

Some modern performances have used a thunder sheet to represent the stormy anger of the gods portrayed at the end of Act I. The most known pages of the opera are: • the Oedipus air "Antigone me reste" of the third act; • the hymn and march of priests from the first act; • the scene of the second act between Edipo and Antigone "Ah! N'avançons after ... Filles du Styx" • the second part of the second act, fourth scene; • Polinice's "Le fils des dieux" air of the first act.

So, in 1817, Gioachino Rossini wrote Edipo a Colono, incidental music for bass, chorus and orchestra, a composition destined to be performed as stage music for Sofocle's homonymous tragedy. It was written by the Pesaro master on Giambattista Giusti's Italian verses. In the framework of the Rossini Renaissance, the Oedipus Colonist - rarely executed in modern times - returned to the scene after a long period of absence at the Rossini Opera Festival in Pesaro in 1995. The work has five parts: 1.Sinfonia / Preludietto, 2. Recitativo e Arioso. A questa terra illustre / Cor. Dall'alma celeste / Recitativo. Per te novella gloria, 3. Arioso. Fussi pur io là dove / Coro. O Giove egìoco, 4. Recitativo. Nudo è colui di senno / Aria. Meglio fora non mai / Aria. Ecco il misero stato, 5. Arioso. Se a me non è vietato / Aria. A te innocente e misero / Coro. O, tu dell'Orco custode indomabile. Before Rossini, in 1802, Nicola Antonio Zingarelli wrote, on the libretto of Simeone Antonio Sografi, the opera Oedipus in Colono, represented for the first time on December 26, 1802 at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice. It is in the style of the Neapolitan school, of which the author was one of the main exponents.

OEDIPUS’ MYTH DURING THE ROMANTICISM Unjustly, Mendelssohn’s setting of Sophokles’ Greek tragedy Oedipus at Colonus is less well known than its companion piece, Antigone, which was frequently performed in the 19th century in Germany and abroad. For a time it was even his most popular work. Both works stem from a commission from King Friedrich Wilhelm IV, whose declared aim was to make the Greek tragedies and other

outstanding examples of classical drama accessible once again to the public. In 1841, a year after his accession to the throne, he appointed Mendelssohn Royal Court Music Director and gave commissions to write music for four Greek tragedies, of which Oedipus at Colonus from 1845 was the third. The score contains nine pieces in which the choruses from Sophocles’ tragedy were set to music. The shame of Oedipus is symbolized by the tritone as a weighty dissonance which powerfully permeates the entire work both in melodic gesture and in harmonic aspects. Major elements of Oedipus's compositional style are already familiar from Antigone, most notably the double choruses (each of which is in four—and later eight—parts) that Mendelssohn used for the play's strophes and antistrophes. ''Where is he hiding...'' enquire the first (right-hand) chorus: ''... call him everywhere'', respond their opposite numbers—a tense, pensive and poised opening, very much the sort of thing we remember from Elijah. There are some wonderful episodes to savour, the finest being the first meeting with the men of Colonos, the chorus's pleas for leniency towards Oedipus and best of all, a six-minute chorus (a ''Hymn to Athens'') that compares, in its grandeur and consolatory spirit, with the best of Elijah or St Paul.

OEDIPUS’ MYTH IN THE 20TH CENTURY Reconsidered by Freud, at the start of 20th century, Oedipus’ myth becomes a great attraction for many composers. Both incidental music and operas were written on this story. In 1901, Flor Alpaerts wrote Kolonos cantata, and later, in 1906, Oedipus Rex, incidental music.

Oedipus at Colonus is a composition by the Swiss Frank Martin (1890-1974), written in 1923 to be performed as stage music of the Oedipus at Colonus by Sophocles. It was premiered for the first time at Comédie in Geneva on November 21, 1922, directed by the composer himself. The organ features soprano, baritone, small choir and small orchestra. It is part of a trilogy inspired by the theater of Sophocles, followed by the King's Edip, made up in the previous year. Stravinsky wrote an oratorio on his theme premiered in 1928, and Carl Orff an opera, Oedipus der Tyrann, during 1957-1959. Between them, in the same year, 1936, Ildebrando Pizzetti's incidental music Edipo in Colono was premiered for the Sophocles tragedy, performed for the first time at the Greek Theater in Syracuse on April 24, 1936 [7], and George Enescu’s masterpiece Oedipe. Set to a French libretto by Edmond Fleg, the opera received its world premiere in Paris on 13 March 1936. It is a birth-to-death portrayal of the Oedipus story, in four acts and six tableaux, with the third and fourth acts corresponding closely to Sophocles’ two Theban plays, Oedipus the King and Oedipus at Colonus. The unique opera composed by Enescu, this title is one of the major lyrical compositions of the first half of the twentieth century. The libretto puts together Oedipus King and Oedipus to Colone by Sophocles in a single block linearly oriented towards an end with a humanist message. The role of Oedipus is preponderant, so the work has been considered a "monodrama" with secondary characters. Music, based on the principle of the leitmotif inherited from Wagner, but also having relations with Claude Debussy and Arthur Honegger and anticipating Olivier Messiaen, exploits a very vast range of musical language resources and vocal expressiveness.

CONCLUSIONS 1.

The Christian controversy against the theater, condemned as a false institutionalized place, leads, from the fifth century, to the eclipse of theatricality in its own right. The recuperation of classical theater by late 19th-century humanists led to the scenic re-design of Greek and Roman antiquity texts. Among the acts, replacing the ancient choirs, they were placed in intermediaries of various nature, mostly mythological or allegorical. The spectacular episode is equally remarkable, the messiah of ”Edipo King” of Sofocle in Vicenza for the opening of the Olympic Theater (1585): the choirs of tragedy, in Italian translation, carried the music of Andrea Gabrieli who with his homorhythmic trim ensured the full intelligibility of the text.

2.

After the revival of the ancient tragedy, il mito di Oedipus became a very important source of inspiration for composers. At the beginning, they were invited to compose incidental music, for the plays staging. The first opera appeared after two centuries (1785, Antonio Sacchini composed Œdipe à Colone) 3.

The Romantic period wasn’t very interested in Oedipus’ myth, but the 20-th centuy represents a real reconsideration of oedipian myth transposed in many and various forms of music: cantatas, oratorios, incidental music and, mainly, operas.

4.

Certainly, George Enescu’s Oedipe is a major musical work, a real synthesis of the European theatrical art and, in the meantime, a very original opera in terms of musical forms, melos and ethos, a real masterpiece in the history of the universal music.

ENDNOTES [1] L’Accademia Olimpica (The Olympic Academy) is an ancient cultural institution in Vicenza, founded in 1555 by a group of intellectuals, including architect Andrea Palladio who designed also Il Teatro Olimpico (The Olympic Theatre).

[2] to "stand for human voices only"

[3] "so clearly explicated, as the audience understands them all without losing a single syllable.”

[4] published by MRF (Morgan Recording Federation) in 1977 [5] prima registrazione mondiale giugno 2004, pubblicata 2005 da Dynamic 494/1-2 CD - Sviatoslav Smirnov (baritono), Manon Feubel (soprano), Chœur de Chambre et Orchestre de la Camerata de Bourgogne, cond. Jean-Paul Penin [6] Naxos, 2006 CD - François Loup (basso-baritone), Nathalie Paulin (soprano), Coro e Orchestra Opera Lafayette, cond. Ryan Brown [7] This music was not subsequently published by the author

(1) books Cosma, V. (1981). Enescu azi: Premise la redimensionarea personalităţii şi operei, Timişoara, Ed. Facla.

Gabrieli, A. (1995). I cori per «Edipo tiranno», a cura di N. Pirrotta. Milano, Casa Ricordi Gavoty, B. (2005). Les souvenirs de Georges Enesco/Amintirile lui George Enescu, Bucureşti, Ed. Curtea Veche.

Malcolm, N. (1990). George Enescu: his life and music,Toccata Press De Samosata, L. (2007). Tutti gli scritti, traduzione di Luigi Settembrini. Milano, Bompiani.

(2) conference proceedings Gentili, B. (1982). Il tiranno, l’eroe e la dimensione tragica. In B. Gentili – R. Pretagostini (a cura di), Edipo, il teatro greco e la cultura europea, Atti del convegno internazionale, (Urbino, 15-19 novembre 1982), Roma, 117-23 Lascu, C. (2011). Recordings with George Enescu as a performer. In Proceedings of the “George Enescu” International Musicology Symposium, București, Uniunea Compozitorilor și Muzicologilor din România.

(3) web documents Pecker Berio, T. (2003). Introduzione on line al pensiero e alle pratiche della musica. http://www3.unisi.it/ricerca/prog/musica/linguaggio/mus_sce.htm#indice Bruil, A.R. (2002). Georges Enesco (1881-1955., http://www.soundfountain.org/rem/remenes.html

Reflections on Performing Enescu

ABSTRACT: This paper presents some aspects about Enescu’s opera Oedipe, presented nowadays in many important cultural centres. Ira Levin conducted the first performances of Valentina Carrasco’s stagings both in Buenos Aires, Teatro Colon, and Bucharest, National Opera House. He presents some consideration about conductor’s work on those occasions.

Submitted: 2017-16-05 Accepted: 2017-24-05

KEYWORDS: OEDIPE, TEATRO COLON, BUCHAREST OPERA, SCORE HOW is it possible that Enescu, perhaps the greatest all-round musical phenomenon of the 20th century, an opinion shared by many who knew him, is still remembered today mostly as a famous violinist and the composer of one Romanian Rhapsody (the second is not nearly as well known as the first)?!

That was basically what I knew of him growing up in the US, where I never heard a single work of his performed in all of my early years of concert going in Chicago, Philadelphia and New York.

I knew the 3rd Piano sonata from Lipatti's recording and the 3rd Piano & violin sonata from Menuhin's, that was about it. Then, in my 20's, already living and working in Germany, I heard a recording of his first orchestral suite opus 9. There was never anything in music before like that “Prelude a l'unison” and the following ”Menuet lent” to this day, still, with Oedipe, my very favorite works of his. Then I discovered the absolutely amazing Octet, which in its and precocious compositional mastery only be compared with Mendelssohn's masterpiece. I immediately began a serious study of all of his other works, played his two mature violin and piano sonatas and the Opus 10 Piano suite, conducted the first performance of the Opus 9 Suite in Brazil and had the great fortune to conduct his supreme masterpiece, Oedipe, at the Teatro Colon in Buenos Aires as well as here in Bucharest.

I think that Enescu has suffered much of the same fate as Liszt, and I believe that the two of them have much in common. Both were such supreme instrumental masters (Enescu even with two instruments!) that it was almost impossible to conceive of them as great composers as well, Busoni suffered the same fate, by the way. Both were capable of almost supernatural feats of musical memory and expanded the musical frontiers of their time. Both became branded as composers of popular nationalistic rhapsodies which clouded their other supreme compositional achievements. However, I believe that Enescu suffered even more generalization, Liszt was, after all, perhaps the most famous world figure of the late 19th century and though many of his works were reviled, they were known, many had several printings in his lifetime (apart from the extraordinary late music) and even Wagner's debt to him was widely recognized by all, including Wagner! He also had hundreds of true disciples who spread the word and performed his music, both the piano and orchestral works. Enescu had none of that, partly due to his own lack of self-promotion and partly through bad luck. One such case was his losing the score of his amazing 2nd Orchestra suite and thereby not receiving “credit” in time for practically beginning the neo-classical movement in 1915 with it because it was not published until after the later written works of Ravel, Prokofiev, Stravinsky, Busoni and Hindemith established the style. Turbulent world events before and after the two world wars also hampered him, both concerning his performing outside of Rumania and in the dissemination of his compositions. Another major problem was the publishing situation. Several major compositions did not appear until long after his death and others had disastrous performing materials.

One of the greatest scandals in all of publishing history is that of the score of Oedipe, one of the supremely great operatic works of the 20th century. I could not believe it when I first saw it, a badly written and terribly photo-copied handwritten score, full of illegible lines and notes with copied markings in pencil and pen covering the actual musical text. I spent dozens of hours preparing the score the first time I conducted it just so I could read it, and this with a work that is as complicated as Wozzeck and in a unique compositional idiom! I had the same experience when I conducted the first performances of Carl Nielsen's Maskarade in Germany in 1994, but soon afterwards a beautiful new edition of the complete works of Nielsen began appearing.

Specifically about conducting Oedipe, this work contains huge challenges. The score is of an unbelievable complexity and density of texture with literally unheard of sounds. In this regard, it can be compared to such scores as Erwartung and Wozzeck, and, as in those works, great care must be taken to achieve clarity of texture. I find that Schoenberg's system of Haupt and Nebenstimme works well with this work, otherwise there is no way to understand what is going on at all, especially in the incredible music leading to the entrance of the Sphinx, much of the third and the ending of the fourth acts. But even when the texture is of a chamber music delicacy, the fantastic variety of the string writing, often utilizing harmonics, and the extraordinary instrumental combinations demand great care during the preparation.

Then, despite Enescu's great care and skill, there are many passages where a reduction of dynamics is necessary if the singers are not to be completely overwhelmed. I spent a lot of time in Buenos Aires, and for a revival here in Bucharest, rehearsing the dynamics for the scene between Oedipe and Jocasta which leads to the terrible revelations in the third act (rehearsals figures 254-261). The textures are very dense harmonically, low-lying and almost continually pianissimo yet at the same time there must be absolute clarity and the passage is incredibly intense! The tendency, with all orchestras, is to be carried away in passages such as these, (one has the same problem in much of R. Strauss, especially in Salome and Die Frau ohne Schatten, works that I have often conducted) and I had to stubbornly insist that that they play as softly as possible.

Another challenge is the pacing of the work. There are certain passages in the first two acts especially where it is easy to lose the tension and where the highest level of inspiration and dramatic dramaturgy is perhaps not maintained. We made cuts in Buenos Aires, in Bucharest not, though in earlier days entire scenes were also cut in Bucharest. I feel that a couple of smaller cuts do help the work, especially in the first and fourth acts (NOT the third!!), but that largely depends on the quality and concept of the staging, which is yet another major challenge. The dance in the first act is often cut, as in Buenos Aires, because of budgetary reasons, a ballet means many costumes and many rehearsals, and, the dance, while beautiful and effective, does not exactly propel the action of an already very long opera forward. In a recent production in Germany the entire 4th act was cut, that is for me a sacrilege. I would rather not conduct it at all under such circumstances, especially since the fourth act rises to truly sublime heights, I consider the final scene one of the most moving and beautiful in all opera.

The casting of the opera is not so difficult, except that one needs a major bass-baritone with a huge stage presence, endurance, enormous musical intelligence, and acting ability!! Do not forget that Enescu had no less than Chaliapin in mind to sing it. But, seriously, the other roles are really not too difficult to cast well. The chorus is of extreme difficulty and, again, must be trained to follow at least the spirit of Enescu's many subtle dynamic indications. The ending of the second act can be quite tiresome if sung throughout in a dynamic range of forte to fortissimo. How I worked to realize what he wrote between rehearsal figures 191-193 in that scene, which is all in piano, with mixed results! I had more time in Buenos Aires to do that and it was my own production, whereas I just took it over here in Bucharest.

The contrast of experiences in these two houses was very interesting. In Buenos Aires, nobody knew it at all, of course, and it was a complete discovery for everybody involved, including myself. In Bucharest, I felt that the orchestra knew it as well as an Italian orchestra knows Verdi or a German orchestra Beethoven and Wagner. However, there is often a danger with orchestras who “know” a work too well, they get complacent and think they have nothing to learn about it and sometimes the worst traditions and lazy habits enter their playing of the standard repertoire, this is true everywhere in the world. A new work can be fresher in that regards for all involved. However, I must confess that because the orchestra here knew the work, performed it for decades and had a performing tradition, that I too learned from them and made several changes to my initial concept concerning tempi and even some beating patterns, while at the same time insisting on other things that they had not played correctly, especially regarding dynamics but even including some wrong notes in the parts, as some musicians told me. With such an inexhaustible work from such a genius as Enescu, one can only go deeper and deeper into it, it always remains larger than us. How I would love to prepare it again, but with a beautifully printed full score the next time!!

No, Enescu was blessed by the Gods with his unique genius, but not in life. Even his reputation as a violinist suffered because of the poor intonation and shaky technique of his musically monumental recordings of Bach, and other later recordings, due to his horrific and tragic spinal problems. Only the recordings of the Chausson Poème and the Bach Double concerto with Menuhin showed his true greatness at his peak. And, as is well known, his personal life with the Princess was no great comfort.

But, there are other mitigating factors. Much of his music can be difficult to comprehend at first.

Several movements, such as the fascinating slow movements of his piano sonatas, 3rd Violin & piano sonata, Impressions from Childhood, 3rd Orchestra suite and several passages of Oedipe etc. enter the weird and mystical sounding world of the Doina, which is a world so unique and foreign that it can only be compared to Bartok's “night music” movements. These, however, I find to be among his most characteristic achievements and the complexity helps to create that strange and moving world.

But there are other movements and works in which there is such incessant musical complexity that the forest cannot always be heard, or even read, through the trees, think of the second symphony!!

I believe that the first two orchestra suites, the Violin sonatas 2 and 3, the Octet and Oedipe are lyrically, emotionally and dramatically the most approachable works after the Rhapsodies. I have certainly seen audiences and orchestras responding very warmly to them, as well as colleagues for whom I have played recordings. The Third symphony is incredible, but calls for huge forces and more rehearsals than are usually allowed in a normal concert program situation. But, let us be honest, many of the other chamber music works, the string quartets, piano sonatas, piano quartets and quintet and the chamber symphony need several hearings to even begin to comprehend the musical argument, meaning that it is perhaps only possible to do so through recordings, as concert promoters and several performers are too lazy or too worried about the box office to risk programming such things.

Another problem is the sheer eclecticism of Enescu. He was a sponge that absorbed everything but was in many cases inconsistent and did not codify them into an immediately recognizable style, as did Bartók, Janáček, Berg, Stravinsky, Schoenberg, Martinů and several other contemporaries. And, in Enescu's case almost every work is it's own “style”, for instance he never went back to the manner of the Octet, the fantastic neo-classical or neo-baroque idiom of the wonderful second suite or the sound world of Oedipe.

Many people, especially in our modern superficial, fame-driven and fake news and technologically driven era, rely on generalizations and pre-conceived ideas about composers and performers. I can only hope that the international music business allows enterprising performers to program at least the more approachable works of this great genius, human being and master whose music, at it's best, is on the level of his greatest contemporaries.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Bentoiu, Pascal. Masterworks of George Enescu. A detailed analyses. Translated by Lory Wallfish.

Lanham, Toronto, Plymouth UK: Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2010.

Enescu, George. "Oedipe." Oedipe. Salabert, 1932.

Malcolm, Noel. George Enescu: His Life and Music. London: Toccata Press, 1990.

1946-1955: Enescu, As Seen on Both Sides of the Iron Curtain

ABSTRACT : Both during Enescu’s lifetime and — particularly — after his death, the image of the composer has been in a constant process of fashioning and of transformation — which, at times, gave rise to unfortunate distortions—due to a variety of factors. The various rhetorical strategies, mentalities, and ideologies through which Enescu’s personality has been filtered vigorously exercised their power to deform.

The way Enescu was perceived in the last decade of his life was no exception, from this perspective. The political shifts that took place in Romania, and the musician’s self-imposed exile in 1946 complicated the problem of his reception. In this paper, I endeavor, as such, to outline the way Enescu was written about in 1946-1955, on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

Submitted : May 31,2017 Admitted: June 30, 2017

KEYWORDS : ENESCU`S LATE CAREER, POLITICAL PRESSURE, EXILE, PROPAGANDA IN Romanian musicology, no other composer has enjoyed the interest and visibility afforded to Enescu, from his debut, at the end of the 19 th century, to the present day. The symbolic value with which Enescu has been invested, through his unanimous, unwavering recognition as the number 1 representative of Romanian music, regardless of historical period, has led to the musician’s mythicization. Both during his lifetime and – particularly – after his death, Enescu’s image has been in a constant process of fashioning and of transformation – which, at times, gave rise to unfortunate distortions – due to a variety of factors. The various rhetorical strategies, mentalities, and ideologies through which Enescu’s personality has been filtered vigorously exercised their power to deform.

The way Enescu was perceived in the last decade of his life was no exception, from this perspective. The political shifts that took place in Romania, and the musician’s self-imposed exile in 1946 complicated the problem of his reception. In this paper, I endeavor, as such, to outline the way Enescu was written about in 1946-1955, on both sides of the Iron Curtain.

In post-war Romania – forcibly included in the Soviet Union’s sphere of influence—the musician’s image was strongly marked by the political. The strategies of aggressive russification endorsed by the regime left their mark on Romanian society, and on Enescu’s activities in 1945-1946, in particular. As such, the composer joined ARLUS1, conducted a number of concerts of Russian Music in Bucharest2 and, most importantly, toured Moscow in April 1946. To interpret these actions as evidence of Enescu’s politics would be an error and an injustice, though: at roughly the same time, he became an honored member of other cultural associations (such as the “Friends of the USA” Association or the Japanese-Romanian Association) and Enescu strove to maintain his political neutrality—as much as it was possible—in his choice of repertoires, stage partners, and concert destinations.

What makes his possible sympathy for the USSR even less likely is that Enescu had kept his distance from Russia for a long period of time, since the Russian Revolution changed the course of the First World War. The way Russia abandoned Romania through the peace treaty it signed with Germany in March 1918 was described by Enescu as a “Soviet betrayal of his country” (Malcolm, 2011, p. 126).

Moreover, Enescu also suffered personal repercussions as a result of the “Soviet betrayal”: when Romania entered the war, a crate of his manuscripts was sent to Moscow, in the same train as the Romanian Treasure. Unlike the country’s gold reserves, the manuscripts were recovered, though, in less than a decade, through hard-work and intercessions, and with French diplomatic help (Malcolm, 2011, p. 128).

The political redefinition of the Russian state—the ascent of communism—beginning with 1917-1918 explains Enescu’s total break with the Russian artistic community until the end of the Second World War3. His about-face with regards to the Soviet Union in 1944-1946, which some critics today find fault with (Boia, 2011, pp. 272-273), cannot be understood outside of the historical context. Enescu had been an overt opponent of the Nazi regime, which he had not hesitated to criticize in print 4. The Soviet contribution to the defeat of the Nazi regime – which Romania itself had backed, under the leadership of Ion Antonescu, until late in the war – could then at least partially explain the honor Enescu afforded Russia by accepting to tour Moscow in April 1946. As a matter of fact, the musician declared upon his arrival in the Soviet metropolis that: “My pleasure at being in Moscow is enhanced by the fact that this is the capital of the country which has done so much to defeat the dark forces that strove to enslave the world” 5. On the other hand, the possibility of collaborating with first rate Russian musicians was undoubtedly a solid reason for accepting the invitation. Enescu’s impressions from the muscovite tour are particularly edifying: “I am much impressed by the magnificent playing of my partners in the Moscow concerts – David Oistrakh, the violinist, and Lev Oborin, the pianist. As for the State Orchestra of the USSR, I must say that nowhere in Europe have I heard my rhapsody played so well. The performance could be compared only with that given by the Philadelphia Orchestra. Soviet music is on an extremely high level” 6.

Both the Soviet and the Romanian press were particularly interested in the Moscow concert of April 19467. What seems to surprise the demanding Soviet critics is Enescu’s “multilateral” musical persona. One critic asks: “in what position [as a violinist, pianist, conductor or composer] is he more important?” His answer is unequivocal: “In all of his four personas, George Enescu is equally the greatest Soviet Union and Romania”8.

The Romanian Rhapsody (no. 1?) was enthusiastically received by both the Soviet and the Romanian audience: “it is an instrumental work that is wonderfully imbued by the spirit and character of folk music. Its melodic elegance, its temperament and ingenuity were warmly received by the muscovite audience”9. There are, though, a number of more critical comments with regards to Enescu’s Rhapsody, particularly in terms of its departure from the “traditions of this musical genre”: “The rhapsody is usually based on national folk themes. With regards to form, Enescu’s Rhapsody departs significantly from the traditions of this once popular musical genre, which have been established since Liszt, Brahms, and so on. If, for example, in Liszt’s Rhapsodies the essential principle was musicaldramatic narrative, Enescu’s Rhapsody is, on the other hand, constructed in the manner of the symphonic potpourri: separate episodes succeed one another in a completely free and unhindered combination, without forming an organic, unitary whole. An unquestionable quality of Enescu’s Romanian Rhapsody is its instrumentation, replete with effect and bravura, and conducted with great artistry” 10.

This point of the view reflects the knee-jerk thinking of the soviets critics, accustomed to employing the clichés of socialist realism (the 19th century traditions, the “national folk” character of the themes, etc.). What is more, The Romanian Rhapsody (no. 1) is easily one of the Enescu’s most accessible works and it is thus particularly easy for it to be read in a socialist realist key.

One can also infer from some of the articles the political importance afforded to Enescu’s concerts, based on their enumeration of the Soviet and Romanian officials in attendance and on statements such as: “the concerts of the distinguished Romanian musician George Enescu (…) serve the cause of cultural friendship, and of the strengthening the ties between the peoples of the Soviet Union and Romania”11. Moreover, at the end of the tour, the president of the All-Union Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries (V.O.K.S.) held a reception in honor of Enescu, which was attended

by Soviet politicians (M. B. Hrapcenko – the president of the Art Committee of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union, M. M. Litvinov – the deputy minister for Foreign Affairs), the Romanian Ambassador to Moscow, Iorgu Iordan, as well as dignitaries, composers, artists and the entire ensemble of the Symphony Orchestra of the Soviet Union who had performed in Enescu’s concerts” 12.

Newly returned to Bucharest from the USSR, Enescu had a visitor from the United States, his distinguished disciple Menuhin, with whom he performed at a number of concerts (in the month of May).

While Enescu maintained his political neutrality in his choice of concerts, the new Romanian regime insidiously endeavored to get close to the country’s number 1 musician, as a series of documents from the MNGE archive indicates. A great deal of the greetings telegrams received by Enescu in August 1946 (when he turned 65) were sent by Dr. Petru Groza – the president of the Council of Ministers; the Central Committee of the Democratic Bloc; the Art and Culture Committee of the Communist Party’s Central Section for Political Education; the Union of Romanian Artists, Writers and Journalists (a telegram signed by Ion Pas – vice-president and Marcel Breslașu – secretary general). Here is a sample of the rhetoric that grounds these texts: “The Union [of Artists, Writers and Journalists] sends its warm regards, and wishes you a long life, filled with artistic accomplishments, so that you may continue your work of spreading musical culture among those who had been, until recently, bereft of this nourishment of the soul. The goodwill you have always shown to those toiling in the fallow has earned you the boundless love of the working

people, who are proud that a world-famous genius has emerged from their bosom.” (MNGE Archive, #191).

Or: “On the occasion of the 65th year of a life dedicated to Romanian musical art, conceived on profoundly humanitarian principles, which you have been able to popularize beyond the borders of our country; the Art and Culture Committee of the Communist Party’s Central Section for Political Education sends their sincere regards, their love and admiration, and wishes you a long life, good health, and new accomplishments in art and culture, for the benefit of the Romania nation.” (MNGE Archive, #197).

Against a background of political pressure, Enescu left the country on September 10 1946 on the occasion – or, more likely, under the pretext – of his first tour of the US and Canada after the war.

He later settled in Paris, where a complicated period of his life began: besides the health problems that come with old age, Enescu was trapped – in his final 9 years, spent in exile – in a merciless political struggle, as attested by the fifty documents of the Securitate published by Ladislau Csendes in the volume George Enescu - un exil supravegheat [a Monitored Exile]? (Bucharest, Editura Casa Radio, 2011). Ironically, this smoldering war between the agents of the Communist state, on the one hand, and the leaders of the Romanian diaspora in Paris, on the other, was fueled precisely by Enescu’s attitude of political neutrality. The Securitate wanted Enescu’s return to Romania – which would have been an immense political victory for the Communist regime – while the diaspora wanted Enescu to take a clear political stand against the regime. Enescu, though, did not haste to satisfy either side; he proved particularly capable at refusing their entreaties – but, paradoxically, it was precisely his diplomacy that encouraged both sides to persevere in their efforts.

Throughout this period, what is being written about Enescu on either side of the Iron Curtain is very different.

In Romania, for instance, we witness a dramatic shift in the discourse about Enescu in these 9 years. At the beginning, in 1946-1947, his accomplishments abroad are followed with lively interest and patriotic pride. Justifications are offered for his stay in the West and the suggestion of his return to Romania is proffered. An article by Cella Delavrancea, published in English at the beginning of 1947 offers several hints about the mood in Romania, in the absence of Enescu. The author places particular emphasis on the patriotic dimension of his performance in the US: “Bearing in mind that Enescu has left us in order to make known on the happy continent composers such as Mihail Jora, Andricu and that extraordinary Paul Constantinescu, author of the Orthodox Oratorio, we shall forgive him for having left us destitude [sic] of his great art”. Moreover, the author expresses her hope that Enescu will return to Romania “in a few months” in order to relate to his countrymen “how he has stirrde [sic] artistic curiosity for Romanian musical works in the country generous towards all idealistic efforts”13.

On March 30, 1947, while in New York, Enescu was decorated by Mihai Ralea, Romania’s envoy to the US, with the Grand Cross of the Order of Loyal Service 14 for “making the music and soul of Rumania universally known throughout the world”15. It was, of course, an act by which the Romanian authorities attempted to validate Enescu’s presence in the West. More so, Ralea later claimed in an article published in România liberă [literal translation: Free Romania] in May 1955 that Enescu had performed a number of actions that revealed his admiration for the Communist regime, during this period of time: “[Enescu], saddened and incensed, told me how he had heard critical comments about the Romanian Government in Detroit and Cleveland, where great colonies of rich native Romanians existed.

Both Enescu and his wife harshly rebuked these bad Romanians. In 1947 and 1948, for New Year’s, he sent me a number of telegrams at the legation, filled with warm regards and felicitations for the leaders of the party and the government, signed by both him and his wife”16.

(As a side-note, had these telegrams actually existed, they would have doubtlessly been published in the press, as a mark of pride. After Enescu’s death, though, one could write whatever one wanted…).

As it became clear that Enescu had no desire to return to the country, the attitude towards him changed radically. Beginning with 1948, the press – politically partisan by force – either ignored or denigrated him.

Mauriciu Vescan was the first to attack him, in 1948, describing his work, Au Soir, as “subdued, dry, truthful, interesting, but cold”17. Zeno Vancea also joined in the trivialization of Enescu’s music: “because of his superficial contact with the masses and with the genuine native ambiance, as well as his willful assimilation of Western musical movements, George Enescu did not reproduce the Romanian national character, but with few exceptions, such as Violin Sonata no. 3, the Adagio from the Violin Sonata, the Suite villageoise, the Poème roumaine, and the three Rhapsodies [sic]. But here he could rely on Romanian folk music”18.

Even bolder, Petre Iosif reproached the composer for “breaking away from life and from the wonderful source of inspiration that is the people and permitting himself to be overwhelmed by the musical rot of the West”19.

In 1951, as Enescu turned 70, there were new attempts to return him to the country. He was invited to preside over the Week of Romanian Music, an event which took place in Bucharest, on September 22-30, under the slogan: “Let us sing peace and friendship among nations!” 20. Despite his refusal, a photograph of him was nevertheless published in the August-October 1951 issue of the Muzica journal, with the title “In Homage to George Enescu,” accompanied by the following text: “On the occasion of the 70th birthday of Maestro George Enescu, the Union of Composers of the RPR, sends their warmest regards and wishes him a long life, good health, and best of luck in his artistic endeavors” (Muzica, August-October 1951, p. 14).

A year before the composer’s death, Zeno Vancea reappraised Enescu, claiming that he “has harnessed the treasure trove of our national music, from the highest heights of artistry” 21. For this reason, Vancea recommends Enescu as a model for a native socialist realist art: “Today, as composers strive to create a socialist realist art in content and a national one if form, Enescu’s rich oeuvre is an inexhaustible fountainhead of teachings, a precious standard for the creative employment of the repertoire of folk music, with all of its elements, in the highest of artistic expressions” 22.

After a long period in which Enescu was either ignored or denigrated, his death brought him back into the good graces of the authorities and the press. Through a Decision of the Council of Ministers of the Romanian People’s Republic, several steps were taken to “honor George Enescu’s memory” – among which was the establishing of the George Enescu International Contest for young performers and the George Enescu scholarships for conservatory students in the fields of compositions and performance in their final years (see Hotărârea Consiliului de miniștri al RPR. In Muzica VI, May 5 1955, p. 4). The entire Romanian press afforded him unprecedented interest, and the Muzica journal dedicated the entire issue of May 1955 to him (“Număr închinat lui George Enescu [An Issue Dedicated to George Enescu]”).

Thus a new phase begins in the reception of Enescu in Romania – or, more precisely, of Enescu’s mythicization.

Unlike the propagandist manipulation of the composer’s image in Romania, articles published without a political stake in the West, in the same period of 1946-1955, remain an important source for retracing and understanding Enescu’s late career – which I will illustrate with a few examples from the American press (US and Canada)23. After the towering success of his American tours of 1938 and 1939, Enescu returned to the continent in 1946 and annually afterwards until 1950.

In 1946, Enescu prepared a substantial conference program24 for his first meeting after the war with his faithful audience in the US and Canada. A series of testimonials attest to the general sense of happiness, to the musical celebration of a return to normalcy. The beginning of an article published in the Toronto Daily Star is edifying: “Enesco, whom, during the war, most concert-goers wondered if they were never to hear violinize again, played last night with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra Brahms’ D major concerto” 25.

Enescu’s presence in Washington, on January 29 1947, as both conductor and composer (of the Romanian Rhapsody no. 2) was “by all odds, the peak of the season” – as a journalist with the Evening Star noted26. Yet, despite some (still) resounding accomplishments, his career as a performer had already entered a downward spiral. In Washington, after an absence of ten years, Enescu was visibly affected by the passage of time and by the war: “The events of the recent tragic past have left their mark on him, and he was a bowed, slow-moving figure as he came on the stage”27.

A series of comments on his performance at Carnegie Hall, on February 5, 1947, as a soloist of Brahms’ Concerto for Violin and Orchestra indicate his physical decline. His technical flaws are delicately minimized by critics, as they underline his exceptional qualities, both as a performer and as a human being. Here, for instance, is a comment by Olin Downes, the famous The New York Times critic: “When Mr. Enesco appeared (…) he was applauded for minutes, while some of the audience rose in honor of the musician and the man who had held high his principles and his faith through years of terror and of privation in his war-torn land.

But it is not necessary to invoke these circumstances to indicate the honor that accrued to this artist by his performance. Some passing technical flaws were unimportant by the side of the conception that he unfolded, and passages that blazed out as he phrased and projected them with his past knowledge of the masterpiece itself and the traditions that it represented. The audience was still applauding Mr. Enesco when he left the hall”28.

His acts of charity are also indicative of Enescu’ noble character: his benefit concerts for the “starving children of Romania” (March 30 and 3129, at Times Hall in New York), for the Jewish children of Israel (at Carnegie Hall, on November 24 1948) 30 or for American charities – with the musician declaring, in fact, that “he owed a great personal debt to this country (the US), which he could repay only by playing his violin”31.

In 1949, the last year he was able to return to the US, Enescu once more drew the attention of Washington concert-goers with a work he had never before performed, Ouverture de concert sur des thèmes dans le caractère populaire roumain op. 32, which he had finished just four months before the performance and which he had dedicated to Hans Kindler32: “Testament of my friendship for many years.

Although I feel the piece unworthy of Kindler, nevertheless it gives me joy to give to him at this time

this proof of my friendship”33. Conducted by Enescu on January 23, 1949, with the National Symphony Orchestra, the work did not go unnoticed: “Such varied and richly provocative subjects are set forth with exceptional art and knowledge, embroidered with orchestral embellishment and pulsing with vitality”34.

Enescu’s permanent retirement from the American stage was particularly impressive, as he last performed alongside Menuhin, on January 21, 1950, Bach’s Double Violin Concerto, conducted by Ionel Perlea.

Five years later, the echo of Enescu’s death was also felt in the American press. An extremely emotional testimonial is the portrait offered by Yehudi Menuhin in The New York Times. From the beginning, he states his belief that, much like Bartók, “[Enescu’s] deepest contributions to our culture will be appreciated only gradually as the fruit of his life work comes to be heard by an ever-widening public”35.

Menuhin allows us a glimpse into the tragedy Enescu experienced at the end of his life, describing the conditions in which he composed late in life: “In fact, the last years of his crippled life, in that he had difficulty getting around or moving, found him almost a prisoner in a small room of his apartment in the Rue de Clichy. There he sat in a chair, on one side of which was a desk piled high with manuscripts and music, and on the other side of which was his piano. He almost never left this chair except when he was confined with bed”. The American disciple evokes his mentor’s vast musical knowledge and exceptional memory (“There was hardly a work of music that he did not know, from Monteverdi and Bach through all styles and all countries to Schoenberg”); as well as Enescu’s human qualities (“A more selfless, generous or noble person would be hard to find”). A final thought is afforded to Enescu’s oeuvre: “I wish that some of Enesco’s music, unknown in this country, were performed, particularly his opera Oedip, which I think is his most beautiful and noble work” 36.

The tone of tribute penned by Menuhin, who had faithfully remained close to Enescu until the end, hints at the composer’s sadness and pain in the last years of his life. What might seem like a paradox of Enescu’s life as “almost a prisoner in a small room of his apartment in the Rue de Clichy” is that he nevertheless managed to preserve his creative freedom. Unlike the music written by his fellow composers who had remained in Romania, Enescu’s late works cannot be suspected of political and ideological intrusions. This is no small thing, and the price he paid for it was, most likely, entirely worth it.

ENDNOTES 1

On November 25, 1944, Enescu was elected president of the music sub-section within the General Council of the ARLUS (the Romanian Association for Strengthening Relations with the Soviet Union).

On January 5 1945, he became a member of the ARLUS Executive Council.

2 On October 15 and 22, Enescu conducted two concerts of the Philharmonic Orchestra at Aro concert hall in honor of the Soviet Army (Tchaikovsky, Chausson, Enescu; soloist Alexandru Theodorescu); on March 19 1945, he conducted a Tchaikovsky concert (soloists: David Oistrah and Lev Oborin); on May 21 1945, he conducted a gala concert to mark the occasion of the first General Congress of the ARLUS, and so on.

3 Enescu had performed in Russia in 1909 and in 1917.

4 See, for example, articles #1694 and #1764 in (***, 2015, pg. 164-165, 278-230).

5 Enescu, qtd. in D. Rabinovich, “George Enesco Appears On Moscow Concert Stage”. Moscow News, Moscow, April 1946 (***, 2015, pg. 250-253) 6 Ibidem.

7 The concerts took place on April 20, 21 and 23. For details on the programs, please see Florinela Popa “George Enescu în presa de limbă engleză, germană și rusă a anilor 1938-1946” (***, Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. IX (1938-1946), 2016, pg. 24-25).

8 V. Gorodinski, “Konțertî Jorja Enesco” [George Enescu’s Concerts], in Izvestia, Moscow, April 25 1946; article published (#1874) in Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. IX (1938-1946)…, pp. 240-243 and in Romanian translation, pp. 244-247.

9 I. Martânov, “Konțertî Jorja Enesco”[George Enescu’s Concerts], in Vecerniaia Moskva, Moscow, April 22 1946; article published (#1870) in Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. IX (1938-1946)…, pp. 225-227 and in Romanian translation, pp. 228-230.

10 E. Sokolski, “Na Konțertah Jorja Enesco” [From George Enescu’s Concerts], in Trud, Moscow, April 23 1946; article published (#1872) in Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. IX (1938-1946)…, pp. 233-235 and in Romanian translation, p. 255.

11 I. Martânov, ibidem.

12 Anonymous news item of the TASS agency “V V.O.K.S.” [At V.O.K.S.], in Moskovski Bolșevik, Moscow, April 30 1946, article published (#1877) in Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. IX (1938-1946)…, p. 254 and in Romanian translation, p. 255.

13 Cella Delavrancea, “George Enescu”, in AMERICA Romanian News. Official Organ of the UNION AND LEAGUE of ROMANIAN SOCIETIES of America, Inc., Cleveland, January 7, 1947.

14

This medal was disestablished by the Communist regime in 1948.

R.P., “Enesco Gets Medal Before Benefit Here”, in The New York Times, New York, March 31 1947.

16 Mihai Ralea, “La moartea lui George Enescu”, in România liberă, May 17 1955, in V. Cosma, George Enescu în memoria timpului. Evocări, amintiri, însemnări memorialistice, Bucharest, Editura “Casa Radio”, 2003, p. 333.

17 Mauriciu Vescan, qtd. in Octavian Lazăr Cosma, Universul muzicii românești, Bucharest, Editura Muzicală, 1995, p. 162.

18 Zeno Vancea, “Specificul național și muzica cultă românească”, in Flacăra, July 2, 1949, p. 12.

19 Petre Iosif, “Pentru combaterea unui hipnotic periculos”, in Flacăra, October 8 1949, pp. 3 și 11.

20 Cf. Octavian Lazăr Cosma, p. 221.

21 Zeno Vancea, “Intonații populare românești în creația lui George Enescu”, in Muzica, 1, 1954, p. 5.

22 Zeno Vancea, p. 10.

23 All of the articles consulted for this paper are part of the MNGE Archive.

24 In an anonymous new item published in Artist Life, New York, November 1946, concerts featuring Enescu – as a conductor and/or violinist – are announced with orchestras from Montreal, Toronto, Cleveland, Washington, Baltimore, Kalamazoo and Rochester; recitals of his are announced at Cornell University, Princeton University, Mt. Holyoke College, Skidmore College, and Brooklyn/ Columbia University Institutes of Arts and Sciences. Article published (#1880) in Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. IX (1938-1946)…, p. 264.

25 Augustus Bridle, “Violin of Enesco Thrills Once More”, in Toronto Daily Star, Toronto, December 11, article published (#1883) in Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu.

Vol. IX (1938-1946)…, p. 269.

26 Alice Eversman, “Enesco and Dorothy Kirsten Evoke Extraordinary Applause”, in Evening Star, Washington, January 30 1947.

27 Alice Eversman, ibidem.

28 Olin Downes, “At the Concert. Reginald Stewart Conducts the Baltimore Symphony in First Program at Carnegie Hall – Georges Enesco Is the Soloist”, in The New York Times, New York, February 6 1947.

29 On March 30, Enescu performed a violin recital, accompanied by Sanford Schlüssel on the piano. The concert on the following day also featured the soprano Pia Igy, alongside Enescu and Schlüssel.

30 On March 30, Enescu performed a violin recital, accompanied by Sanford Schlüssel on the piano. The concert on the following day also featured the soprano Pia Igy, alongside Enescu and Schlüssel.

31 R.P., “Enesco Gets Medal Before Benefit Here”, ibidem.

32 Hans Kindler (1892-1949), American cellist and conductor of Dutch descent, founder of the National Symphony Orchestra, where he served as conductor between 1931 and 1949, when he retired, citing poor health. He died a few months after the premiere of the work Enescu dedicated to him in August 1949.

33 Enescu qtd. in Alice Eversman, “Enesco and Baccaloni Strike Different Moods in Concert”, in The Evening Star, Washington, January 24 1949.

34 Alice Eversman, ibidem.

35 Yehudi Menuhin, “Mail Pouch: Menuhin Tribute To Enesco”, The New York Times, New York, May 1955.

36 Yehudi Menuhin, ibidem.

15

BIBLIOGRAPHY * * *. (2011). Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Documente din Arhiva Muzeului Naţional „George Enescu” din Bucureşti, tom IV (1922). Ediţie îngrijită de. (F. P. Sârbu, Ed.) Bucarest: Editura Muzicală. ***. (2015). Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. VIII (19341937). . (F. Popa, & C. Sârbu, Eds.) Bucharest: Editura Muzicală. ***. (2016). Documente din arhiva MNGE. Articole de presă despre George Enescu. Vol. IX (19381946). (F. Popa, Ed.) Bucharest: Editura muzicala.

Boia, L. (2011). Capcanele istoriei. Elita intelectuală românească între 1939-1950. Bucharest: Editura Humanitas.

Malcolm, N. (2011). George Enescu. Viața și muzica. Bucharest: Editura Humanitas.

Georges Enesco «violoncelliste» et créateur de musique pour violoncelle

ABSTRACT : La nécessité de connaitre le macro-cosmos du timbre orchestral a déterminé Enesco de processer l’intimité de chaque instrument musical. Bien qu'il fût connu en tant que violoniste et pianiste de génie, il avait acquis le don de bon organiste, altiste, violoncelliste, flûtiste, clarinettiste, corniste etc.

Souvent il s’est confessé: « I also play the cello … » (Cosma, 1981, p.

130).

Bien qu’il a beaucoup aimé à jouer du violoncelle, comme il avait un grand plaisir à jouer le Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre en ré mineur par Lalo (1876) -, nous croyons qu’il a aussi pu prouver ses compositions au violoncelle, comme, par exemple, sa Symphonie concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre.

Alors que sa Sonate pour violoncelle no. 1 est d'origine romantique - en particulier brahmsienne, la seconde montre une structure de composition contemporaine complexe, ayant un Finale à la roumaine, plus proche de sa Sonate no. 3, pour piano et violon.

Notre ektesis présente les compositions où Enesco a utilisé le violoncelle, quelques extraits d'analyse morphologique sur les trois œuvres pour violoncelle soliste, et un Catalogue avec tous les violoncellistes roumains et étrangers qui ont joués avec Enesco.

Paul Casals le considérait: " ... The greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart ... / Le plus grand phénomène musical depuis Mozart ...

KEYWORDS : MAKRO-KOSMOS, EKTESI, AMPHIVOLOS, INFERNALIS, EKPLIKTIKI «I ALSO PLAY THE CELLO …»

GEORGES ENESCO

DANS l'histoire de la culture musicale universelle, de nombreux solistes et compositeurs ont abordé, comme interprètes, de différents instruments, dans plusieurs états de valence. Soit des combinaisons d’instruments de la même famille acoustique: violon - alto, piano - orgue, ou dans des catégories systématiques plus éloignées: violon - violoncelle, soit dans d'autres catégories: violon - piano, violon flûte, violon - corne, etc., avec la même facilité, mais à des niveaux différents.

Le violoniste et pianiste Georges Enesco rêvait d’imprimer la Sonate Kreutzer no. 9 op. 47 de Ludwig van Beethoven, superposant deux enregistrements, avec lui au violon et au piano. 1 Mais, à son époque, la technique d'impression sur disque ne pouvait pas lui fournir ce bonheur!

Partant de la nécessité de connaître le macrocosmos du timbre orchestral, Georges Enesco a processé l’intimité de chaque instrument musical.

Alors qu’il a «vécu» de son violon - comme interprète et professeur, il comptait que son instrument … est trop petit… et trop pauvre… pour exprimer pleinement la musique: … Comment peuton tout simplement se passionner du violon … quand on aime toute la musique, la grande musique …

(Gavoty, 1955).

Georges Enesco a joué de l'orgue – ”l’instrument total", la passion de sa vie (Cosma, 1981, pp.

126-129), pour laquelle il a composé: - Andante religioso pour 2 violoncelles et l’orgue, sans numéro d'opus, en Mi bémol Majeur, avril 1900. La première a été à l’Église évangélique à Bucarest, 12 avril 1900, le compositeur à l’orgue, avec les violoncellists Constantin Dimitresco et Dimitrie Dinico 2,

- Ode sur des vers d ’I. U. Soricu, sans numéro d'opus, pour chœur à l'unisson et orgue, in Ut Majeur, écrite à Paris, le 21 mai 1904, dédiée à Iosif Vulcan (Cosmovici, 1990, p. 104).

- Symphonie en Ut Majeur no. 3 op.21, pour orgue, piano, chœur et orchestre, écrite à Dorohoi, août 1918, en trois mouvements: Moderato, Vivace, Lento. La Première à Bucarest, le 25 mai 1919, avec l’Orchestre du Ministère de l'éducation publique, chef d'orchestre – le compositeur.

Pendant la période du juin à décembre 1920, à Châtelet, il fait l’orchestration de la Symphonie, pour la première de Paris, l'année suivante, avec l'Orchestre Concerts Collonne - avec Gabriel Pierné comme chef d'orchestre.

Il y a eu aussi quelques transcriptions de ses œuvres, pour orgue (Roșca, 2007).

L’enthousiasme pour orgue du jeune Enesco se manifestait, selon le journal New Yorker Staatszeitung, du 3 Janvier 1923, dans l'article Ein neuer Dirigent, sur ses études à Vienne: … Le jeune a appris facilement l’harmonie et le contrepoint avec Fucs, le violon avec le jeune Hellmesberger, puis le piano, l'orgue et de nombreux autres cours …. L'article était signé par un journaliste pas encore identifié, qui signait avec l’initiale «H». De plus, le chroniqueur décrit son portrait: …Enesco est d’une compétence incroyable, quand il faut, et virtuose pianiste, violoncelliste et organiste… Les informations intéressantes étaient correctes, et provenaient directement d’Enesco, qui a fait part de ses passions à ses agents et aux critiques de musique américains.

A propos du violoncelle Dans un article paru dans le magazine România musicală, Bucarest, le 15 mars 1898, le critique musical Iuliu Rosca présentait la Poema română de Georges Enesco, interprétée la 6 février 1898 à Paris, où, entre autres, commentait sur la maîtrise du compositeur au sujet de l’orchestration: …Desigur că la acestea contribuie și faptul că D-sa, pe lângă că e un virtuoz la vioară, cântă cu un talent egal la pian, la corn și la violoncel … / Bien sûr qu’à cela contribue aussi le fait qu’en plus d'être un virtuose du violon, Enesco joue avec un talent égal du piano, de la corne et du violoncelle…

Il y a un certain nombre d'ouvrages importants consacrés au violoncelle, écrites par Enesco, qui, tout comme Bach, Beethoven etc. Ont aimé l’instrument et joué du violoncelle avec une certaine maîtrise.

Le détail qu’Enesco jouait avec grand plaisir du violoncelle, nous indique le fait qu’ainsi il a pu essayer ses compositions. L’écriture instrumentale employée montre une fine connaissance de la technique du violoncelle, et aussi les énormes difficultés qui se sont combinées, provenant de la technique violonistique parfaite du compositeur – interprète. Amphivolos illustre cette combinaison de grandes difficultés, d’où le fait que beaucoup de ses œuvres violoncellistiques ont été interprété rarement.

Mais la technique «infernalis» utilisé au violoncelle, comme: a) dans la Symphonie Concertante op. 8 – voir le chaîne des octaves «sans fin», ou l'utilisation du registre suraigu de provenance violonistique etc., ou bien b) dans la deuxième Sonate op. 26 no. 2, etc., commence par l'interprétation de J.S.Bach, Cello Suites / en spécial les trois dernières, le Triple Concerto op. 56 pour violon, violoncelle et piano de Beethoven – où la partition du violoncelle est écrite au niveau de la technique solistique du violon et du piano, et normalement, la création d'exception de la contemporanéité.

Enesco connaissait presque par cœur toutes les œuvres classiques et contemporaines dédiées au violoncelle. Sa passion pour cet instrument était spéciale. Tous ses pianistes accompagnateurs étaient étonnés – ekpliktiki!

Dans ses mémoires, le pianiste Ionel Dobrogeanu-Gherea (Cosma, 1981, p. 130), raconte un épisode passé à Iasi où, dans un récital soutenu par le violoncelliste Nicolae Papazoglou, qui a joué le Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre no. 1 op. 33 en La mineur, par Camille Saint-Saëns (1872), Enesco a pris place devant le piano, sans partition, et l'a accompagné pendant les trois parties, parfaitement!

Parmi les morceaux que Georges Enesco préférait jouer, il faut inclure: a) des concerto comme Edouard Lalo - Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre en ré mineur (1876) (Cosma, 1981, p. 130); Robert Schumann, Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre op. 129 en la mineur (1850); Camille SaintSaëns, Concerto no. 1 pour violoncelle et orchestre op. 33, en la minor (1872), etc., b) des sonates pour piano et violoncelle: par Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Grieg, Saint-Saëns, Fauré, Debussy, etc. ; c) de nombreuses œuvres de musique de chambre, comme: trios, quatuors, etc.

En parcourant les souvenirs des compositeurs, nous constatons que, durant les réunions de musique de chambre, comme trio, quatuors, etc., Enesco prendrait la partition d’un autre instrument, en plus du piano, jouant de l'instrument avec passion - et aussi par cœur!

Le compositeur Mircea Chiriac (1919–1994), raconte, dans une lettre du 10 septembre 1980, adressée au musicologue Viorel Cosma (Cosma, 1981, p. 130): Într-o pauză, după pretențiosul și obositorul «Andante cantabile» din Trio nr.

7 în Si bemol Major “à l’Archiduc» de Beethoven, pianistul Joseph Prunner și oaspetele japonez Ekytay Ann au trecut la comentarea interpretării

partiturii. Prunner i-a mulțumit respectuos (lui Enescu – s.n.), în timp ce distinsul muzician, dirijor, compozitor și violoncelist, care era Ekytay Ann şi cu mine, cu totul noi în anturajul maestrului, am rămas înmărmuriți de felul cum putea să cunoască de amănunțit fiecare element al unei lucrări pe care o interpreta. Văzând mirarea noastră, maestrul s-a adresat în engleză lui Ekytay Ann: «I also play the cello, but not this work, other pieces» (Eu cânt de asemenea la violoncel, dar nu această lucrare, ci alte lucrări), repetând în română pentru mine, fraza). Cu câțiva ani în urmă l-am întrebat pe Romeo Drăgici la ce piese se referea Maestrul că le poate cânta la violoncel. Domnia sa mi-a confirmat că l-a auzit cântând Concertul pentru violoncel de Lalo, și alte lucrări …3 Il y a quelques années j'ai demandé à Romeo Drăgici quelles étaient les œuvres auxquelles le Maître se référait, en disant qu’il pouvait jouer du violoncelle. Il m'a confirmé qu'il a entendu jouer le Concerto pour violoncelle de Lalo, et aussi d'autres œuvres…

Un autre témoin de la complexité d'interprétation d’Enesco, qui a été remarquée par la critique de musique, a été Helen L. Kaufmann. Elle parle de la tournée américaine, deroulée en janvier-avril 1938 (Cosma, 1981, pp. 130-131): Sanford (Schlussel – pianistul acompaniator) l-a adus la mine (pe George Enescu – s.n.) pentru o seară de muzică de cameră, prima dintre multe altele.

Era un eveniment deosebit, la care știam că fiecare muzician ar fi dorit să fie invitat pentru a avea cinstea de a-l întâlni, poate de a cânta cu Enescu… În acea primă seară de muzică de cameră, violonistul William Kroll, pianistul Frank Scheridan, violista Lilian Fucs, violoncelistul Felix Salmond, și încă mulți alții, s-au îmbulzit, doritori să cânte cu Enescu. Au participat numai profesioniști; nu am îndrăznit niciodată să introduc un amator la vioara a doua, deși mi-ar fi plăcut foarte mult să fac această rară experiență. După aceea, Sanford mi-a mulțumit pentru că «le-am îngăduit să-mi folosească salonul». Eu le-am mulțumit pentru că l-au folosit. Enescu era în cea mai bună formă când interpreta «Hausmusik» (Muzică de cameră). Se simțea descătușat deoarece se afla printre prieteni și colegi, și a revenit deseori după acea primă întâlnire. Într-o seară, când ansamblul era gata să înceapă Cvartetul de coarde op. 127, în Mi bemol Major de Beethoven, a sosit (violonistul) William Kroll. Enescu s-a ridicat de pe scaunul vioarei prime: «Poftim, dumneavoastră cântați vioara întâi», i-a spus lui Kroll. «Desigur că nu!”, a răspuns respectuos Kroll, care era cu mult mai tânăr. Enescu a insistat: «Eu voi cânta vioara a doua», și a adăugat vesel: «O să-mi prindă bine să citesc partitura». A cântat, fără să urmărească știma pe care, evident, o știa pe dinafară. Într-adevăr, se distra cântând muzică de camera. Odată, a cântat prima mișcare la vioara întâi, a doua la vioara a doua, a treia la violă şi a patra la violoncel, iar mai târziu – «doar ca amuzament», partea pianului, dintr-un Cvartet de Mozart …4 Ce témoignage nous donne une idée, entre autres, du grand professionnalisme du «violoncelliste» Enesco, sachant que le Quatuor de cordes op. 127 en Mi bémol Majeur de Beethoven fait partie de ses derniers quatuors, étant oeuvre de grande difficulté, qui exige une compétence professionnelle particulière.

Sa facilité de jouer immédiatement du violoncelle et après du piano ou du violon, était bien connue, et en plus, jouer le tout par cœur …

Yehudi Menuhin notait (Yehudi Menuhin, 1996, p. 174): … Enescu was für mich wie ein Wunder: Er spielte Violine, Violoncello, Klavier und trat auch als Dirigent auf. […Enesco était pour moi comme un miracle: a joué du violon, violoncelle, piano et aussi il est apparu comme chef d'orchestre.]

Voici les compositions d’ Enesco pour violoncelle soliste: - Nocturne et Saltarello, pour violoncelle et piano, 1897. La première: 11 juillet 1897.

- Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, composée le 7–8 / 19-20 novembre 1898, dédiée à Dimitrie Dinico. La première: 10 février 1899, Paris, Salle Érard, avec Joseph Salmon au violoncelle et le compositeur au piano. A été éditée par Editura Muzeului „George Enescu”, Bucarest, 2013.

- Andante religioso pour deux violoncelles et orgue, sans numéro d'opus, en Mi bémol Majeur, composé à Bucarest, le 30 mars / 12 avril 1900. La première: 31 mars / 12 avril 1900, à l’Église évangélique de Bucarest, au violoncelle Constantin Dimitresco et Dimitrie Dinico, à l’orgue le compositeur. A été édité par Editura Muzeului „George Enescu”, Bucarest, 2013.

- Symphonie Concertante, en Si mineur, op. 8, composée à Mihaileni, 1901, dédiée à Joseph Salmon. La première: 17 février 1909, soliste Joseph Salmon, chef d'orchestre le compositeur, avec l’Orchestre Lamoureux, Paris. A été éditée par les Editions d’Enoch, Paris, décembre 1903.

- Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2. Vienne, 30 novembre 1935, dédiée à Pablo Casals. La première: 4 mars 1936, avec Joseph Salmon au violoncelle, à l’École Normale de Musique, Paris. A été éditée par les Editions Salabert, Paris, 1952.

D'autres compositions de musique de chambre: Duo: Serenadă în surdină / Sérénade douce, pour violon et violoncelle, 1899.

Trio: - Prelude, pour deux pianos, violon et violoncelle, 1898.

- Aubade, Trio, pour violon, alto et violoncelle, 1899. A été éditée par Editura Muzeului „George Enescu”, Bucarest, 2013.

- Trio, pour deux violons et violoncelle, 1899.

- Sérénade lointaine, pour violon, violoncelle et piano, 1903.

- Lied Prinz Waldvogelsgesang, pour voix, violoncelle et piano, 1901, La première: Bucarest, 22 / 5 décembrie 1901, avec Maria Assan, Dimitrie Dinico et le compositeur.

- Doina, pour voix, alto et violoncelle, sur de vers populaire recueillis par Vasile Alecsandri, 9 novembre 1905, Paris.

Trio avec piano: - en Sol mineur (1897). La première, Bucarest, 16 / 29 novembre 1901, avec Dimitrie Dinico, le compositeur au violon et au piano ... (inconnu).

- en La mineur (début de 1916), inachevé (1942) / déchiffré et édité Pascal Bentoiu, Editura Muzicală, Bucarest, 2004.

Quatuors: - Die Kirschen, pour soprano, baryton, violoncelle et piano, composé le 9 novembre 1904, Paris.

- Intermediu op. 12 no. 1, à cordes, composé le 20 septembre / 3 octobre 1902, Caracala.

- Intermediu op. 12 no. 2, à cordes, composé le 20 janvier 1903, Paris.

- Quatuor à cordes op. 22 no. 1, în Mi bemol Major (1 decembrie 1920).

Quatuor avec piano - Quatuor avec piano no. 1 op. 16, in Re Majeur, 10 décembre 1909. La première: 18 décembre 1909, à la Salle des agriculteurs, Paris.

- Quatuor avec piano no. 2 op. 30, 4 mai 1944, Sinaia.

Quintettes: Aria et Scherzino, pour violon, alto, violoncelle, contrebasse et piano (1909). Edité par Le Monde Musical, 30 août 1909, Paris.

Quintette avec piano: Quintette avec piano (...). La première: 24 mars 1911,Salle Gaveau, Paris.

Octets : Octets à cordes op. 7 (1900). La première: 25 septembre 1920, Le Festival Berkshire – Pittsfield, USA. En se souvenant des trois œuvres fondamentales composées pour violoncelle soliste: Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, composée le 7 – 8 / 19-20 novembre 1898, la Symphonie concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre, en si mineur, op. 8, Mihăileni, 1901, et la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in t Majeur, op. 26 no. 2., Vienne, 30 novembre 1935, nous constatons, tout d'abord, l'amour qu’il a eu pour le violoncelle, qui s’est diffusé ensuite dans toute sa création de musique de chambre et d'orchestre. Il est à d'observer, entre autres, le rôle du violoncelle dans l’opéra d'Œdipe ...

Ensuite, l’art de la construction de sa musique sur les principes d'équilibre classique et romantique, fortement inculquée à l'âme, qui ajoute l'empreinte de sa personnalité, etc.

Dans le patrimoine musical classique romantique, en particulier celui allemand (musique beethovenienne, brahmsienne, wagnerienne) de la fin du XIXe siècle et au début du XXe siècle, Enesco, qui se trouvait sur la route de son recherche, voulait un équilibre à la tradition et innovation, son propre l'intérieur et l'originalité, d’extraction roumaine.

Les premières œuvres, où l'auteur attaque les grands genres musicales, ont été les trois Sonates, de 1897, 1898, 1899: pour violon op.2, pour violoncelle op. 26 no. 1 (le numéro d’opus a été donné plus tard, sur une Liste à début des années 1940, d’après avoir composé en 1935 la Deuxième Sonate pour piano et violoncelle), et encore, pour violon op. 6.

I. Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, représente la vision de continuité beethovenienne–brahmsienne, qui faisait méditer longuement le jeune compositeur: la synthèse et la nouvelle révélation du romantisme, reflétée dans la sonate. La composition a été écrite, pratiquement en 12 jours, pendant la période des vacances, avant la reprise des cours au Conservatoire de Paris. Il a noté: Partie I, Allegro molto moderato, «Caracalia, 24 ottobre 1898», Partie II, Allegretto scherzando, «Sinaia, 30 octobre 1898», Partie III, Molto Andante, «Sinaia, 3 novembre 1898», Partie IV, Presto,«Sinaia, 4, novembre 1898».

Théoriquement, la composition s’est déroulée sur une plus longue période de temps, passant par l'âme et l'esprit du compositeur.

La Sonate a été dédiée à Dimitrie Dinico. La première: 10 février 1899, Paris, Salle Érard, avec Joseph Salmon au violoncelle et le compositeur au piano. A été éditée par Editura Muzeului „George Enescu”, Bucarest, 2013.

La structure de la sonate en quatre mouvements, il la répétera beaucoup plus tard, en 1935, quand il composera La Sonate pour piano et violoncelle en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2.

Des les quatre mouvements de la première Sonate, trois sont animés (le premier, le deuxième et le quatrième) et le troisième est mélancolique. La composition est exaltante, spontanée, avec une pulsation régulière, avec des degrés divers de symétrie, en ajoutant de la nuance stylistique à la substance classique, un souffle musical beethovenien – schubertien – brahmsien – enescien.

Analyse morphologique des parties: A. Parte I, montre une cellule motrice, de fonction cyclique, crée des arquées mélodique d’auto - pousseurs générateurs des modules quantiques, pour l'œuvre tout entière. Il n’y a pas une autre autonomie thématique.

A. 1. module générateur de la Partie I, (ex. 1.1.).

A.2. utilisé spécialement par J. Brahms, voir la Sonate op. 38, en Mi mineur, Finale, (ex.1.2.).

A.3. avec des échos brahmsiens et la seconde Sonate op. 99, in Fa Majeur, (ex. 1.3.).

A.4. chez Enesco les mesures 91 – 94, (ex. 1.4.).

B. La deuxième Partie a été construit d’après le système d'origine - module générateur développé - (ex. 2.1.), d’ un modèle de fugato beethovenien (ex. 2.2.).

C. La troisième Partie de respiro de la composition Molto Andante, est un poème sensible, sur une forme de lied, de structure rapsodique, de construction libre, basé sur la «logique d’effet» (Bentoiu, 1985, pp. 43,45) (ex. 3.1.), de l'atmosphère brahmsienne Adagio affettoso, de la Sonate op. 99, în Fa Majeur (ex. 3.2.).

D. Dans la troisième Partie, le module quantique est élevé sur les sommets d'une Fugue (ex.

4.1.).

L'auteur développe son système de composition dans le sens de la culture polyphonique de type imitatif, avec l'intégration des diverses formes contrepointiques dans l’homophonie.

Le modèle de la Fugue de type brahmsien de la Sonate op. 38 en Mi minor1, avec des analogies directes, même si le thème d’Enesco est néo-classique, est utilisé en présentant le thème principal de l'exposition de la Partie II, et surtout de la Partie IV. Le caractère cyclique procédural, qui assure l’unité thématique de l'oeuvre, déjà porte l’ empreinte de la personnalité du compositeur, la pensée constructive pour l'avenir, bien exprimée musicalement et philosophiquement.

II. La composition suivante dédiée au Violoncelle, pour qui il a donné une grandeur solistique de type symphonique, a été la Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op.

8, Mihăileni, 1901. La composition a été écrite en moins de 3 ans de la première Sonate pour violoncelle.

La Symphonie Concertante est la deuxième / on pense même la troisième composition orchestrale, après la Poema Română op. 1, composée à 17 ans, et la quatrième Symphonie, d'école.

L’évolution compositionnelle est considérable, la Symphonie Concertante est un véritable chef-d'œuvre du genre, une fantaisie concertante ardeur lyrique. Elle a été dédiée à Joseph Salmon. La première: 17 février 1909, soliste Joseph Salmon, chef d'orchestre le compositeur, avec l’Orchestre Lamoureux, Paris. A été éditée par l’Editions Enoch, Paris, décembre 1903.

Il fut un temps où le langage musical évoluait rapidement, étant en concurrence avec de nouvelles compositions faites par: Richard Strauss Don Quixote - Symphonische dichtung op. 35 (1897), Claude Debussy Pelléas et Mélisande (la première 1902), La Mer (1905) et Ibéria (1908), Arnold Schoenberg - Verklärte Nacht / " La nuit transfigurée" (1899), Maurice Ravel Pavane pour une infante défunte (1899), Gaspard de la nuit (1908), Igor Stravinski - Scherzo fantastique et Feu d’ artifice (1909), etc.

Enesco interprétait avec plaisir au violoncelle des concertos romantique de grande envergure, comme: le Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre en Ré mineur par Edouard Lalo (1876), le Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre en La mineur op. 129 de Robert Schumann (1850), le Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre no. 1, en La mineur op. 33 de Camille Saint-Saëns, (1872), etc., ce qui nous fait comprendre le niveau technique d'interprétation, particulièrement élevé, du compositeur soliste La Symphonie Concertante op. 8, a des affinités héroïques et lyriques avec Edouard Lalo, Robert Schumann, Franz Liszt (Bentoiu, 1985, pp. 43,45) et Richard Strauss – en particulier dans l'orchestration, voir Don Quixote - Symphonische dichtung op.35 (1897) la première - 1898 à Cologne, etc.

Lors de la création enescienne, la Symphonie Concertante est antinomique avec son prochain ouvrage - Octuor à cordes op.7 in Ut Majeur (1900), à partir de l’incandescence émotionnelle romantique, vers le classicisme et de la polyphonie baroque.

L’interprète violoncelliste supporte presque tout le discours émotionnel, sur un étirage sonore maximum de presque 5 octaves, l’orchestre se jumelant avec la voix soliste thématique, mais avec moins intervention monochrome. La composition peut être classée comme une Grande Fantaisie, une rhapsodie d'une grande liberté, accordée à certaines formes musicales fréquentes.

Dans l'analyse formelle, on peut découvrir des modèles classiques, de type Concert instrumental en trois mouvements. Dans l'étude analytique phénoménologique, la composition pour violoncelle peut être considérée comme l'un des plus difficiles des opus enesciens.

Les mouvements sont (extraits d'analyse morphologique): A. Partie I Assez lent, un type de chanson rhapsodique: a – a1 – a2, etc., dans un climat majeur, avec une atmosphère de sérénité et de joie. Les ondes de tension de passion sont de haut en bas, sur un trémolo d'orchestre, à partir de 3 piano à 3 de forte!

L’introduction rhapsodique (ex.1.1.), rappels de Robert Schumann (ex.1.2.), et le thème central enescien (ex.1.3.), d’Edouard Lalo (ex.1.4): B. La deuxième Partie, reliée à la première, est bien développé, de type: a / classicisante Sans rigueur MM = 80, b / romantique Un peu plus animé MM = 88 - de haute virtuosité, et le retour métamorphosés - pour a Sans rigueur MM = 80.

La section b / romantique, de haute virtuosité (ex.2.1.) est construit sur des idées, reflété du concerto d’Edouard Lalo, lequel le jouait avec grand plaisir (ex.2.2.).

En le retour métamorphosés – a Sans rigueur MM = 80, le compositeur insère dans le second partie, d’autres types des virtuosités - octave de grande difficulté, quelle sera la force et l'agilité de la Section III (ex.2.3.), avec des échos de Robert Schumann (ex.2.4.).

C. La Troisième Partie propose le plus grand pont orchestral, les parties étant comprises dans un ensemble unitaire. Rhapsodiques, ressemble à la première, le violoncelle soliste en jouant sur un tremolo d’orchestre, avec des passages solistique de difficulté extrême.

La composition se termine par un 'explosion sonore, in Coda Plus vite MM = 92, quasi cadenza, sur une énorme pédale d'orchestre (ex.3.1.), une Grande Finale, pour une œuvre de génie !

III. La troisième composition pour violoncelle est la Sonate pour violoncelle et piano en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, écrit à Vienne, le 30 Novembre 1935, et dédiée à Pablo Casals. La première: 4 Mars 1936, avec Joseph Salmon, à l'École Normale de Musique, Paris. L'oeuvre a été imprimé par l'éditeur Salabert, Paris, 1952.

La compilation en quatre mouvements, il l'a répétée dans sa jeunesse, en 1898, lorsqu’il a composé la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle en Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1. La séquence des mouvements est (par rapport à la première Sonate): Partie I ,Allegro moderato ed amabile «Bucharest, le 8 août 1935» (Allegro molto moderato, «Caracalia, le 24 ottobre 1898»); Parte II, Allegretto agitato, non troppo mosso «Bucharest, le 12 septembre 1935» (Allegretto scherzando,«Sinaia, 30 octobre 1898»); Parte III, Andantino cantabile, senza lentezza«Vienne, le 27 settembre 1935» (Molto Andante, «Sinaia, 3 novembre 1898»);Parte IV, Final a la roumaine, Allegro sciolto «Vienne, 30 novembre 1935» (Presto «Sinaia, 4 novembre 1898»).

N'oublions pas que la Sonate pour piano et violon en caractère populaire roumaine no. 3 op.

25 (1926) , et la composition / le finissage de l’Opera Œdipe (1931), a précédé la création de la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle en Ut Majeur op. 26 no. 2. Ces travaux montre des affinités avec le melos roumains, mais Enesco met l'accent sur son système: ... a crea în caracterul popular, fără aservirea la motiv ... / créer dans le caractère populaire, sans soumission à la motif (***, 1964, p. 48). Et continuait: ... am aşteptat să se facă în mine fuziunea modului de exprimare folcloric românesc ... cu natura mea de simfonist înnăscut ... / je m’attendais à rendre la fusion et d'expression du folklore roumain ... avec ma nature de symphoniste inné (Gavoty, 1955, p. 49).

La Sonate pour violoncelle et piano en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, continue un route de musique noble, où, la Partie III propose une „doina” «construite» par le compositeur, sur un champ musical philosophique plus austère, le piano étant dans un dialogue continu avec le „rapsod”, une polyphonie – homophonie. En ce qui concerne la construction sonore, il convient de mentionner la conception d’Enesco: ... Compozitorul este un matematician ... / Le Compositeur est un mathématicien (***, George Enescu. Interviu., 1945). Utilisait une technique de composition spéciale, sur la façon de diffuser sur la palette les couleurs sonores les 12 sons, et quand ils se produisent, pour les mettre en évidence en particulier, sur le système de fluide, à une concentration émotionnelle élevée. Encore aujourd'hui, cette technique de composition est utilisée par les compositeurs. Nous suivrons dans cette Sonate la mise en oeuvre d'un total de 12 chromatique, voir les exemples 5.1 -. 5.9, avec les deux premières séries de chaque partie.

A. Le premier mouvement est de forme sonate libre Allegro moderato ed amabile, le premier groupe thématique est d’ une grande envergure, lento-cantabile, nostalgico, qui se déroule dans des

lignes continuées, avec des stockages du son - explosions et implosions prolongées. Glissando est un mod sonore spécifique souvent utilisé dans le matériau du composition. L'ouvrage est érigé sur une forme libre de Sonate, avec un développement et réexposition courts.

Bien que la Sonate, Partie I ait un caractère tonal-modal personnel, nous pouvons suivre dans le premier groupe thématique le déploiement d'une totale 12 chromatique, comme suit: dans les premières 4 mesures – 8 sons, le son suivant – 9, apparaît après les autres quatre mesures, le son 10 vient d’après huit autres mesures, le 11 component apparaît après les deux autres mesures, la fin des 12 étant amené d’après les trois autres mesures, la mesure 22 (ex.19).

Recherchant le développement second du total de 12 dans cette partie, nous découvrons que l'auteur le présente pleinement, que dans une seule mesure !!!(ex.1.2.), par rapport à la 22-e précédente.

B. Le deuxième mouvement est Allegretto agitato, non troppo mosso, sur-titrées par nous Scherzo ruvido, de grands dimensions, sous une forme libre, a – b, a1 – b1, etc, en esprit beethovenien, brahmsien / voir et à la Paul Dukas etc.

Bien que le deuxième mouvement ait un caractère tonal - modal personnel, nous pouvons suivre - et ici, dans le premier groupe thématique le déploiement d'une totale 12 chromatique, présenté en groupes de trois sons, comme suit: les 3 premiers sons dans la première mesure, les trois suivants sons pour mesurer 2, aussi pour les mesures 3 et 4 (ex.2.1.).

Le développement seconde du total des 12 comme se déroule brièvement, comme dans la première exposition: en 4 mesures (9 sons + 3) ! (ex.2.2.).

C. Le troisième mouvement est Andante cantabile, senza lentezza, peut-être la page roumaine le plus lyrique composée par Georges Enesco pour violoncelle; une chanson grave, bavarde, très expressive, construite par le compositeur dans le style de la chanson ancienne, sans être cité folklorique.

Il a beaucoup d'affinités avec la Sonate III pour piano et violon, et dans la substance, avec l’opéra Œdipe.

Et ici, sur un modèle de forme libre, où on peut distinguer un A – B – A var., nous pouvons suivre un développement d'une totale 12 chromatique, au cours des 18 mesures, présentées en groupes de cinq sons, comme suit: dans les 5 premières mesures, le groupe suivant - env. en trois mesures, seulement par le violoncelle, et les deux derniers sons – par piano, env. en 9 mesures (ex.3.1.)

Le développement second du total de 12 comme se déroule brièvement, comme dans les autres expositions: près un seul mesure! (ex.3.2).

Voici la cantilène, d’un talent artistique inégalable (ex.3.3.).

D. Le quatrième mouvement est Finale à la roumaine, Allegro sciolto, un mouvement complexe, sous une forme musicale libre de sonate, de grandes dimensions, où l'auteur utilise pour la colorature du son, et quarts d'un ton. L'œuvre est construite dans l'esprit de la chanson folklorique roumaine de jeux, un complexe sonore entrainant, gai, ben ritmato, avec beaucoup des glisses, sur un riche support acoustique au piano, de type orchestral.

Ici encore, sa maîtrise de composition est basée sur le total chromatique de 12, exposés le long des 19 mesures(ex.4.1.).

Analogue avec les autres parties, le développement seconde du totale de 12 se déroule brièvement: près qu’une seule mesure (et demi)! (ex.4.2.).

La Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2 a ouvert un univers avec une musique noble, l'authentique esprit roumain, création inégalable, dans la culture musicale universelle moderne.

[I faut mentionner que, dans mes compositions, la Sonate no. 1 «Remember Enesco» op. 2 no.

1 pour violoncelle seul, op. 2 no. 2, pour violoncelle et percussions, et op. 2 no. 3, pour violoncelle et ordinateur, ont été dédiés au «Violoncelliste» Georges Enesco].

Les compositions enesciennes dédiés au violoncelle sont passées déjà dans le grand répertoire des interprètes du monde.

Nous nous souvenons aussi les musiciens violoncellistes qui ont joué avec Georges Enesco:

Violoncellistes étrangers 1. Pablo Casals (1876 – 1973).

Enesco lui a dédié sa Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2 (1935). Il a joué de plusieurs fois et la Symphonie concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8.

Ensemble avec Georges Enesco ont joué de la musique de chambre beaucoup de fois; comme, un concerto dédié à Gabriel Fauré, à la Salle Hoche de Paris le 11 février 1901; puis, le 22 avril 1903, ont avait joué la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, etc. Pablo Casals dirige en première la Rapsodia română, op.11 no. 2, à Salle Gaveau, Paris, le 7 février 1907. A Bucarest, le 7 décembre 1936, il a soutenu un récital, à Sala Aro, où Georges Enesco a aussi joué; le 9 décembre 1936 on a joué enesemble chez Ateneu - Johannes Brahms, le Double concert op.102, en La mineur, chef d'orchestre George Georgesco.

2. R.Loys (...).

A joué en Trio par Enesco, le 6 février 1898, Paris, avec Enesco - violine, au piano ... (inconnu), etc.

3. Joseph Salmon (1864 – 1943).

A présenté avec Georges Enesco, en première, la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, (1899). Il a joué dans de nombreux trios avec Georges Enesco et Elena Bibesco.

Enesco lui a dédié sa Symphonie concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, qu'elle a joué beaucoup de fois. Le 4 janvier 1947, à Washington, il a joué la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, au piano le compositeur, puis, le 12 février 1937 à Pittsburg etc.

4. Felix Salmond (1888 - 1952).

A interprété la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, au piano – le compositeur, le 4 janvier 1937 à Washington, puis, le 13 février 1937, à New York etc.

5. André Bloch (1873 - 1960).

Il a joué beaucoup de musique de chambre à Paris (1, 15, 29 mars 1901) etc.

6. Louis Fournier (...).

Il a joué avec Georges Enesco et Alfredo Casella en Trio Enesco, créé à Paris, 1902, avec laquelle ils ont joué pendant de nombreuses années. En 1904, Georges Enesco a établi le Quatuor Enesco, à côté de Fritz Schneider, Henri Casadesus et Louis Fournier.

7. Henry Richet (...).

A joué dans le Trio Enesco, le 14 février 1904, Paris, etc.

8. Pitsch (...).

Joue le 17 février 1909, à la Sale Playel, Paris, avec E. Bernard (piano) et Enesco, Trio Aubade, etc.

9. André Hekking (1866 - 1925).

Joue en Trio Enesco.

10. Diran Alexanian (1881 - 1954) (Alexanian, 1929).

A interprété, entre autres, avec Enesco au piano, la Symphonie concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8., dans la Salle des agriculteurs, Paris, avril 1920, dans la Salle Pleyel, le 10 novembre 1935, etc.

11. Descosterd (...).

A joué dans le Quatuor Enesco, avec José Porta vna I, Radrizzani (…) vna II, Georges Enesco – viola, (inconnu) au violoncel ..., le Quatuor à cordes op.16, au Conservatoire de Lausanne, le 5 février 1921.

12. Christiaan van Isterdael (...).

A interprété dans le Quatuor de cordes op.16, le 12 avril 1921, la Haye.

13. Jean d’Archambeau (1879 - 1955).

A joué dans le Quatuor de cordes op.22 nr. 1, le 19 octobre 1921, dans la Salle Gaveau, Paris, puis en novembre 1921, à Londres.

14. Gérard Hekking (1879 - 1942).

A interprété musique de chambre.

15. Willy Hüsler (...).

A joué musique de chambre à Ateneul Roman, le 26 février 1944, avec Georges Enesco au piano.

16. M. Kalujkin (...).

A interprété de la musique de chambre à Ateneul Roman, le 30 décembre 1945, (quatuors avec piano), avec Georges Enesco au piano.

17. Daniil Șafran (1923 - 1997).

A joué dans un récital de sonates à Ateneul Roman, le 28 mars 1946, avec Georges Enesco au piano.

Violoncellistes roumains 1. Constantin Dimitresco (1847 - 1928).

Georges Enesco a joué en première, avec Constantin Dimitresco et Dimitrie Dinico, Andante religioso pour deux violoncelles et orgue, le 31 mars / 13 avril 1900, à l’Église évangélique de Bucarest.

Il a joué beaucoup de musique de chambre, etc.

2. Dimitrie Dinico (1898 - 1964).

Georgesc Enesco lui a dédié sa Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, en Fa mineur, op. 26 no.1 (1898). Il a joué beaucoup musique de chambre, etc., en première, comme: Trio pour violon, violoncelle et piano, avec Georges Enesco au violon et Ernest Narice au piano, le 13/25 mars 1898, et d'autres œuvres du répertoire classique et contemporain.

3. Florin Breviman (1890 – 1950?).

Il a joué de la musique de chambre à Iasi, 1918.

4. Nicolae Papazoglou (...).

Il a joué de la musique de chambre à Iasi, 1918.

5. Nicolae Ochialbi (1890? – 1950?, USA).

Il a joué dans le Quatuor à cordes op.22 no. 1, le 21, 28, 31 mai 1921, à Bucharest, etc.

6. George Cocea (1904 - 1989).

Il a joué dans le Octouor à cordes op. 7, le 9 janvier 1931, à Bucarest; dans la Symphonie Concertante op.8, le 29 mars 1941, et la 6 mars 1942, etc.

7. Theodor Lupu (1899 - 1962).

Il a joué l’intégrale des quatuors de Beethoven, le 7 - 28 mars 1941, et le 4 mars 1942; aussi le 7, 14, 18, 21, 25, 28 mars 1942, avec Georges Enesco, Constantin Bobesco et Alexandru Rădulesco, 1943, 1944, etc. Il a joué la Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, au piano - le compositeur; 8. Ionel Fotino (1908 - 1979).

Il a joué de la musique de chambre à Ateneu, București, le 28 février 1942, en 1943, etc.

9. Iuliu Boniș (1909 –1989, SUA).

Il a joué le Trio avec Georges Enesco et Radu Mihail au piano, à Ateneu, Bucarest, en janvier 1943.

10. Serafim Antropov (1913 - 1988).

Il a joué le Trio avec Georges Enesco, en janvier 1943 etc.

Pour notre brève incursion dans l’univers enesciennne – de composition et d’interprétation, il faut aussi mentionner l'amour dédié à: A) Alto, où Georges Enesco se sentait bien avec le « super-violon» / il avait par la naissance – la main gauche plus élevée, avec un fort vibrato. Cette passion a été déclarée dès sa jeunesse, et son père en est devenu inquiet, car il écrivat, le 8 mai 1895: ... Văd că în seratele muzicale, tu faci totdeauna Alto și nu Violina ... oare aceasta nu are vreo influență asupra digitației și a manierei de a fi un bun violonist ? / Je vois que dans les soirées musicales, tu joue toujours de l’Alto et pas du Violon ... est-ce que cela n’a pas une influence sur les doigtés et sur la manière d’être un bon violoniste ?

Nous ne savons pas la réponse du jeune de 14 ans, mais nous faisons une déduction que cela constituerait un «fun». Voici un autre extrait d'une lettre du père, le 12 mai 1895: ... Nu ți-am imputat numaidecât seratele muzicale cu Alto ... te-am întrebat numai, dacă nu te smintește la digitație, altfel, îmi pare bine că găsești puțină distracție ..., / Je ne me plaignais immédiatement sur des soirées musicales avec Alto, j'ai demandé seulement si cela ne contrevient pas à ton doigté, d'ailleurs, je suis heureux que tu trouve un peut de plaisir (Cosma, George Enescu, Scrisori., 1974, p. 419).

Pour l’alto et le piano il a composé Konzertstuck (1906), oeuvre qui a été enregistrée sur un disque, avec Alexandru Rădulesco à l’alto et le compositeur au piano.

[Le compositeur Marcel Mihalovici, a composé l’oeuvre Textes, dédié à «l’altiste» Georges Enesco (Cosma, Enescu azi., 1981, pp. 131-132)1 ].

B) La Flûte. Georges Enesco a compose l’œuvre Cantabile et Presto (1904), qu’il jouera aussi seul, avec plaisir! De la correspondance du compositeur, nous apprenons qu’il a aussi joué à une flûte piccolo, qu’il a donnée plus tard à un ami [10].

C) Le Corne était un autre passion du compositeur – voir la revue România musicală, 1898: ... Enescu cânta cu un talent egal la pian, la corn și la violoncel ... / Enesco jouait avec talent égal au piano, au corne et au violoncelle ...

D, E) Georges Enesco a composé des œuvres pour Trompette, Harpe - des études de concerto, etc., qui sont encore aujourd'hui de grande notoriété dans le répertoire des solistes contemporains.

Des nouveaux témoignages prouvent le génie de l’artiste complexe Georges Enesco, et sa route pour l'ÉTERNITÉ.

La profondeur, la spiritualité érémitique du philosophe et du musicien complexe Georges Enesco, ont conduit à la création d'œuvres de génie dans l’espace roumain et universel, déjà inclus dans le patrimoine culturel contemporain.

I. Georges Enesco. Des exemples: 1. Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 no.1 (1898)

Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, parte I, fragment - module génératrice

1.2. Johannes Brahms, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle in Mi mineur, op. 38, parte IV Allegro, fragment – module génératrice

1.3. Johannes Brahms, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle in Fa Majeur, op. 99, parte III Allegro, fragment – module génératrice

1.4. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, parte I, fragment – module génératrice

2.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, parte II, fragment - module génératrice transfiguré

2.2. Ludwig van Beethoven, Symphonie V op. 67, in Ut mineur, parte III, la thème principal - fragment (module génératrice - analogie)

3.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 nr. 1, parte III, fragment

3.2. Johannes Brahms, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa Majeur, op. 99, parte III Allegro, fragment

4.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 no.1, parte IV, le module génératrice transformé au thème de fugue, type brahmsien

II. George Enescu, Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, 1901. Des exemple:

1.1.Georges Enesco, Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, Introduction, fragment

1.2. Robert Schumann, Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre, en La mineur op. 129, Introduction, fragment

1.3. Georges Enesco, Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, la Thème principale, fragment

1.4. Edouard Lalo, Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre, en Re mineur, la Thème (b), fragment

2.1. Georges Enesco, Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, Parte II, section b, de grande virtuosité, fragment

2.2. Edouard Lalo, Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre, en Re mineur, secvence (b)

2.3. Georges Enesco, Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, Parte II, le retour à la section a, de haute virtuosité – avec des octaves de grand difficulté, fragment

2.4. Robert Schumann, Concerto pour violoncelle et orchestre, en La mineur op. 129, des octaves de grand difficulté, qui sera la force d'agilité pour la Section III, fragment

3.1. Georges Enesco, Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, Finale, fragment

3.2.G.Enescu, Symphony concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur op. 8, Mihăileni, 1901, dédié à Joseph Salmon, parte 1, reduction pour violoncellle et piano, fragment III. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2. Des exemples:

1.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte I, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, pp. 3, 4, 5

1.2. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte I, L'exposition seconde à chromatique totale, p. 5

2.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte II, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, p. 25

2.2. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte II, L'exposition seconde à chromatique totale, p. 25

3.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte III, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, pp. 47, 48

3.2. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte III, L'exposition seconde à chromatique totale, p. 48

3.3. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte III, Thème A, soutenu par le violoncelle seul

4.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte IV, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, pp. 55, 56

4.2. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte IV, L'exposition seconde à chromatique totale, p. 56, 57

5.1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte I, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 3

5.2. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte I, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 4

5.3. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte I, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 5

5.4. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte II, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 25

5.5. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte III, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 47

5.6. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte III, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 48

5.7. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte IV, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 55

5.8. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte IV, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 56

5.9. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Ut Majeur, op. 26 no. 2, parte IV, L'exposition initiale à chromatique totale, sur la partition, p. 57

Georges Enesco, certains manuscrits

1. Georges Enesco, Sonate pour piano et violoncelle, in Fa mineur, op. 26 no. 1, parte I, fragment, 7 – 8 / 19 - 20 novembre 1898, p. 1

2. Georges Enesco, Andante religioso, pour deux violoncelles et orgue, in Mi bémol Major, sans numéro d'opus, 11 avril 1900, p. 1

NOTES 1

Il commentait: Les sessions d'enregistrement du disque, elles ont toujours été dures, à cause du fait que les erreurs restent gravées dans la cire, et parce que l'obligation de redémarrer une face du disque parce qu'elle est entachée par des erreurs techniques, même si quant à l'interprétation, elle était tout à fait satisfaisante.

2 Voir la version pour alto, violoncelle et orgue, faite par nous, en première le samedi, 1er avril, 2017, Ateneul Român, Sala Mare, avec Ștefan Gheorghiu - alto, Marcel Spinei – violoncelle et Simona Sandulesco – orgue.

Pendant une pause, après le prétentieux et fastidieux «Andante cantabile» de Trio nr. 7, en Si bémol “à l’Archiduc» de Beethoven, le pianiste Joseph Prunner et l’invité japonais Ekytay Ann ont commencé à commenter l’interprétation de la partiture. Prunner l’a respectueusement remercié (Enesco - n. n.), tandis que le distingué musicien et chef d'orchestre, compositeur et violoncelliste, Ekytay Ann, et moi, tout à fait nouveau dans l'entourage du maître, nous sommes restés surpris de voir comment il pourrait connaître à fond chaque élément de l’oeuvre qu'il jouait. En voyant notre étonnement, la maître a dit en anglais «I also play the cello, but not this work, other pieces” … (et il a ensuite répété la phrase, pour moi, en roumain).

4 Sanford (Schlussel – pianiste accompagnateur) m'a emmené (Georges Enesco - s.n.) pour une soirée de musique de chambre, la première, parmi beaucoup d'autres. Ce fut un événement spécial, auquel je connaissais que chaque musicien voulait être invité, d'avoir l'honneur de le rencontrer, peut-être jouer avec Enesco … Dans cette première soirée de musique de chambre, le violoniste William Kroll, le pianiste Frank Scheridan, l’altiste Lilian Fus, le violoncelliste Felix Salmond, et bien d'autres, étaient disposés à jouer avec Enesco. Il y a eu une participation exclusive des professionnels. Je n’aurais jamais osé introduire un amateur à jouer le second violon, bien que je l’eusse aimé pour avoir cette expérience rare. Après cela, Sanford m'a remercié parce que «je leur avais permis d'utiliser mon salon». Je l’ai remerciéspour l’avoir utilisé. Enesco était dans la meilleure forme lors de l'interprétation de «Hausmusik» (Musique de chambre). Il se sentait comme libéré, parce qu'il était entre amis et collègues, et il est revenu souvent après cette première réunion. Un soir, quand l'ensemble était prêt à commencer le Quatuor de cordes op. 127 en Mi bémol Majeur de Beethoven, est arrivé (le violoniste) William Kroll. Enesco s’est levé du siège du premier violon: «voilà, vous devez jouer du premier violon», il a dit à Kroll. “Bien sûr que non!”, Kroll, qui était beaucoup plus jeune, a répondu respectueusement. Enesco a insisté: «Je jouerai du deuxième violon», et joyeusement il a ajouté: «Ce sera utile de lire la partition».Il a joué sans poursuivre la partition, laquelle, évidemment, il savait par cœur. En effet,il avait du plaisir de jouer de la musique de chambre. Une fois, il a joué le premier mouvement du premier violon, le second du deuxième violon, letroisième de l’alto et le quatrième du violoncelle, et plus tard, «juste pour le plaisir», la partition du piano, d’un quatuor de Mozart …

5 Quel a été le modèle pour d'autres compositeurs, voir Valentin Gheorghiu, Sonata pentru pian şi violoncel, etc.

6 Viorel Cosma raconte que, dans une lettre du mois de mars 1976, Paris, le compositeur Marcel Mihalovici a compose l’oeuvre Textes pour ”le violiste” Georges Enesco.

3

BIBLIOGRAPHIE ***. (1945). George Enescu. Interviu. Revue Femeia şi căminul, no. 195. ***. (1964). Le journal Propăşirea, no. 146, 1928. Voir George Enescu. (E. Muzicală, Ed.) Alexanian, D. (1929). a édité J. S. Bach 6 Suite pour violoncelle, sous les doigté de Pablo Casals,. Paris: Editions Salabert.

Bentoiu, P. (1985). Pascal Bentoiu considerait comme «logique de l’effet primordial» la Stmphonie concertante pour violoncelle et orchestre en Si mineur, op. 8, voir Chef-d’oeuvres enescien.

Bucharest: Editura Muzicală.

Cosma, V. (1974). George Enescu, Scrisori. Bucureşti: Editura Muzicală.

Cosma, V. (1981). Enescu azi. Timișoara: Editura Facla.

Cosmovici, A. (1990). George Enescu în lumea muzicii și în familie. București: Editura Muzicală.

Gavoty, B. (1955). Les souvenires de Georges Enesco. Paris: Editions lammarion.

Roșca, F. (2007). George Enescu. Lucrări și transcripții pentru orgă. Timișoara: Editura Universității de Vest din Timișoara.

Yehudi Menuhin, u. M. (1996). Die Violine - Kulturgeschichte eines instruments. Barenreiter: Editions Metzler.

George Enescu and the Multi-Ethnic Cultural Space of Timișoara

ABSTRACT : George Enescu made very numerous concert tours, including, of course, the Western part of the country, specifically the region of Banat. He played in Lugoj and in Timișoara, several times. Constantin-Tufan Stan is presenting press articles he discovered in local press, about the presence and the concerts of the revered Romanian maestro.

Submitted : June 20, 2017 Admitted: June 30, 2017

KEYWORDS : BANAT, TIMIȘOARA, PRESS, REVIEWS, CONCERTS COMPOSER George Enescu’s first stop in Timișoara (May 23-24, 1921), who was “historically designated as the reincarnation of the great Paganini”, “asserting himself among the most prominent musicians of the world through the mastery of his bow, the genius of his compositions and his extraordinary musical memory”, concretized in an unique event, which appeared to invigorate the artistical world of Banat, on the background of profound political, social and cultural transformations generated by the Great Union. “Considering the monotony of our musical space, Maestro G. Enescu’s visit represents an exceptional event”, the local press would write (***, 1921, p. 3).

Instead of writing an authentic chronicle of the two concerts, the author of first impressions (under the pseudonym Deceneu) felt obliged to share with the music loving public, the enthusiastic students who, "driven by that admirable intuition, representing the appanage of youth, acclaimed him" (Deceneu, 1921), a few biographical details, emphasizing Enescu’s exceptional contribution to the crystallization of Romanian musical life by: setting up a fund for the purchase of an organ dedicated to the Romanian Athenaeum, introducing a Composition Award, encouraging young Romanian artists.

(Deceneu, 1921) "[Enescu] stimulates new energies and brings to the limelight our young composers, starring Alfred Alessandrescu, Nonna Otescu and Cuclin" (Deceneu, 1921, p. 1).

A new attempt of sketching a chronicle (George Enescu Concerts, under the pseudonym Lia – presumably Lucia Cosma (Lia, 1921, p. 3) –, turned into a new opportunity of eulogizing the artistic excellence of the brilliant guest, emphasizing his role in creating a veritable ecumenical spirit throughout a city where the most diverse cultural typologies were intersecting: ”Romanians sharing the same blood and people of different races would speak and feel alike: they were all sharing the same event” (Lia, 1921). The author of the eulogy candidly confessed her inability to offer any critical reviews, following the two concerts ("We should only mention, as a chronicle title, the names of the pieces performed by Maestro Enescu, otherwise, who would dare to write a review on how he performed?"), concentrating exclusively on enumerating the composers featured within the show: Nardini, Händel, Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Wieniawski and Kreisler, ”whom he reproduces with much more sensitivity and purity of style than Kreisler himself”. Concluding her eulogy, the author underlined the multitude of artistic talents distinguishing maestro’s personality: "Enescu is by himself a creative-artist of incommensurable talent: the pianist completing the violinist, the composer representing one of the most interesting and gifted artists of modern times, while as conductor standing, likewise, among the few greatest masters".

The euphoria created by Maestro Enescu’s first artistic presence in Timişoara, in 1921, is described by the music teacher, pianist and composer Alma Cornea-Ionescu, who also had the privilege to interview the illustrious artist: "The greatest event of the year 1921 was George Enescu’s concerto, he had come for the first time, after the Great Union, to the city of Timişoara.

Whoever heard Maestro Enescu playing the violin, was ravished by his sublime and serene performance, at times perhaps rather delicatefor the rigorous masterpieces of the great classics. Particularly J. S. Bach’s music.

Even though extremely well performed, still perhaps rather «zigeunerweisen» played, in contrast with the performances of the great German «Bachspieler». Although he had been studying for several years in

Vienna, the city of great classics, his style was still distinguished by virtue of his affinity to the most beautiful and exquisite musical Parisian society, through a rhythmic, melodic and metric clarity a bit too highly emphasized.

After the concert, Lucia Cosma [the wife of Senior Aurel Cosma, the first Romanian prefect of the Timiş-Torontal county after the Great Union] threw a reception in honor of the brilliant Romanian violinist. The invitation was issued on our names as well. By chance, we were seated precisely next to him at the table. Poor Enescu was assaulted by the mid-class ladies from Timişoara, who overwhelmed him with compliments and mindless questions which invaded his biography and, which certainly, did not please Maestro Enescu.

After sitting down at the table, Enescu came next to me, engaging me in conversation. Perhaps, he was trying to escape the women’s idle talk. He appeared to feel at ease beside me, since we were both rather quiet.

Apparently, he was satisfied with my presence, since he escaped the obligation of answering those questions, undoubtedly insipid, the ladies from Timişoara were annoying him with, and silently enjoying the relish offered at the amphitryon’s sumptuous banquet. In the heat of discussions, he happened to approach the matter regarding the Conservatory of Timişoara.

He said that it needed reorganizing, an authoritarian artistic personality as a leader to boost up our musical life. I still recall being overwhelmed with emotion during my first conversation with Maestro Enescu, whom I was introduced to, by Mrs. Lucia Cosma, as the best Romanian pianist of Timişoara. He remains eternally alive in the hearts of those who loved and eulogized him from abroad and, especially, from the grateful homeland” (Cornea-Ionescu 1981, 3).

Maestro Enescu’s concerts materialized in a sublimation of the celebration of May 10, National Day of the Kingdom of Romania, which had occurred shortly before: ”An artistic event of incommensurable importance concluded the solemnity of May 10. [...] After having aroused the unrequited admiration of the civilized West, with the art of his magic bow, inciting the superior artistic manifestations of the Romanian spirit, Enescu did not hesitate to visit Banat, contributing with his charming music, to the perfection of spiritual union and earning, at the same time, the distinguished respect of citizens of other nations, inspiriting our artistic culture” (Cronică din Banat, 1921).

Details about the repertory and circumstances about the unfolding of the concerts from November 23to 24,1923, in the theater of the Military-Civil Casino, institution under the Presidency of the general Constantin Găvănescul, are disclosed within a vast chronicle signed by René Ch. Brasey (1923, p. 2) (1923, p. 1), fascinated by the brilliance of the ”demiurge” Enescu: ”Over the past week, on Friday and Saturday, the third series of Maestro Enescu’s concerts took place in Timişoara. Our city had already made acquaintance with this king violinist, so that, on this event, the hall of the Casino resembled a pilgrimage destination, where the crowd, with tickets worn-out on the first day of sales or acquired at the last minute, through protests and fights, gathered huddle upon huddle, feverish of artistic revelation. The chroniclers of the minority newspapers had certainly created ever since last year, a distinguished reverence dedicated to Maestro Enescu, applauding, through his artistic personality, one of the few who represent, nowadays, genuine universal music.

I keep remembering Maestro’s excellence in setting to music the inner perfume of every creation, in the same way he succeeded in expressing via the «Kreutzer» Sonata the novice enthusiasm of Beethoven, still under the reign of Mozart’s grace, his manner of rendering the religious sensualism distinguishing Bruch’s Jewish spirit, Brahms’ romantic reverie, Wieniawski’ Polish grace and, eventually, the erratic reverie and tempestuous romance distinguishing the Hungarian Melodics «Csak egy kis leány…», comprised within Sarasate’s Zigeunerweisen. The entire poetry depicting the Hungarian steppe took wings alike this brilliant «musician», determining me to comprehend the delirious ovations of a certain public. Beyond doubt, the Maestro was encouraged to present pieces aside from schedule, while encores threatened to be endless. The Civil-Military Casino, presided by General Găvănescul, offered a splendid harp of yellow chrysanthemums, and I was in Maestro’s changing room when the garrison’s commander thanked him with

moving words of Romanian patriotism. I highly appreciated the admiration with which the journalist from «Temesvári Hírlap», Father Jarosy, greeted the Maestro and the deference displayed by the journalist Sárkány from «Temesvarer Zeitung» to our great musician, every time he was on tour in Banat."

The reflection of George Enescu’s recitals in the ”minority” press or the acknowledgement of his creative genius, throughout a cosmopolitan burg where, after the year 1918, the Romanians were the ones labeled with this appellative, represented a sensitive subject of debate in the Romanian majority press, during the early years that followed the Great Union. The tribulations regarding the setting up of a symphonic orchestra in Timişoara, starting with the foundation of an alleged Municipal Orchestra, in1920, under the leadership of Gida Neubauer – event followed by other similar initiatives, taken by Guido Pogatschnigg, Béla Tolnay şi Leo Freund –,previous to stating and crystallizing a semiprofessional ensemble, the Orchestra of the ”Music Devotees” Society, which was to express, during the inter-war period, the spirit of cult music, performed to the highest level, were capable to, artificially, stimulate this peripheral subject. An excerpt of the concert chronicle of the Orchestra of the ”Music Devotees” Society, from the end of the season 1923-1924, wherein the author, Dezső Járosy, was retrospecting to, with high accuracy and musicological inclination, the structure of one of Enescu’s Rhapsodies (we are presuming that he is referring to the Ist Rhapsody in A major), defines the manner in which Maestro Enescu’s performance was accepted, within the city of Timişoara, by a neutral audience, who could not be accused of tributary redundancy towards an exalted patriotism: ”Our musical culture was enriched by new representations, witnessing a classicization process of the Romanian folk music, offering the most promising perspectives. Certainly, Maestro Enescu exerts towards transforming the structure, the Rhapsody being deployed in a kaleidoscopic manner, in vibrant notes and, here and there, shining through the complexity of the polyphonic composition, notwithstanding, overall, the masterpiece resembling excessively a medley. If there is a person destined to accomplish this mission, then Maestro Enescu represents the perfect artist to change this, the medley giving way to structural unity” (see Bodó 2010, 132, 134). Obviously, Járosy had not have the opportunity of listening to senior performances of Enescu’s masterpiece, fact proven by the absence, within his chronicles, of any reference to another opus, intended to dissipate certain critical aspects of his considerations.

In an article published in „Temesvári Hírlap”, at the end of the season 1924-1925 of the Orchestra of the ”Music Devotees” Society, Járosy had rightfully noticed, during the preview of a designed artistic tournament of Ernő Dohnányi in Timişoara, the existence of a certain animosity and sense of mistrust, dominating the relationship between the intellectuals of different ethnic groups, given the circumstances in which one could acutely feel that the Municipal Theater was out of the concert circuit, this institution being destroyed by the conflagration which occurred in the year 1920: ”It is highly regrettable the fact that the intellectuals pertaining to the three nationalities [Romanian, Hungarian and Jewish– Romanians being, according to the statistics, in an obvious minority]are keeping a distance from each other. The artistic life must be protected from disputes regarding nationalities. It would be laudable if the Hungarian public appreciated Maestro Enescu’s performance, while the Romanians enjoyed the concert of a renowned Hungarian artist (Ibidem)”.

In an announcement of the concerts occurring at the end of 1936, published in ”Vestul” (VII, 1.817, 1936, 7, VII, 1.818, 1936, 1:Maestro Enescu’s Concerts, and VII, 1.819, 1936, 7), it was written: ”As announced, Maestro Enescu will perform three violin concerts in Timişoara, with the participation of artist Ionel Gherea, pianist. The concerts will take place at the Municipal Theater on Sunday 13, Monday 14 and Tuesday, December 15 [I have, silently, revised the errors of the concert dates], starting at 9 o'clock in the evening. Maestro Enescu is celebrated with great enthusiasm in the cities in which he performs. We are certain that, the city of Timişoara will also offer the Maestro, who has made Romania proud all around the world, a triumphant welcome!”

Eventually, through a malicious remark of the editorial staff, presenting certain hardly disguised nationalist aspects, the scarce presence of the Romanian music lovers at the three concerts was, resentfully, deplored: ‘‘Our compatriots refused to understand all these aspects. We are desolated to witness a crowded theater at Milstein’s, Rubinstein’s or other «steins» concerts, whilst during Maestro Enescu’s performance, a few people merely completing the ground floor hall! We should truly be ashamed of ourselves!”

In the artistic year 1936, apotheotically concluded by Maestro Enescu’s presence, other artistic events were noted, yet, perhaps the most remarkable being Béla Bartók’s recital, on May 2, on the stage of the Municipal Theater (the last Romanian performance), which resulted in certain unpolished xenophobic criticism in the Romanian press (understandable, considering the political context of those

times). The brilliant Hungarian composer was criticized for certain assertions, considered tendentious, iterated in the Hungarian press (in contradiction with the statements made throughout the folklore collection, edited by the Romanian Academy), according to which ”the essential characteristics of the Hungarian and Romanian folk music are identical, nevertheless – until the Hungarian music evolved and perfected –the Romanian folk music remained at a primitive stage” (Sir Béla Bartók owes us an explanation: is he still our mentor and admirer of Romanian music?, in (Fruncea, 1936) The same year, 1936, offered to the distinguished music loving audience of Timisoara other musical occasions: the concert of Orchestra of the ”Music Devotees” Society (February 17), conducted

by Fr. Pauck (who had succeeded Radu Urlăţianu at the music stand, after the latter’s tragic disappearance due to concerted stratagem, initiated by certain ultranationalist chroniclers, tendency that would perpetuate in the years to come),according to the soloist contribution of the violinist Virgil Pop, ”recently returned from Paris, after studying at Maestro George Enescu’s college of music” (”Fruncea”, III, 7, 1936, 2), the concert of mezzo-soprano Letiţia Anuşca, from Teatro alla Scala of Milano (March 7, 1936), as well as the recital of the violinist Jacques Thibaud, accompanied by Tasso Janopoulos (March 11). Certain considerations of the alleged ”minority” press irritated C. Bumbaru-Basu, the chronicler of the hebdomadaire ”Fruncea”: ”A peculiarity occurring inside the minority press represents the fact that, beside Jacques Thibaud and other few names, such as Huberman and Yehudi Menuhin, Maestro George Enescu’s name is disregarded, as if he represented an insignificant artist and performer who was not worthy of this kind of attention. Or, it must be ascertained that Yehudi was a prodigy thereafter perfected by Master Enescu, who was his teacher and mentor, and as a student not only that he did not succeed in surpassing his mentor, but for a certain period of time, he also ceased to assert himself as ardently as in the beginning.

A certain press appears to forget the fact […] that the renowned music stores of the great European centers, invoke as best argument describing the quality of their products, the complimentary advertisement – presenting violin strings, for example –as those «utilized by the masters Thibaud and Enescu»” (Bumbaru-Basu, Cronica concertului lui J. Thibaud, 1936, p. 2) (Bumbaru-Basu, ***, 1936, p.

2), including echoes from the Parisian premiere of the opera Oedipe: “the first audition represented a grandiose success, highlighted by the entire artistic criticism distinguishing the City of Light. Her eulogy appears endless, avouching that since Wagner’s Tetralogy, Opera music has never reached a higher peak than the latter masterpiece of our brilliant compatriot”.

The tendency of intellectual segregation on ethnic criteria would exacerbate, down the centuries, causing the emergence of a bipolar public, condition deplored by Alma Cornea-Ionescu within the musical review of the year 1938, published in the hebdomadaire ”Fruncea” of Timişoara (cf. Stan 2013, 4-5; Stan 2016): ”Whereas a classical performer appears on stage (i.e. the position of the soloist [Gioconda] De Vito, the pianist Kempff etc.), the concert is boycotted

by Jews, if a Jewish artistic performance takes place, the rest of the public keeps the distance. This silent rivalry between the two parties grows more conspicuous and peculiar within the Orchestra of «Music Devotees» Society.

Ever since the musical leadership had been placed in the hands of the composer Fritz Pauck, not even a single Jew attended the concerts of the symphonic orchestra, notwithstanding the fact that part of the committee and bandsmen of the ensemble were represented exclusively by Jews. […] On the other hand, the artistic movement deployed last year, there had not been recorded any other paradox, except for the serenity given by the name of our brilliant Maestro George Enescu and the wonderful Italian soloist De Vito”.

The authoress of the article went further, reprehending the reticence of the City Hall in granting the leadership of the Orchestra of ”Music Devotees” Society, ”to the eminent conductor Gheorghe Pavel (whose left for the same reason), as well as to the music teacher Vasile Ijac, […] both of them conductors, having «musical preparation and virtues distinctly superior»”, both contributing to the reconciliation of the melomaniac public. After a brief preparatory period at the Conservatory of Timişoara, within the String Department, left vacant after Béla Tomm’s retirement and, formally, within the Chamber Music and Orchestra Department (at the beginning of the school year 1937-1938, however, without taking action in this direction), George Pavel had been assigned, by the decision of the National Education Ministry, at the Academy of Music and Dramatic Art of Cluj, as violin teacher and, afterwards, as tenure teacher of the chamber music and orchestra classes (see Niţulescu 1939), being, subsequently, nominated as tenure conductor of the Romanian Opera Orchestra, situated in the heart of Transylvania, during the first season celebrated along with the lyrical artists of Cluj, found in retreat at Timişoara, 1940-1941. On

January 11,1943, George Pavel directed, on the stage of the Municipal Theater of Timișoara, the first audition, premiere to the stage creation of Vasile Ijac, the pantomime entitled Ivan Turbincă.

The animosity which disturbed the cultural life of Timișoara during the interwar period, nurtured by the recrudescence of ethnic and confessional intolerance at European level, generated an insignificant reverberation. Found within a multi-secular and beneficial interference, with an exemplary experience of plurilingualism and interculturality, the representatives of the cultural space of Timișoara rediscovered, after slight hesitations, the harmony that has always defined the ‘mioritical’ region of Banat.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Cronică din Banat. (1921). Nădejdea , I (35).

Bodó. (2010). Járosy. Opera Omnia 1. Muzica simfonică la Timişoara în anii 1920. Arad: Guttenberg Univers.

Nițulescu, P. (1939). Muzica româneasca de azi. Cartea Sindicatului Artiștilor Instrumentiști din România. Buurești.

Stan, C.-T. (2013). Vasile Ijac, Părintele simfonismului bănățean. Timișoara: Editura Eurostampa.

Stan, C.-T. (2016). George Enescu. Consonanțe bănățene- cronici, evocări, interviuri, omagii, mărturii.

Timișoara: Editura Eurostampa. ***. (1921). Nădejdea , I (34).

(1936). Fruncea , III (17).

Bumbaru-Basu, C. (1936). ***. Fruncea , III (10).

Bumbaru-Basu, C. (1936). Cronica concertului lui J. Thibaud. Fruncea , III (11).

Banatul românesc. (1923). Nădejdea , V (47).

Concertele maestrului Enescu. (1923). Nădejdea , III (361).

Cornea Ionescu, A. (1981). Enescu. Orizont , XXXII (37).

Deceneu. (1921). George Enescu. Nădejdea , I (35).

Lia, (. C. (1921). Nădejdea , I (37).

Enescu, nouvelles restitutions CORNEL ȚĂRANU ACADÉMIE ROUMAINE Résume : Dans les archives du Musée Enescu il y a encore des manuscrits très intéressante et peu connu. J’avais découvert un fragment de pièce concertante pour violon et orchestre, de son adolescence (1896-1897). Quelques considérations sur cet ouvrage.

Envoyé : Le 30 mai 2017 Accepté : Le 15 juin 2017

KEYWORDS : PARTITION, RESTITUTION, MUSÉE, VARIANTES AU dernier colloque j’ai présenté un certain nombre d’œuvres écrites par Enescu durant ses années d'études, y compris un trio, un quintette de piano, et les deux premières parties d'un concerto pour violon et orchestre.

Tout se trouvait dans les archives du Musée Enescu, qui a également édité certaines d'entre eux, présentées en première audition par les ensembles de l’Académie « Gheorghe Dima » de Cluj.

Pourquoi cette démarche ? Pourquoi était nécessaire leur entrée dans la vie musicale roumaine?

D'abord le jeune compositeur a démontré une prolificité peu commune.

Son travail scolaire désigne une possession souveraine des formes classiques et une égale maîtrise dans la construction symphonique ou de la musique de chambre.

Dans cette communication, nous présentons aujourd'hui cette approche cognitive, dont l'évolution au fil du temps nous révèle un style de maturation constante, partant des exigences académiques vers une langue de plus en plus personnelle, avec déjà des éléments de plus en plus proches du folklore roumain, la préparation des deux Rhapsodies roumaines. Examinons quelques-unes de ces œuvres, qui nous ont été fournies par le Musée George Enescu.

La Fantaisie pour violon et orchestre date probablement de 1896-1897, comme nous signale Clemansa Firca. C’est une partition non signée et inachevée. Écrite en Ut majeur, est une exposition de Sonate avec un fort dualisme thématique et une écriture solistique et orchestrale efficace, sans caractéristiques stylistiques très personnelles, étant encore l´un des projets inachevés du jeune compositeur.

Cette œuvre a été présentée aussi par l´orchestre de l´Académie « Gheorghe Dima ». Plus personnelle, plus complexe est la première partie d'un concerto pour piano et orchestre, achevé et signé par l'auteur, Paris, le 21 décembre 1897.

On trouve dans le concert des éléments constructifs d'une forme de sonate, le souffle symphonique qui le caractérise et une écriture très sollicitant de l´instrument soliste. Quant au style, nous sommes toujours dans une zone classicisante dont certains échos post-brahmsiens se font sentir parfois.

La partition très claire, révèle la maîtrise du jeune compositeur. Nous espérons l´entendre dans un futur programme, toujours sous les auspices de l´Académie « Gheorghe Dima ».

En 1896 Enescu a écrit diverses variantes d'une « Suite Roumaine » mentionnée aussi dans le catalogue Clemansa Firca. Un premier croquis est en sol mineur, et un second en si mineur.

Nous trouvons dans la première version cinq variantes d'orchestration de l´hymne « Deșteaptăte Române ».

Cette dernière version est datée et signée Paris, Décembre 1896, ce qui signifie que l'auteur la considère finie. Je l´ai complétée avec deux variations de la version précédente avant la reprise « Da Capo ». Il est intéressant de noter un court élément folklorique, qui annonce déjà les futures Rhapsodies, après l'expérience du Poème Roumain.

Apparemment, Enescu a voulu finir le Poème roumain avec « Deșteaptă-te Române », mais il a préféré l´hymne royal à la suggestion de la princesse Bibesco.

L´œuvre a été jouée par l'orchestre de l'Académie de Musique « Gheorghe Dima » de Cluj et reprise par l'Orchestre nationale des jeunes, dirigé par Cristian Mandeal et éditée par le Musée George Enescu.

C´est étrange que, jusqu'ici, aucun de nos orchestres ne l´ont pas programmée.

Je l´ai présenté à ICR New York et ICR Chisinau. Écrite à Paris, dans « un souffle » entre 20 et 25 Décembre 1898, la Suite pour piano à quatre mains est une œuvre assez ample, conçue en cinq parties, y compris un prélude polyphonique en forme

de canon, une valse triste un Intermezzo (le plus ample), suivi par une brève Barcarolle, qui précédera la Marche finale, qui reprendra les éléments du Prélude (écriture polyphonique et thématique). Le manuscrit est clair, sans ratures. Comme style, la suite est située dans une zone encore académique et semble être conçue pour un duo de piano connu par auteur, bien qu'elle ne porte pas une dédicace, comme dans la précédente suite en style ancien (1897) à "Louise Murer". Elle a été interprétée par les pianistes roumaines Suzana Szőrényi et Corneliu Radulescu, dans une émission de télévision (1984) et sur un disque Electrecord, étant précédée par les Variations op.5 pour deux pianos datant du 2 Juin 1898, qui réitère l'intérêt du jeune Enescu pour ce type d'ensemble de chambre.

L´œuvre est également éditée par le Musée George Enescu.

Une œuvre visiblement plus mature et plus personnelle est la Pastorale Fantaisie pour petite orchestre. Le manuscrit original du compositeur (42 pages) et les parties de la première audition parisienne se trouvent au Musée Enescu étant signalées aussi dans le catalogue de la regrettée Clemansa Firca. Il est signé par l'auteur, Paris, le 10 Janvier 1899. La première audition a eu lieu peu après, le 19 Février 1899 au Théâtre du Châtelet, et avec l'orchestre Colonne dirigé par Édouard Colonne. Il est symptomatique que cette œuvre ne figure pas sur les listes de l´auteur, et n´a été jamais reprise durant la vie du compositeur. Après le succès du Poème Roumain, la Fantaisie a eu paraît-il des critiques défavorables, qui ont généré la réserve de l´auteur. La première audition en Roumanie est due toujours à l'Académie « Gheorghe Dima » et sa reprise à la Philharmonie Transylvanie est l´initiative de Gabriel Bebeşelea, qui a réalisé aussi la transcription informatisée de la partition. Gabriel Bebeşelea a réalisé la première audition allemande de la Pastorale en Août 2017 à Berlin. L´atmosphère de la Fantaisie lyrique se déroule sur ses coordonnées stylistiques beaucoup plus personnelles, sans échos post-brahmsiens, contournant deux thèmes qui vont réaliser une ample construction ternaire. C´est la phase qui marque clairement l´écart du jeune compositeur des influences académiques de la période précédente.

George Enescu in His Capacity of Member of the Romanian Academy

ABSTRACT : In order to better understand George Enescu’s life and creation, one should not overlook his activity as a member of the Romanian Academy – an issue that was hardly researched before, the latest study dating from half a century ago.

Initially, after its inauguration in the year 1866, the Romanian Academy was called the Romanian Literary Society. Consequently, for a period of time, the Academy Regulations were restricting the admission of musicians into the Academy’s ranks.

That was a situation that gradually changed especially due to the efforts and generosity of George Enescu. He was the first musician to become a honorary member of the Academy and then, throughout the years, he managed to properly ‘introduce music in the Academy’ by supporting and promoting remarkable creations: both original compositions and folklore collections, textbooks, monographies, etc.

Thus, both musicians and composers were acknowledged and rewarded with prizes by the Academy due to Enescu’s support. Many of them also become members of the Academy. Among those whom Enescu constantly supported were: Sabin Drăgoi, Dimitrie Cuclin, George Breazul, Emanoil Ciomac, Mihail Jora, Alexandru Zirra, etc.

Submitted : June 20, 2017 Admitted: June 30, 2017

KEYWORDS: ROMANIAN RECOMMENDATIONS

ACADEMY,

MEMBERS,

ACTIVITIES,

IN order to better understand George Enescu's life and creation, one should not overlook his activity as a member of the Romanian Academy – an issue that was hardly studied before, the latest study dating from half a century ago.1 Moreover, the author of this study was not a musician, but a specialist in philology and someone who raised some suspicions regarding his research deontology. Under these conditions, I used his study as a source of primary information, but I also required a special permission from the Romanian Academy to study their archive for the years 1916 – 1946, when Enescu "made music enter the Academy" – as he himself had said – and also made it especially important through the prizes he recommended for works of music, musicology and musical education.

The Romanian Academy Regulations (initially, in 1866, the Romanian Academy was called the Romanian Literary Society) were restricting the admission of musicians from the very inauguration of the Academy. The field itself was not restricted, but it was coordinated by non-musicians – for instance, Dimitrie Vulpian was required by the Academy Commission (composed of Vasile Alecsandri, Titu Maiorescu and Ion Ghica) to add some piano accompaniment to the folkloric pieces he had gathered.

As P. P. Gogan had noted, "the folk songs had permeated through [the Academy] [my note] long time ago, at the turn of the century."2 Gavriil Musicescu was noting nevertheless the unclear conditions imposed by the Academy for the prizes offered to "collections of folk songs”.3 He “retained the obscure points in the Academy programme”4 and asked for clarifications regarding the “accompaniment of the songs, their rhythm, their original tonalities or their transposition into the classical major/ minor tonalities”. 5 These aspects were thoroughly analyzed in a monograph dedicated to the “Arta” (The Art) journal. 6 Teodor T. Burada became a member of the Academy as a folklorist and author of the History of Theatre in Moldova. In 1910, D. G. Kiriac proposed to the Academy the compilation of a folklore collection and received some funds for the acquisition of an Edison phonograph for that due to the aid of Ion Bianu. In 1912, he started collecting folklore under the patronage of the Academy. Ovid

Densușianu proposed the Academy to establish a folklore archive, which was accomplished in 1927 – The Phonogram Archive of the Ministry of Culture and Religion, lead by George Breazul. In 1928, Constantin Brăiloiu established the second folklore archive – The Folklore Archive of the Society of the Romanian Composers. Both institutions were strongly influenced by the sociology school of Dimitrie Gusti, who coordinated the research on the life of the Romanian people in the Academy.

George Enescu was the first musician to become a honorary member of the Academy. He was invited there by famous members of the Academy like Grigore Antipa, Victor Babeș, Vasile Pârvan, Petre Poni, Andrei Bârseanu, Nicolae Teclu, Alexandru Xenopol, I. Caragiani, Constantin Giurescu, C. I. Istrati, Ștefan Hepites, George Marinescu, L. Mrazec, I. C. Negruzzi, I. Nistor, I. Simionescu, Petre Poni, A. Naum, who insisted that “George Enescu was well known by the members of the Academy as an outstanding musician and a very talented composer”, a talent that “our country has never before produced both in musical interpretation and in composition”.7 He was elected a honorary member of the Academy during the meeting of the 26th of May 1916, after he had founded prestigious institutions in Jassy, had established the Symphonic Society that carried his name and the Romanian Opera and had reorganized the Music Conservatory, whose benefactor he became. The proposal was presented as exceptional in the documents: “As long as this institution is still struggling to receive brilliant artists among its active members, we have the honor to propose Mr. George Enescu as an honorary member of the Academy”.8 This proposal had an antecedent as well – “as our great painter Grigorescu was also elected as a member of the Academy”. Enescu seems to have been very happy with this nomination: “Finding out that the Romanian Academy will do me the honor to invite me among its honorary members, I would like to express my great joy and pride in receiving this distinction”. 9 Under the presidency of Barbu Ștefănescu Delavrancea, 18 out of the 23 voters approved of Enescu's admission to the Academy as an honorary member.10 Enescu's address to the President of the Academy, on the 28th of May 1916, shows that he wanted indeed to become a member of the Academy.11 Petru Poni praised Enescu as “the glory of the Romanian music” when he proposed him as a full member of the Academy on the 30th of September 1932. 12 Ion Bianu, as a vice-president of the Academy, also praised Enescu as an "outstanding representative of the world music who embodied the sparkle of the musical genius of the Romanian people”. 13 Mihail Sadoveanu and Alexandru BrătescuVoinești had signed the proposal for admission to the full membership during the extraordinary college on the 25th of May 1931. At the age of 50, Enescu was appreciated as “the one who, through his entire work in music, his interpretative genius and conducting skills, won the respect of both his nation and of the international community”.14 On the 22nd of May 1933, George Enescu read his famous discourse of acceptance in the Academy Aula, in the presence of the king: On Iacob Negruzzi and the Admission of Music into the Romanian Academy, a discourse he had sent in advance from New York (on the 3rd of February 1933) and later corrected from Paris – as his letter registered with no. 386/ 20 February 1933 shows.

The response discourse was delivered by the mathematician Gheorghe Țițeica and was published in 1933, in volume 54 of the Academy Yearbook – Discourses series and also recently in a volume dedicated to discourses of acceptance at the Romanian Academy. 15 Țițeica's appreciation for Enescu was not a momentary one. Some years ago, in a discourse on the 16th/ 29th of May 1914 – On the Life and Activity of Spiru Haret – Țițeica was noting that the rich sound produced by Enescu's violin was like a “reflection of light, carried by a mysterious fluid, which trembled as well as the air itself when the sound was released.”16 Yet another member of the Academy, Constantin Rădulescu Motru, praised his colleague George Enescu in his response to the acceptance discourse of Gheorghe Petrașcu, on the 22nd of May 1937: “Alongside our genius George Enescu, you represent more than just the consecration of good work. The two of you, as important representatives of art, give us great hope for the future of the Romanian artistic culture.” 17 As noted above, as a member of the Academy, George Enescu greatly supported Romanian music. During the meeting of the 29th of May 1933, his proposal to offer a prize to the volume 303 Carrols collected by Sabin Drăgoi was read.18 The work received the Great Prize Năsturel and its author was soon to become a corresponding member of the Academy. In 1934, George Enescu recommended Dimitrie Cuclin's Treatise of Musical Aesthetics for the Gheorghe Lazăr prize and, in April 1935, proposed a prize for George Breazul's Song Book. On the 1st of June 1935, Liviu Samitca, the deputy director of the Scrisul Românesc (Romanian Writing) Press in Craiova, which had printed this textbook, was congratulationg the author on Enescu's special praise. 19 In a letter sent from Prague, on the 3rd of October 1935, Leo Kestenberg congratulated the Romanian teacher on the same praise he had received

from Enescu, especially that it was not common practice that a great musician supported a prize for a textbook, as the letter 870 from the George Breazul archive of the library of the Union of Composers and Musicologists shows. In a speech delivered in Prague, during the International Congress for Musical Education, in 1936, George Breazul himself mentioned the support of the Academy for the musical education in Romania and particularly thanks to the president of the Academy, Professor Ion Bianu, and to ‚the great master George Enescu”, who both favourably reviewed his textbook.20 In March 1935, Enescu recommended the book by Emanoil Ciomac The Life and Work of Richard Wagner for the Gheorghe Asachi prize, despite the fact that he did not agree with the author on some points of view such has Ciomac's “coldness” towards the third act in Siegfried or the first two acts in Twilight of the Gods. After he had once played for Mihail Jora, who had been seriously wounded by a bomb during the Oituz fights,21 in 1938, George Enescu recommended Jora's Symphony in A Major for the great prize C. Hamangiu.

On the 3rd of June 1945, the Romanian Academy decided to award the same prize, “C. Hamangiu for composition, of 100.000 lei (indivisible)” to Alexandru Zirra, who was also recommended

by George Enescu especially for his opera Alexandru Lăpușneanu, which Enescu considered “an important event for the lyric creation in Romania”. 22 The recommendation was also signed by Nae Popescu, Tiberiu Brediceanu and Emanoil Bucuța, members of the Romanian Academy. 23 Later on, the prize for musical creation would bear the name of George Enescu, who really supported remarkable creators and creations. The “presence of Enescu among the scholars enhanced the prestige of the Romanian Academy and made it better known abroad”. 24 In his autobiography, which he offered to the Romanian Academy in 1942, Enescu presented himself as a member of the Romanian Academy and a corresponding member of the French Institute de Belle Arte, a fact that showed his appreciation for the Romanian Academy.

Unfortunately, Enescu had to leave his country and also the Romanian Academy as a place of communion through cultural accomplishment. After the fake “rehabilitation” in 1948, when he was again among the “honorary full members” of the Academy of the Popular Republic of Romania, a great separation and a bitter exile occurred, despite his generally acknowledged value, which was well presented in his 1955 obituary: “What everybody praised him for was his love for his country, proven by his more than half a century of tireless work; to his country he dedicated his last thoughts”.25 On the 21st of October 1955, the member of the Academy Mihail Jora presented the exceptional text George Enescu – the Founder of the Romanian Music School during the memorial meeting held to commemorate six months from Enescu's passing away. After more than two decades, Mihail Jora thus joined in his praise George Breazul, who had signed on the 16th of July 1933 the article George Enescu at the Romanian Academy, where he had presented Enescu as “an elect of our nation, who made its musical gifts heard among other nations, throughout history”. 26

Fig. 1 George Enescu (front, left side) during the meeting of the 29th of May 1941 – the anniversary of 75 years from the foundation of the Romanian Academy

Fig. 2 George Enescu next to the other members of the Romanian Academy, on May 26, 1943

ENDNOTES 1 - Gogan, P. P. – Enescu și Academia: Documente inedite (Enescu and the Romanian Academy: Original Documents); in: Studii de muzicologie (Musicology Studies), vol. III, Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 1967, pp. 201 – 274.

2 - Gogan, P. P. – Enescu și Academia Documente inedite (Enescu and the Romanian Academy: Original Documents); in: Studii de muzicologie (Musicology Studies), vol. III, Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 1967, p. 204.

3 - Premiul Academiei pentru o colecție de melodii populare (The Prize of the Romanian Academy for a Collection of Folk Songs); in: Doina (Liric Poetry), Bucharest, year I, no. 2, 1884, p. 2 4 - Cosma, Octavian Lazăr – Hronicul muzicii românești (The Chronology of the Romanian Music), vol.

IV, Bucharest, 1976, p. 275.

5 - Musicescu, G. - 5000 lei noi! (5000 New Lei); in: Arta (Art), Iași, year I, no. 11, 1884, p. 187.

6 - Vasile, Vasile - Contribuţia revistei „Arta” (1883 – 1896) la dezvoltarea muzicii româneşti (The Contribution of the “Art” Journal (1883-1896) to the Development of the Romanian Music), in: Studii de muzicologie (Musicology Studies), vol. XVIII, Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 1984, pp.

197 – 217; 7 - Analele Academiei Române (Yearbook of the Romanian Academy), Series II, vol. XXXVIII, 1915 – 1916, p. 195.

8 - Analele Academiei Române (Yearbook of the Romanian Academy), Series II, vol. XXXVIII, 1915 – 1916, p. 195.

9 - Enescu, George – Scrisori (Letters), vol. I, critical edition by Viorel Cosma, Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 1974, p. 236 – especially the letter from the 25th of May 1916, addressed to Ion Simionescu.

10 - Analele Academiei Române (Yearbook of the Romanian Academy), Series II, vol. XXXVIII, 1915 – 1916, p. 195.

11 - Partially, the letter read by the president of the Romanian Academy, Constantin Istrati, was published in : Analele Academiei Române (Yearbook of the Romanian Academy), Series II, vol.

XXXVIII, 1915 – 1916, p. 203. The facsimile of the letter was published “for the first time” by P. P. Gogan – op. cit. pp. 223 – 224; the letter was also published by Viorel Cosma in vol. cit., p. 237.

12 - Voicana, Mircea – Reevaluări (Reevaluations) (1931 – 1933), chapter 9; in: George Enescu – monography, Bucharest, Editura Academiei (Romanian Academy Press), 1971, vol. II, p. 697 13 - Rusu, Dorina N. – Istoria Academiei Române in date (History of the Romanian Academy – Important Dates) (1866 – 1996), Bucharest, Editura Academiei Române (Romanian Academy Press), 1997, p. 249.

14 - Analele Academiei Române (Yearbook of the Romanian Academy), Series II, vol. LII, Meetings of 1931 – 1932, Bucharest, Monitorul Oficial (Official Herald), 1932, p. 213.

15 - George Enescu – Despre Iacob Negruzzi și despre intrarea muzicei la Academia Română (On Iacob Negruzzi and the Admission of Music into the Romanian Academy); in: Academia Română – Discursuri (Romanian Academy – Discourses), vol. V (1919 – 1936), Bucharest, Editura Academiei (Romanian Academy Press), 2005.

16 - Țițeica, Gheorghe – Discursul de recepție la Academia Română (Discourse of Acceptance at the Romanian Academy); in: Academia Română – Discursuri (Romanian Academy – Discourses), vol. IV (1907 – 1919), Bucharest, Editura Academiei (Romanian Academy Press), 2005, p. 467.

17 - Apud: Rusu, Dorina N. – Istoria Academiei Române in date (History of the Romanian Academy – Important Dates) (1866 – 1996), Bucharest, Editura Academiei Române (Romanian Academy Press), 1997, p. 268.

18 - Analele Academiei Române (Yearbook of the Romanian Academy), vol. LIII, Ședințele din 1932 – 1933 (Meetings of 1932-1933), Bucharest, Monitorul Oficial (Official Herald), 1933, pp. 79 – 80.

19 – The George Breazul Documentary Fund from the library of the Union of Composers and Musicologists – Scrisori (Letters) no. 2482.

20 - Breazul, George - Speech (...) at the International Congress for Musical Education, Prague 1936; in: L”éducation musicale trait d”union entre les peuples. Rapports et discours sur l”éducation musicale dans les diverses pays - Educaţia muzicală – element de înfrăţire între popoare. Rapoarte de discursuri asupra educaţiei muzicale în diferite ţări, Prague, Orbis 1937, p. 121 – 126; Republished in: Pagini din istoria muzicii româneşti (Pages in the History of Romanian Music), vol. VI, ed. and pref. Vasile Vasile, Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 2003, pp. 361 - 373; 21 - Vasile, Vasile – Activitatea muzicală ieşeană în anii primului război mondial (The Musical Activity in Jassy during the First World War), in: Marile evenimente istorice ale anilor 1848 şi 1918 şi muzica românească (The Great Historical Events of the Years 1848 and 1918 and the Romanian Music), Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 1979, pp. 149 – 199; 22 - Analele Academiei Române (Yearbook of the Romanian Academy), Series II, vol. LXIV, 1943 – 1944 – Dezbaterile (Debates), Bucharest, Monitorul Oficial (Official Herald), 1946, p. 529.

23 - Vasile, Vasile – Alexandru Zirra, Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 2005, p. 247.

24 - Gogan, P. P. – Enescu și Academia: Documente inedite (Enescu and the Academy: Original Documents); in: Studii de muzicologie (Musicology Studies), vol. III, Bucharest, Editura muzicală (Music Press), 1967, p. 210.

25 - Apud: Rusu, Dorina N. – Istoria Academiei Române în date (History of the Romanian Academy – Important Dates) (1866 – 1996), Bucharest, Editura Academiei Române (Romanian Academy Press), 1997, p. 338.

26 - Breazul, George - George Enescu la Academia Română (George Enescu at the Romanian Academy); in: Reacțiunea literară (Literary Reaction), Bucharest, year I, no. 1, 15 July 1933.

Section 2. Analytical studies.

L´Opéra Œdipe à la lumière de la "logique dynamique du contradictoire"

SOCIÉTÉ DES COMPOSITEURS ET MUSICOLOGUES ROUMAINS ABSTRACT : Le thème de cette allocution continue la ligne de nos préoccupations précédentes sur les antinomies et enharmonies affectives-idéelles existantes dans l´opéra Œdipe de Georges Enesco. La relation onde-corpuscule, par exemple, que nous avons mis en discussion dans la conférence du 2013, Contraires coïncidents dans le Destin solaire d´Œdipe, nous a suggéré aussi une possible analogie avec la théorie du savant d'origine roumaine Stéphane Lupasco, ”la logique dynamique du contradictoire”. Lupasco lui-même la compare à la mécanique ondulatoire, affirmant qu´”une chose peut être, en même temps, onde et corpuscule”.

Si l´on applique ce raisonnement au Destin d´Œdipe on découvrira, en fait, que dans ses méandres coexistaient, dès le début, une vérité actuelle, réelle, et une vérité potentielle: le héros est innocent, Sauveur de la ville, le vainqueur de son propre Destin (”L´homme est plus fort que le Destin!” – Acte IIe), mais il est, en même temps, un potentiel coupable, profanateur de la cité, un vaincu par le Destin (”J'étais déjà coupable avant d´avoir vécu!”- Acte IVe). ”La reconnaissance” de la vérité, à l´aide du Berger (Acte IIIe), a le don de produire un ”renversement de situation”, ce qui fait que ”l´intrigue” soit réécrite, mais, dans le sens inverse: de la catastrophe (”Soleil ! Tu vois mes yeux pour la dernière fois!” - Acte IIIe), vers la catharsis (”...et je mourrai dans la lumière!” - Épilogue). Ainsi „les deux vérités [positive et négative] créent la non-contradiction”, comme „définition logique du concept de vérité”.

Proposée : 15 Mai 2017 Acceptée : 30 Mai 2017

MOTS CLÉS : ŒDIPE, DESTIN, LOGIQUE DU CONTRADICTOIRE, VÉRITÉ ARGUMENT Le thème du présent exposé s’inscrit dans la lignée de nos précédentes préoccupations à propos d´antinomies et enharmonies émotionnelles et conceptuelles existantes dans l’opéra Œdipe de Georges Enesco (Petecel-Theodoru, George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco - rêverie et mythe 2014)1, cet inépuisable réservoir polysémique, quelle que soit la perspective de laquelle on s´approche d´elle: strictement musicale, strictement mythique, linguistique, narratologique, mathématique, philosophique, religieuse. Parce que, seulement une intuition hors du commun, qui implique, en plus de la perception sensorielle, l’intellect "actif" qui, dans l’opinion d’Aristote, "assure la connaissance" (Dumitriu 1984, 144), pouvait faire naître une création de l´envergure d´Œdipe. Son architecture, qui surprend toujours, même l’exégète le plus familiarisé avec elle, nous a été révélée, à chaque analyse, comme susceptible d´être associée à des structures prosodiques de la tragédie antique (Petecel-Theodoru, Procédés rythmiques et expressifs spécifiques à la tragédie grecque antique, dans l’opéra Oedipe de Georges Enesco 2014), à la proportion du nombre d’or, aux lois de la mécanique quantique (Petecel-Theodoru, Contraires coïncidents dans le Destin solaire d´Œdipe 2014) et à des typologies de la narrativité (PetecelTheodoru, Typologies narratives dans l’opéra Oedipe - épreuve herméneutique à travers la théorie narratologique de Gérard GENET 2014, 199-212) ou, comme dans ce cas, à la logique dynamique du contradictoire.

La relation onde-corpuscule, par exemple, que j’avais mis en discussion dans la communication de 2013, Contraires coïncidents dans le Destin solaire d´Œdipe (Petecel-Theodoru, Opera aperta 2014), en ce qui concerne les "qualités souvent opposées" de l´héros mythique - coupable/ innocent, usurpateur/ Sauveur/ protecteur de la Cité Thébaine, maudit/ sanctifié etc. - (Croiset 1939, 268), mais aussi les formes sinusoïdales résultantes de l´enchaînement des sons et d´intervalles, si semblables aux lignes

ondulées qui définissent la dualité onde-particule de la mécanique quantique (Petecel-Theodoru, Sectio aurea 2014, 226-231), nous ont suggéré aussi une possible analogie avec la théorie lancée par le savant français d´origine roumaine Stéphane Lupasco, comme "logique dynamique du contradictoire" (Lupasco 1982). D´autant plus que l’auteur lui-même la met sous le signe de la "dualité contradictoire constitutive" (Lupasco 1982, 98), qui exige la participation à l’action d’un couple de notions antinomiques, tel que élément/ anti-élément, comparable avec le dualisme onde-corpuscule où la lumière est le produit des deux propriétés: elle est, donc, en même temps, onde et corpuscule.

CONTRADICTOIRE-NONCONTRADICTOIRE. SIMILITUDES ET DIFFÉRENCES. ARISTOTE — LUPASCO. Tout comme le principe de la Renaissance coincidentia oppositorum/ coïncidence des contraires; comme les théories platoniciennes de mímesis et Un-Multiple, du concept aristotélicien anàmnesis, ou à celui de répétition/ répétitivité développé, dans les temps modernes, par des philosophes français tels que Paul Ricoeur (Ricoeur 1985, 125) et Gilles Deleuze (Deleuze 1995), aux raisonnements desquels nous avons recours, assez souvent, dans nos "exercices" herméneutiques sur l´œuvre d´Enesco (Petecel-Theodoru, De mímesis à l’archétype 2003) (Petecel-Theodoru, George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco - rêverie et mythe 2014, 17-248), la logique dynamique du contradictoire vise également le processus d’atteindre la Vérité.

En repoussant les conclusions d´Anaxagore et Démocrite, selon lesquelles soit "tout a été mélangé dans tous", soit "Le plein et le Vide existent à la fois dans toute partie", où "le premier joue le rôle de l’Être, et l’autre de non-Être" (Aristote 1999)2 - préfiguration surprenante de la logique dynamique du contradictoire?! - Aristote exclue avec véhémence "le terme moyen [valeur unificatrice T, le tiers inclus - n.n. D.P.] entre les membres des deux extrêmes d’une contradiction" (Aristote 1999)3, prétendant que "quelque chose est vrai, ou quelque chose est faux"4, l’existence des nuances intermédiaires étant rejeté d’emblée. Le philosophe grec estime que, "seulement dans le domaine du possible, une chose peut être en même temps lui-même et son contraire, mais pas dans le domaine de la réalité", ni "sous le même rapport" (nous soulignons) (Aristote 1999)5.

Sans nier la logique aristotélicienne du contradictoire, Stéphane Lupasco est, toutefois, d’avis que la "non-contradiction [« l’existence des deux vérités qui peuvent être, successivement, réelles et potentielles, une vérité positive et une vérité négative »] est celle qui produit cette impression psychologique, cet état mental qu´on signifie par le mot de vérité" (n.s.) (Lupasco 1982, 92-93), ayant même le rôle "d´expliciter toute de suite la structure et la signification de la logique classique" (Lupasco 1982, 94). Contrairement à la thèse d´Aristote6, Lupasco postule la propriété des deux éléments contradictoires de "s´actualiser et potentialiser alternativement, de sorte que l´actualisation d´un détermine toujours, et obligatoire, la potentialisation de l´autre" (n. s.) (Lupasco 1982, 84). Et si, du point de vue de la logique classique du contradictoire, "le possible et la vérité n’existeraient pas en dehors du fini" (Lupasco 1982, 99), Lupasco affirme que, au contraire, c´est "l´infini" celui qui "représente l’expression même de la non-contradiction absolue" (n. s.) (Lupasco 1982, 101), comprise comme "logique de l´expérience" (Lupasco 1982, 97) dynamique, transfinie, "à la fois dans le sens positif et identificateur, et négatif, différenciateur" (Lupasco 1982, 99). Le philosophe d’origine roumaine, exemplifie son idée par une "ligne" qui, dit-il, "ne peut être divisible à l´infini", mais dont les parties "ne peuvent pas être un nombre fini" (Lupasco 1982, 99). Son explication coïncide avec la définition donnée par l’historien français Antoine Compagnon (Compagnon 1988) au mythe: "une composition des événements en une intrigue linéaire ou une séquence temporelle" (Compagnon 1988, 134)7.

LE MYTHE D´ŒDIPE ENTRE POSSIBILITÉ ET RÉALITÉ.

Si on applique le raisonnement de Lupasco concernant la relation d'interdépendance entre l´actualisation et la potentialisation des éléments contradictoires, sur la tragédie lyrique Œdipe de Georges Enesco, nous allons découvrir qu´en fait, l´ensemble de la construction et de l´évolution du mythe et de la musique, est basé sur une succession plus ou moins "tacite" d´actualisations de la prophétie, perçue et reçue initialement seulement comme réalité potentielle, virtuelle, et que, dans les méandres du Destin d´Œdipe cohabitaient, dès le départ, une vérité actuelle et une vérité potentielle.

Parce que Œdipe est innocent, sauveur de la Cité, vainqueur du Destin ("l’homme est plus fort que le destin"!)8, mais il est, en même temps, selon la prophétie notifiée par Tirésias aux Thébains, même à l’époque de la naissance de "l´enfant divin", un potentiel coupable, profanateur de la Cité de Thèbes, par meurtre et inceste ("il sera l’assassin de son père et le mari de sa mère")9.

Dans une première étape de son existence, le héros mythique n´est conscient que d´une identité fabriquée, donc fausse, une "vérité négative" selon laquelle il était le fils de Mérope et du Roi de Corinthe, Polyb, contrairement à la "vérité affirmative" (Lupasco 1982, 92), identitaire, selon laquelle il était le vrai fils de Jocaste et de Laïos, le roi de Thèbes. À la lumière de la théorie lupascienne, "les mêmes deux vérités génèrent la non-contradiction lorsque l’une d’entre elles est actuelle et l´autre

potentielle" (Lupasco 1982, 92), et lorsque "les potentialisations deviennent possibles" (Lupasco 1982, 91, 98), donnant aux faits et aux événements "l´éternité et la non-contradiction rigoureuse" (Lupasco 1982, 98).

Chez Enesco, les deux vérités sont confrontées en particulier dans la scène de "l´enquête" causée par Œdipe lui-même. Le choc produit par la révélation de la vérité sur soi - "On le disait… fils de... Laïos"!10 - obtenu par Œdipe à travers une avalanche de questions contraignantes adressées au Berger, d’une manière semblable à la maïeutique socratique, a un double effet sur le héros: d’une part elle le trouble, le bouleverse et l´oblige à recourir au geste extrême de s´enlever les yeux11, moment qui coïncide, cependant, dans le plan spirituel, avec l’acquisition de la vue intérieure, de l´autre côté le choc semble le narcotiser, le réveillant brusquement à la réalité12 de l'état d´entropie psychique et mentale, en raison des nombreuses doutes qui planaient sur sa propre identité, et qui l´avaient tyrannisé même avant de quitter le palais de Polyb, à la suite des prédictions inquiétantes confirmées et reconfirmées par les avertissements de Tirésias, ou en rêve, par la voix d´Apollon, le dieu "qui sait tout"13. C´est seulement grâce à "l´enquête" qu´Œdipe prend note de la cruelle "vérité affirmative", qu´il avait rejeté obstinément dans le deuxième acte14, et, qu´en fin de compte, la reconnaît: "J'étais déjà coupable avant d´avoir vécu"!15.

LE TIERS INCLUS OU TERTIUM DATUR. L´acceptation et la reconnaissance de la vérité unissent les deux contradictions: Œdipe, le glorieux "tueur de la Sphinge" - Œdipe, l´auteur blasphémé du parricide et de l’inceste. Et, il ne s´agit pas d'un être avec une double personnalité, mais d´un Destin bifurqué, avec une double ramification une positive et une négative. Dans le dernier acte, Œdipe lui-même paraît exposer, par les mots implicites adressés au Thésée, la composante essentielle de la dynamique du contradictoire, ce "terme moyen" rejeté par Aristote, quand les extrêmes auraient été incarnées par deux entités différentes, comme l'homme et cheval par exemple16: ”Et maintenant, Thésée, suis-moi dans le feuillage qui doit sanctifier mon chemain sans retour”17. "La sanctification" est le mot clé, analogue à ce qu’Aristote appelle "une certaine substance indépendante", qui n´est pas soumise "ni au mouvement, ni à la mort ou à la naissance" (Aristote 1999)18, une réalité "qui transcende l’expérience" étant "au service d’une métaphysique" (Lupasco 1982, 154) - la seule admise par le philosophe grecque comme liant des contraires "du même ordre". Dans l´opéra d´Enesco, ce liant est symbolisé par la "déclaration explicative" (Dumitriu 1984, 220)19 (Platon 1986) (Petecel-Theodoru, Symboles archaïques dans l’opéra Oedipe: la lumière et le cri 2014) d’Apollon, "Seigneur de la Lumière" (Platon 1986)20, qui insuffle à Œdipe, "en rêve", le pouvoir de connaître la Vérité , comme "état de lumière", et non comme tragédie intérieure dévastatrice, comme celle prédite par Tirésias, et vécue par l´héros jusqu´à la fin. Le fait que le secret de sa propre sanctification ("le bonheur annoncé")21 a été révélée, par le Dieu, uniquement à lui, prouve qu’avec le pardon du péché ancestrale, qu´il portait sur ses épaules depuis le temps des Labdacides, ses ancêtres en même temps, Œdipe avait acquis également le don de la divination et la sagesse qui le rapproche de la lignée des Dieux: “…moi que l´on conduisait, je conduis à mon tour” 22.

Et, pour rester dans les limites de la logique dynamique du contradictoire, "la science" d´Œdipe sur la transfiguration de son propre Destin, de l´obscurité à la lumière, introduit dans l’équation la "valeur T", du tiers inclus, qui démontre, maintenant, sa "polyvalence tripolaire transfinie"23, d´après l´expression de Lupasco. En d’autres termes, le vrai et le faux sont "unifiés" par une "troisième valeur, statiquement et rigoureusement actualisée"24, après quoi, le héros glorieux et coupable à la fois, reçoit une troisième investiture, d´héros sanctifié, ce qui annule la notion de "fausseté"25.

ŒDIPE – UN UNIVERS EN MIROIR. La reconnaissance des faits, par Œdipe, change l’événement en "nœud vital" de l’action, alors que, pour citer Guénon, "survient la désintégration des éléments constitutifs de l’individualité" (Guénon 2008, 334), "la mort de l’individu" (Guénon 2008, 334), ignorant jusqu´alors, fait qui lui ouvre la voie d’accès vers la connaissance rationnelle. Donc, elle détermine non seulement "le passage" de l´héros "de l´ignorance à la science" (Aristote 1999)26, et pas seulement l´établissement de l’ordre et de son équilibre intérieur, mais aussi une "inversion de la situation", une péripétie, "peripeteia" comme l´appelle Aristote27, et dont l’effet est celui de produire un "changement des celles qui se sont passées [déjà], dans leur contraire" (Aristote 1999, 79). Par conséquence, se produit avec nécessité la réécriture du "plot", de la catastrophe (la découverte de la vérité et la cécité), vers les prophéties du passé, mais aussi vers le cátharsis (l´illumination et la sainteté du finale). Le temps commence à régresser, l’action se déroule dans le sens inverse, comme dans un sablier, les extrêmes se touchent et coïncident presque symétriquement en tant que valeurs de notes, formules rythmiques, successions d´intervalles, s´éloignent et s´approchent du point central de la tragédie: l’enquête, qui fait détoner la vérité! La potentialité des prophéties divines s´actualise, étant certifiée par la déposition de deux témoins: tout d’abord par Phorbas, l´envoyé du roi de Corinthe, qui assurent Œdipe que Mérope et Polyb ne sont ses vrais parents, et puis, par le Berger qui confirme que lui, Œdipe, était en réalité le fils de Laïos, le roi de Thèbes, dans

le palais duquel il était né. Le virtuel descend, donc, du niveau hypersensible des dieux, irréaliste parce que inacceptable pour un mortel28, dans le sensible, humain, réaliste; l´incertitude se transforme en conviction et le cri exubérant de la victoire d´Œdipe sur la Sphinge29 est converti en douleur et souffrance implosives30.

Dans ce qui suit, je vais vous présenter juste quelques extraits musicaux, des innombrables possibles, que j´avais considéré être plus éloquents pour les idées développées jusqu'ici.

Par exemple, le moment où la procession des enfants et des Vierges Thébaines accompagne, en la glorifiant, Jocaste avec "les bras blancs", pour être couronnée comme reine et femme de Œdipe, devenu roi de Thèbes à la place de son père qu´il venait de tuer à la croisée des chemins, est marqué par une ligne ascendante, doucement sinueuse, composée de secondes et tierces mineures, en marche chromatique ascendante, ce qui souligne la gradation croissante de l’intensité de la joie inattendue. Pour que l’exemple soit aussi éloquent que possible, par rapport à son contraire (ex. n° 2), j’ai choisi les passages destinés aux soprano et contralto. Le fragment débute sur le son fa# du registre moyen, et s’arrête sur le son ré bécarre aigu, au milieu du crescendo paroxystique de l’orchestre qui souligne l´exubérance imparable de la foule, après avoir entendu les nouvelles que "la Sphinge avait été tuée".

Ex. 1. Extrait de la fin du deuxième acte, rep. 192, mss. 1-4, pp. 243-244.

Dans: la partition générale-manuscrite, Bucarest, 1964.

En contraste, en tant qu’expressivité et tension émotionnelle, avec l´ambiance triomphante de l’exemple précédent, la Procession funéraire qui suit, composée d´un chœur petit de ténors, qui ouvre l’acte IIIe, apparaît comme l'inverse de la jubilation, comme une identité contradictoire, qui reflète, paradoxalement, la cérémonie du "couronnement". Comme s’il y avait deux vérités qui s´inhibent les unes des autres" (Lupasco 1982, 92) - d´où le caractère relatif de la contradiction, qui résulte justement du "dynamisme antagoniste" des parties31. Nous traitons avec les mêmes intervalles de secondes majeures et mineures, enchaînées dans la même marche ascendante chromatique, avec les mêmes tierces mineures éparpillées à l’intérieur de la séquence, et avec le même arrêt sur ré bécarre! Les différences consistent dans le son de départ, mi bécarre, également du registre moyen, au lieu de fa #; dans le tempo - pocchissimo meno lento vs largamente animando - et, bien sûr, dans l´atmosphère funèbre, de lamento (lamentoso est, d´ailleurs, l´indication agogique notée par Enescu lui-même dans la partition). Le sens des intervalles ascendants reçoit ici le coloris et l’intensité du cri de deuil de la foule éberluée d’horreur, mais aussi profondément peinée, parce que celui qu´elle menait "aux flammes destructrices", était "riche de vertus"32. Les deux phrases, celle du triomphe et celle du lamtento, se répètent presque identiquement, en état directe, avec la seule différence que, dans le premier exemple, la culmination sur le ré aigu se produit par une seconde majeure, do bécarre-ré bécarre, tandis que dans le deuxième exemple, par une seconde mineure do# -ré bécarre. En conclusion, nous pourrions dire qu’elles forment deux groupes d'entités contradictoires, A-A´ et B-B´, ou, pour en revenir à la logique de Lupasco, une "vérité quadruple ou quatre vérités possibles" (Lupasco 1982, 91).

Ex. 2. Acte IIIe, rep. 199, mss. 2-6, pp. 256-257. Idem source.

À partir de ce point nodal, les réalités peuvent être racontées d´une façon divergente, suivant le sens de l’ouverture d´un éventail, dans deux directions opposées, du climax vers le début de l’action et, simultanément et symétriquement vers sa fin, ou convergente, dans le sens de sa fermeture, toujours symétrique, jusqu'à ce que les extrêmes se superposent et reviennent au point de départ, après avoir compressé, à l´intérieur, les épisodes intermédiaires des deux variantes. Si on suit ce schéma possible, on verra que, toute de suite après le cortège funéraire et la cécité, Œdipe va demander aux Thébains, sur un ton impératif, d´une voix métallique, très proche de le hurlement, et avec un désespoir surhumaine, l´ouverture des portes, pour quitter la Cité, sous les regards horrifiés de la foule. Sur le côté opposé, avant son couronnement, la foule avait demandé, en acclamations, l’ouverture des portes de la Cité de Thèbes, pour célébrer ensemble "le sauvetage de la ville" dû au "tueur de la Sphinge" (IIe acte). Les deux moments commencent et se terminent sur le ré naturel dans le registre aigu. Seulement les valeurs des notes changent: triolets des croches, répétés statiquement, avec des accentuations violents et pathétiques, tristes, et clôture sur le demi-ton aigu descendant, mi bémol-ré, dans le premier exemple; triolets des quarts répétés avec excès d’énergie, dans des séquences séparées par la tierce mineure descendante, fa-ré, et clôture sur la tierce majeure descendante fa #-ré, dans le deuxième.

Ex. 3. Acte III, rep. 291, p. 399. Idem source.

Ex. 4. Acte II, rep. 180, p. 222. Idem source.

Vers la fin du IIIe acte, après la cécité et, symétriquement, dans le sens opposé, vers le début du IIe acte, avant d’affronter la Sphinge, Œdipe prend encore une décision capitale, à savoir, de partir: d´un côté de Thèbes, résolu à errer jusqu'au "jour fatidique, où d´invisibles déités m´accueilleront, mourant, au bord d’un bois sacré", aux portes de la Cité d´Athènes, où "la justice et la paix règnent" 33, de l’autre côté, inébranlable dans la décision de laisser Corinthe et d´errer, en espérant qu´il puisse éviter les prophéties des dieux34.

Grâce à une remarquable intuition ou à un prodigieux instinct, Enesco utilisés ici, comme dans la plupart des épisodes qui constituent le discours narratif de la tragédie lyrique, et auquel nous nous sommes référé souvent dans une autre communication (Petecel-Theodoru, Typologies narratives dans l’opéra Oedipe - épreuve herméneutique à travers la théorie narratologique de Gérard GENET 2014, 231), une technique répétitive du langage, oral et musical, que j’associerais au langage biblique. La réitération multiple de la prophétie transmise, à partir du premier acte, par la voix de Tirésias, c´est l’exemple le plus éloquent, à notre avis, car chaque reprise apporte avec elle des modifications dans la topique des formulations - allusives, fragmentaires, par récurrence35, répétant ou omettant soit un mot ou une expression du début - selon le contexte et le personnage qui la redit - Tirésias, Apollon ou Œdipe.

La vision de la fin est répétée, elle aussi, par Œdipe: une fois dans l’acte IIe, dans son dialogue avec Mérope, lorsque l´énonce a un caractère impératif, imposé à lui-même, "je dois errer...", et une fois à la fin de l’acte IIIe, comme je l’ai déjà mentionné, où la formule initiale est placée au futur: "Je vais errer". Du texte de la deuxième décision est supprimé la syntagme "course inféconde", qui existait dans le passage homonyme du deuxième acte, et "le jour ignoré" devient "le jour fatidique" dans le troisième acte36.

La configuration des intervalles esquissée par les passages du deuxième acte, basée sur secondes majeures et mineures, sur des sauts ascendants de quarte parfaite, en mesure de 3/4 et parsemée avec des triolets de doubles-croches et de croches, est plus précipitée et plus sombre dans la première moitié de l´exposition, ce qui suggère l’agitation et l’impatience avec lesquelles Œdipe veut

fuir de Corinthe, "pur et innocent", avec l´espoir que c´est seulement comme ça qu´il pourrait éviter l´accomplissement des prophéties. Dans la seconde moitié, la voix devienne plus malléable et s´éclaircie, surtout quand elle arrive à l´expression "le bois sacré". L’introduction se déroule sur une séquence en zigzag faite de secondes majeures, fa-mi bémol-fa, ou fa#-mi- fa#, la phrase se terminant sur une tierce majeure descendante, sol#-mi (ex. 5).

Ex. 5. Acte IIe, rep. 97, mss. 3-8 et rep. 98, mss. 1-4, pp. 110-111. Idem source.

La deuxième affirmation de la décision de partir commence avec un demi-ton inférieur par rapport à celui du début de la première affirmation, mi du registre moyen, au lieu de fa bécarre, mais avec la même tendance ascendante, par l´altération des sons avec dièses: fa#, dans la formule précédente, mi#-fa# ici. La prédominance des duolets de croches et des quartolets de doubles-croches, tout aussi que la mesure de 9/ 8 renversent la dynamique d’expression, modifie quelque peu l´agogique et le tempo de l’exposition du troisième acte, et imprime une certaine dilatation à la phrase, due également aux suspensions d´entre les sons basses et les aigus, ainsi qu´aux sauts de quinte parfaite ascendante et de none descendante, comme dans l’exemple antérieur. Cette fois-ci, c´est la première moitié qui est plus détendue, tandis que la seconde acquiert un plus d´inquiétude et un accent un peu strident sur le son finale, fa# aigu prolongé. L’épisode se termine sur la troisième mineure descendante la-fa #.

Ex. 6. Acte IIIe, rep. 314, mss. 2-5 et rep. 315, ms. 1, pp. 435-436. Idem source.

Comme on peut le voir, les mots, comme la structure sonore de l´opéra sont ici presque identiques. Les différences sont saisissables dans les fluctuations agogiques et dans les formules rythmiques appropriées à l’esprit du chaque personnage: tranquillo di più, poco più lento, dans le deuxième acte, lorsque le soupçon de la culpabilité se trouve seulement dans une étape potentielle, et andantino moderato, dans le troisième acte, quand la potentialité était actualisée, et lorsque la désolation avait pris la place de l´infime espoir d´Œdipe, qu´un jour, il pourrait être absous de ses péchés.

Un dernier exemple que je veux vous présenter, et qui ferme l’arc des récurrences et de la dynamique du contradictoire, pour garder la terminologie de la logique de Lupasco, de laquelle nous avons commencé nos dissociations, est celui qui relie le début de l´opéra et sa fin, ou vice versa, tous les deux étant dans une relation d'interdépendance, en d’autres termes, relie la pureté coupable, pour ainsi dire, de l´enfant royal, destiné à commettre le parricide et l’inceste, et sa pureté absolue, obtenue par le mature Œdipe, par sa béatification, au bout de son errance et de l’expiation pour tous les péchés prédits.

J’envisage le groupe des Vierges Thébaines qui glorifient, au début de l´opéra, juste après le Prélude, "l’éveil à la vie" du nouveau-né nourri avec du lait fait "des rayons du soleil" (ex. 8 b, infra), et, aussi, la présence éthérée d´Euménides, dans les dernières minutes de l’opéra, qui glorifient à leur tour, "celui dont l´âme est pure" – toute aussi pure qu´au moment de sa naissance.

Si l'on compare les deux exemples, nous allons remarquer que l´ invocation répétée du nom d’Œdipe par les Euménides (ex. 8 a), ainsi que leurs derniers mots37 (ex. 8 b), est, par rapport aux sons

et aux relations des intervalles, la forme inversée de l’invocation du roi Laïos, par les Vierges Thébaines38. Le même début sur la note si (ex. 7, 8 a) et puis sur si bémol (8 b), du registre moyen, la même descendance de seconde majeure vers la (ex. 7 et 8 a), et puis de tierce majeure, de si bémol vers sol bémol (ex. 8 b), la même démarche ascendante chromatique (ex. 7), du son mi du registre basse vers do#- ré du registre supérieure, chromatique-diatonique (ex. 8 b), et, en fin, l´établissement sur le son si, en valeurs de blanches prolongées (ex. 7 et 8 a). Les notes ré, mi, fa, si, accidentées ou pas, tout comme les secondes, les tierces, les quartes et les quintes sont les notes et les intervalles préférées par Enesco, une sorte de série génétique, ou de "tetraktys" pythagoricien dont les codes et les nombres sont utilisé par le compositeur pour pétrir de si variées combinaisons et permutations, d´une simplicité désarmante, mais d’une incroyable force expressive et richesse des significations! Même la pureté et la luminosité de la ligne mélodique ont un air commun.

Donc, au fur et à mesure qu´elle s´éloigne du point nodal de l´action, avançant vers le futur, la vérité négative (la facette coupable d´Œdipe), se sublime dans une telle mesure, qu´elle arrive à emprunter, à s´approprier certaines qualités de la vérité affirmative, de l´innocence aurorale de son passé lointain (acte I), jusqu´au point de se confondre avec elle. L´osmose obtenue par cet étrange transfère d´essences incorpore aussi la fonction unificatrice du tiers inclus. Dans ces conditions, "la valeur de la logique trivalente n’est plus ni vraie, ni fausse, ni actuelle, ni virtuelle" (Lupasco 1982, 104), mais se situe au-delà des limites du finit, dans l´absolu" (n. s.).

Ex. 7. Acte I, r. 8, măss. 2-14, pp. 12-13. Idem source.

Ex. 8 a. Acte IVe, rep. 378, p. 524. Idem à la source.

Ex. 8 b. Acte IVe, rep. 394, mss. 2-6, pp. 553-554.

Il nous semble, toutefois, que la malédiction des dieux a continué à s’insinuer jusqu’à la fin dans le Destin d´Œdipe, en disséminant certaines particules de son coloris fatidique, même dans les moments de suprême transfiguration du héros mythique. Par conséquent, il n’y guère surprenant de découvrir que, entre la séquences séraphiques des Vierges Thébaines ("Roi Laïos, en ta maison... " – ex.

7, supra) et le lamento de la foule ("Ô palais de Laïos …"39 – ex. 9, infra) qui conclut l’acte IIIe, après ce qu´Œdipe avait clamé "la lumière" que lui apportera la victoire sur le Destin et la béatification et son

intégration dans l´espace fluide de l´éternité, là où les "déités invisibles" l´attend, il y a un rapport de récurrence, au moins dans les deux premières mesures. Comme si le compositeur aurait pressenti, de la même perspective à travers laquelle nous avons construit le présent exposé, que le saut du niveau de la finitude (la naissance de l´enfant et sa vie terrifiante), du "temps aléatoire" (Dherbey 1999, 11), à celui transfinie (la sacralisation), de la "durée constante" (Dherbey 1999, 11), n’est pas possible sans que quelqu´un expérimente la vie en s´assumant toute une chaîne de souffrances intermédiaires que j’associerait avec le "terme moyen", ou "le tiers inclus" proposé par la logique de Stéphane Lupasco.

Ex. 9. Acte IIIe, rep. 318, mss. 5-8, p. 443. Idem source.

ÉPILOGUE. Au bout de cette tentative de „lire” l´intrigue du mythe d´Œdipe à travers la grille de la logique dynamique du contradictoire, nous pensons qu´il y a encore quelques précisions qui s´imposent. Ces enchaînements des phrases, avec des discontinuités et linéarités, avec des syncopes et simultanéités du processus narratif, reflétaient souvent les unes dans d´autres; avec des dualités qui maintiennent l’ambiguïté sémantique, mais dont les contrastes coïncident aux points de tension maximale ou de détente maximale forment, en fait, une architecture sonore comparable à un Univers-miroir ou à un sablier, que j’ai déjà remis en question. Seulement que, de nos dissociations, l´Univers-miroir par lesquels le temps et les événements coulent vice versa aussi, de l’avenir vers le présent, comme nous l´avons déjà laissé entendre, ou le sablier, par le trou infinitésimal duquel, on a besoin de beaucoup de souplesse pour pouvoir passer d’un statut spirituel à l’autre, sont dotés respectivement avec deux boucles et deux strangulations.

La première boucle/ strangulation serait représentée, à notre avis, par la scène avec la Sphinge, de laquelle Œdipe s´en sort, glissant comme par "l´oreille de l´aiguille", ou par "la porte étroite", se libérant des "griffes de la Mort" (Guénon 2008, 332-334) à laquelle étaient condamnés tous ceux qui échouaient de répondre correctement à la question-énigme de la Sphinge: "qui est plus fort que le destin?"40. Mais, une fois déchiffrée la réponse, au vainqueur Œdipe s´ouvre la voie de la liberté (illusoire ?!) de poursuivre sa Destinée, du chemin duquel il souhaitait cependant, et avec ardeur, s´en soustraire. L’autre boucle/ strangulation, et, la plus importante, est la scène soit-dite "de l’enquête", du troisième acte, qui s’avère être une sorte de trampoline, un "pont" avec un "double sens symbolique" (Guénon 2008, 377), car le résultat propulse Œdipe dans "le futur pressenti" (la sanctification), qui le fait "voir [simultanément] le passé aussi"41 codé dans les prophéties de Tirésias et d´Apollo.

Fig. 1.

La forme du dessin que nous avons imaginé et reproduit ici, plutôt aérodynamique ou aérospatiale que de sablier, nous à été inspirée tant par la définition donnée par Antoine Compagnon au mythe42 que, surtout, par la manière séquentielle-symétrique du déroulement des événements de la tragédie, avant et en arrière, dans le temps, se reflétant les unes dans d´autres, comme dans un miroir, d´un côté et de l´autre de l´axe temporelle linéaire, immuable, qui rend possible le voyage en des temps parallèles et réversibles du personnage principal.

Par conséquent, l’être (Œdipe), "libéré déjà de son existence conditionné", peut, selon les considérations de René Guénon, "se déplacer à son gré à travers tous les mondes" (Guénon 2008, 378),

un "retour n’étant qu’une apparence illusoire" (Guénon 2008, 378). Or, marchant dans "la dernière mort", par "la porte solaire"43 (le héros de Sophocle est assimilé au Soleil), Œdipe disparaît mystérieusement, selon les indications du compositeur, "près d’une grotte" de laquelle jaillisse soudain une lumière aveuglante44. Signe que, tout comme dans les textes de Pindare, "quand Dieu accorde à l´homme l´étincelle d´un rayon, une lumière éclatante vient d´en haut, et une vie entière douce comme le miel" 45.

Il paraît que la vie d´Œdipe, d´après sa disparition "dans la lumière" sera une sorte de vie édénique, vécue "parmi les fleurs et les lierres", entouré des clapotis cristallins des "sources printanières"46 et de voix „sépulcrales” des Euménides – les fées „bienveillantes, bienfaisantes”!

CONCLUSIO. Considérée dans son ensemble, l´intrigue du mythe conduit cependant, vers une autre réalité aussi, d’ordre métaphysique, indubitable à l’époque de l’antiquité grecque, à savoir que l’homme n’est que "l’ombre d’un rêve", comme le dit un vers pindarique, impuissant face à l’intervention divine, qui joue avec les vies des mortels en leur étirant souvent des pièges inimaginables, comme dans un acte d’initiation, pour leur tester la résistance à la souffrance, pièges qu´ils acceptent quand même, quoiqu´ils "ne sachent pas s´ils pourraient atteindre leur but, parce qu´ils ne connaissent pas le futur" 47. Seulement si l´avenir ne leur est pas transmis par des stratagèmes secrètes comme par exemple "en rêve", et si le mortel n’est pas un être commun, mais un „être doté d´une volonté soutenue par une intelligence supérieure" (Croiset 1939, 199), comme Œdipe.

Détails dans, en particulier la section IIe, B. Œdipe - mythe de la connaissance, pp. 46-75 et la section IIIe, Opera aperta intégralement, pp. 79-248.

2 Chap. 5, 1009 a, p. 145 3 Op. cit., 7, 1011 b, p. 156 4 "Par conséquent, le terme moyen entre les extrêmes d’une contradiction pourrait être ou, par exemple, quelque chose comme le gris entre blanc et noir, ou quelque chose entre l’homme et le cheval, quelque chose qui n’est pas aucune de ces créatures". Idem.

5 Idem, chap. 5, 1009 a, p.145. On retrouve l’idée d’ARISTOTE aussi dans les notes de commentaire de Gheorghe ENESCU, sur la théorie de LUPASCO. "Une chose peut être en même temps onde et corpuscule, mais il faut noter que le terme « onde » et « corpuscule » perdent leur signification indépendante, s’ils ne sont pas prises dans des rapports différents". Dans: Lupasco, p. 86.

6 Voir aussi la note 4e.

7 Voir aussi l´image de cette "intrigue" que nous avons ébauchée à la fin de cet exposé.

8 Ce sont les mots proclamés par Œdipe en tant que réponse à l´énigmatique question de la Sphinge, à la fin du deuxième acte: "Qui est plus fort que le Destin?".

9 „Il sera l´assassin de son père, l´époux de sa mère, le frère de ses filles, le père de ses frères”! - prédit Tirésias, dans le premier acte, au " nouveau né".

10 La confession du Berger, au début du IIIe acte.

11 "Soleil tu vois mes yeux pour la dernière fois"! (la fin du IIIe acte).

12 "Je vois clair ! Je vois clair"!

13 "Apollon ! Apollon m´a parlé face à face: «Pourquoi viens-tu souiller mon temple, toi qui seras l´assassin de ton père...? »". Œdipe se confesse en ces termes à Mérope, dans le IIe acte, avant de quitter le palais de Corinthe, qu´il considérait sa réelle "maison parentale".

14 "J'ai refusé de croire à ma destinée. Mais l´implacable dieu veut, qu´en dépit de moi, je veuille ce qu´il veut...”.

15 C´est l´aveu d´Œdipe devant la foule thébaine terrifiée, après avoir appris la vérité sur ses crimes (finale du IIIe acte).

16 Voir les notes 4, 5, supra.

17 Ce sont les paroles adressées par Œdipe à Thésée, le roi mythique d’Athènes, à la fin de l´opéra. La fermeté avec laquelle ils se réfère à l´imminent dénouement du son "voyage spirituel" – sa propre sanctification - est soutenue pas seulement d´une intelligence et d´une réflexion lucide, déductive – "Puisqu´au malheur prédit, le dieu fut véridique, au bonheur annoncé, il ne faillira pas” -, mais aussi par la confiance inébranlable dans le jugement et la sagesse du Dieu, qui lui avait promis que, dès que son "corps" lui sera sanctifié, "au sol qu´il touchera donnera la victoire".

18 Chap. 5, 1009 a, p 146.

19 Pour plus de détails sur le symbolisme de la lumière, voir: Platon, 507 a-e, 508 a-e, 509 a-d, p. 306309, et, également, Despina Petecel Theodoru, Opera aperta, p. 135-144.

20 508 a, p. 307.

21 Voir aussi la note 17, supra.

22 C´est comme ça qu´Œdipe s´adresse à Thésée, à la fin du IVe acte.

23 Dans: op. cit., p. 104.

1

24

Idem, ibid., p. 105.

Idem, ibid., p. 92.

26 Livre XI, 1452 a, p. 79.

27 Idem., ibid., Le Xème livre, 1452 a, 15-20, p. 78, Livre XI, 1452 a, 25, 30, 35 et 1452 b, 5, p. 79. "La reconnaissance et le renversement doivent résulter également de la composition du sujet, de sorte que les deux dérivent des faits qui se sont produits dans le passé, soit nécessairement, soit vraisemblable" (n. s.). Idem. Livre X, p. 78.

28 Vif échange de mots entre Tirésias-Œdipe au début du IIIe acte, surnommé "de la peste" déclenchée comme répercussion des dieux à cause d´un crime perpétré une fois, dans la Cité de Thèbes, et, pour la commission du quelle est accusé même Œdipe. Tiresias: „N´as-tu pas compris? Ce coupable que tu cherches, ce meurtrier de Laïos, c´est toi”! – Œdipe: „Vieillard stupide! Menteur impudent! As-tu jamais rien su, toi qui prétends tout savoir?” (deuxième acte, avant de l´enquête).

29 Voir aussi la note 8e.

30 Voir aussi les notes 11 et 12, supra.

31 Détails dans: Lupasco, p. 101-102.

32 "Celui que nous menons aux flammes destructrices fut riche de vertus, de jours et d´or” (le cortège funéraire du chœur des ténors, au début du IIIe acte).

33 "Je vais errer jusqu'au´ jour fatidique où d´invisibles déités m´accueilleront mourant au bord d´un bois sacré". Les mots sont adressés à la fin de l’acte III, à Antigone, qui l’accompagnera dans son "dernier voyage", vers la Cité d’Athènes, gouvernée par le roi mythique Thésée.

34 "Je dois errer... jusqu'au jour ignore où d´invisibles déités m´accueilleront mourant, au bord d´un bois sacré" (fin du deuxième acte).

35 Détails dans: Despina Petecel Theodoru, Opera aperta, p. 199-200.

36 Voir aussi les notes 33, 34, supra.

37 "Heureux celui dont l´âme est pure ! La paix sur lui"!

38 "Roi Laïos, en ta maison l´enfant qui s’éveille, suce un lait fait de rayons, au sein du soleil"! (Acte I).

39 "Ô palais Ô de Laïos ! Douleur! Douleur ! Ô terre maternelle ! Sanglots ! Sanglots"!

40 "Et maintenant, réponds Œdipe, si tu l´ose, nomme quelqu'un, ou nomme quelque chose, qui soit plus grand que le Destin"! (Dialogue de Œdipe avec la Sphinge, à la fin de l’acte IIe).

41 "Pourquoi faut-il que mon esprit blessé, en voyant l´avenir, voit aussi le le passé ?". Extrait du Monologue d´Œdipe arrivé au carrefour de trois routes, incertain en ce qui concerne son choix: "trois chemins… Par lequel échapperais-je à mon destin?" (Acte IIe de l’opéra).

42 Voir aussi la 7e, supra.

43 Le mythe d´Œdipe appartient à la catégorie des „mythes du soleil”, et Œdipe était parfaitement conscient de cette réalité, qui se déduit des mots avec lesquels il anathématise le Destin, dans le Monologue du Ier Acte de l´opéra: „Et maudit le Destin qui m´enchêne au Soleil”!

44 "Œdipe marche toujours, suivi de Thésée. Tout à coup, il disparaît près d´une grotte d´où sort brusquement une immense et éblouissante lumière" (dernier acte).

45 Paroles tirées de Pindare, Pythica VIII (95-97), apud Dherbey, p. 11.

46 "Suis-moi parmi les fleurs, les mousses et les lierres; suis-moi parmi les voix des sources printanières... ". Avec cette prière s´adresse Œdipe à Antigone, "lumière de ses yeux", à la fin du IVe acte.

47 Pindare, Pythica VIII (95-97), apud Dherbey, p. 5-13.

25

BIBLIOGRAPHIE Aristote. La Métaphysique. Traduit par Șt. Bezdechi. București: Editura Iri, 1999.

Compagnon, Antoine. Le démon de la théorie. Paris: Editions Seuil, 1988.

Croiset, Maurice. Œdipe-Roi. Paris: Mellottée, 1939.

Deleuze, Gilles. Différence et répétition. Traduit par Teodor Șăulea. București: Editura Babel, 1995.

Dherbey, Gilbert Romeyer. La parole archaïque. Paris: P.U.F., 1999.

Dumitriu, Anton. Alétheia, Eminescu. București: Editura Eminescu, 1984.

Guénon, René. Simboluri ale științei sacre. Traduit par Marcel Tolcea et Sorina Șerbănescu. București: Editura Humanitas, 2008.

Lupasco, Stéphane. Logique dynamique du contradictoire. Édité par Constantin Noica. Traduit par Vasile Sporici. București: Editura politică, 1982.

Petecel-Theodoru, Despina. «Contraires coïncidents dans le Destin solaire d´Œdipe.» Dans George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco - rêverie et mythe, de Despina Petecel-Theodoru, 232-248.

București: Editura muzicală, 2014.

—. De mímesis à l’archétype. București: Editura muzicală, 2003.

—. George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco - rêverie et mythe. București: Editura muzicală, 2014.

Petecel-Theodoru, Despina. «Opera aperta.» Dans George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco rêverie et mythe, de Despina Petecel-Theodoru, 232-248. București: Editura muzicală, 2014.

Petecel-Theodoru, Despina. «Procédés rythmiques et expressifs spécifiques à la tragédie grecque antique, dans l’opéra Oedipe de Georges Enesco.» Dans George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco - rêverie et mythe, de Despina Petecel-Theodoru, 79-85. București: Editura muzicală, 2014.

Petecel-Theodoru, Despina. «Sectio aurea.» Dans George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco rêverie et mythe, de Despina Petecel-Theodoru, 226-231. București: Editura muzicală, 2014.

Petecel-Theodoru, Despina. «Symboles archaïques dans l’opéra Oedipe: la lumière et le cri.» Dans George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco - rêverie et mythe, de Despina Petecel-Theodoru, 135144. București: Editura muzicală, 2014.

Petecel-Theodoru, Despina. «Typologies narratives dans l’opéra Oedipe - épreuve herméneutique à travers la théorie narratologique de Gérard GENET.» Dans George Enescu-reverie şi mit/ Georges Enesco - rêverie et mythe, de Despina Petecel-Theodoru, 199-212. București: Editura muzicală, 2014.

Platon. La République. Traduit par Andrei Cornea. București: Editura enciclopedică, 1986.

Ricoeur, Paul. Temps et récit.3. Le temps raconté. Seuil, Paris, 1985.

George Enescu, Kadenzen zum Violinkonzert in D-Dur op. 77 von Johannes Brahms. Manuskripte aus dem George Enescu Archiv, Bukarest, Inv. Nr. 2390/3980

FRANKFURTER ALLGEMEINE ZEITUNG

ABSTRAKT : Im George-Enescu-Archiv1 befindet sich ein Korpus aus unveröffentlichten Manuskripten sowie aus einem damit verbundenen, gedruckten Dokument. Nach näherer Untersuchung entdeckt man darin ein Kleinod der universalen Violine Literatur aus der Feder des jungen George Enescu. Es stellt sich heraus, dass diese Seite Musik ihren Autor sein ganzes Leben als Violine Künstler auf vielen großen Bühnen der Welt begleitet hat und durch ihn als Teil des Violinkonzerts von Johannes Brahms erklang. Sie zeugt einmal mehr für Enescus großes musikalisches Einfühlungsvermögen, für seine innige Verbindung zum Wesen der Musik und besonders zu derjenigen von Johannes Brahms.

Im Folgenden wird versucht, diesen Korpus beschreibend zu präsentieren, einige Aspekte des historischen Hintergrunds zu skizzieren und schließlich mit einem analytischen Versuch dafür zu plädieren, dass es besonders wichtig wäre, diese Kadenz aus dem Dornröschenschlaf zu holen, zu veröffentlichen. Dies trotz der schier unübersichtlich gewordenen Anzahl unterschiedlichster Kadenzen, die bis heute zu Brahms' Violinkonzert geschrieben wurden 2 –, wegen ihres genuinen Werts, da sie sich wie ein perfektes Puzzleteil im Gesamtbild des Brahms'schen Werks fügt, dafür zu sorgen, dass sie wieder im Konzert erklingt.

Eingereicht : 2017, 06, 10 Angenommen : 2017, 06, 30 „...denn tief in meiner Seele tönt die urväterlichste deutsche Musik“ George Enescu3

KEYWORDS : CADENZ ZUM VIOLINKONZERT VON BRAHMS

DAS ARCHIVMATERIAL

DER Korpus unter der Registriernummer 2908/3980 im Archiv George Enescu besteht aus insgesamt 17 Seiten.

1. Vier Manuskriptseiten von George Enescus Hand, darauf zwei Varianten seiner eigenen Kadenz zum Violinkonzert in D-Dur op. 77 von Johannes Brahms: a) Eine handgeschriebene Seite, schwarze Tinte auf Papier mit zehn vorgedruckten Notensystemen. Der Titel mittig oben Cadence pour le Concerto pour Violon et orchestre de J. Brahms und rechts oben par Georges Enesco, darunter offensichtlich zum späteren Zeitpunkt hinzugefügt, (environ 1903). Die gesamte Reinschrift der Kadenz passt genau auf der einen Seite (Beispiel no. 1);

Beispiel 1 b) Drei Seiten handgeschrieben, schwarze Tinte auf Papier mit jeweils 12 vorgedruckten Notensystemen, davon die erste Seite trägt mittig den Titel Cadence (à la 1re partie) pour le Concerto pour Violon et Orchestre de J. Brahms, Georges Enesco sowie weiter unten die Widmung À mon cher et éminent collègue monsieur David Oistrakh avec mes sentiments4 (…) admiratifs et dévoués – Georges Enesco, Moscou – Mai 1946; die zweite Seite hat oben erneut den Titel Cadence (à la 1re partie) pour le Concerto pour Violon et Orchestre de J. Brahms, Georges Enesco und gleich darunter sowie fortlaufend auf der dritten Seite die Noten der (fast) identischen Kadenz wie bei 1. a). (Beispiel nos. 2-4)

Beispiel 2

Beispiel 3

Beispiel 4

2. Drei Manuskriptseiten von Enescus Hand mit der Niederschrift der Kadenz von Hugo Heermann, schwarze Tinte auf Papier mit 12 vorgedruckten Notensystemen, davon eine Titelseite, mittig beschriftet Cadenz zum Violinkonzert von Johannes Brahms von Herrmann5 und darunter, in Form eines Siegels, der kunstvoll umrankte Name George Enescu in Druckbuchstaben; eine Seite, mittig überschrieben Cadenz, rechts mit dem Autorennamen Herrmann6, überragt von einigen Noten. Die seitenfüllende Notenschrift ist fortgesetzt auf der dritten Seite dieser Gruppe, wo sie weitere fünf Notensysteme einnimmt. Beendet werden diese mit einer kleinen, ebenfalls siegelhaft verzierten Unterschrift Georg Enescu (Beispiel nos. 5-7).

Beispiel 5

Beispiel 6

Beispiel 7 3. Schließlich zehn Seiten mit den 1894 in Druck erschienen Kadenzen zum Violinkonzert von Ludwig van Beethoven, aus der Feder von Joseph Joachim.

Diese wird zum bedeutenden Dokument durch die handschriftlichen Eintragungen auf der Titelseite7, mit schwarzen Tinte oben links: Berlin, 30 Décembre 1899 sowie oben rechts von gleicher Hand die Widmung: À Georges Enesco, Souvenir de J. Joachim. Darunter die Signatur des Widmungsträgers Georges Enesco (Beispiel no. 8).

Beispiel 8

ZUR GESCHICHTE George Enescu wird 1889 am Konservatorium für Musik und Darstellende Kunst der Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde in Wien aufgenommen, unter anderem in der Violine klasse von Josef Hellmesberger Junior und der Kompositionsklasse von Robert Fuchs. Dort wohnt er in der Nibelungengasse 10 bei seinem Lehrer Hellmesberger Jr., durch den er Johannes Brahms (***, George Enescu-Monografie, 1971) persönlich kennenlernt. Diese Begegnung prägt den damals achtjährigen Musiker nachhaltig.

Zehn Jahre später, im Dezember 1899, fährt George Enescu nach Berlin, mit einem Empfehlungsschreiben seiner Gönnerin Elena Bibescu (Drăghici, 1973, pg. 255-256)8 an Joseph Joachim. Sie hatte durch ein Telegramm von der Presseagentur Wolff erfahren, dass Joachim am Ende des Jahres in Berlin sein würde. Die Absicht war, Joachim um ein Treffen zu bitten, da Enescu eventuell bei ihm studieren sollte. Dieses Treffen findet am 30. Dezember ab 9.30 Uhr im Hause von Joachim statt. Joachim hört Enescu sehr aufmerksam zu und bemerkt, dass der junge Absolvent der

Konservatorien von Wien und Paris in seinem Spiel beide Schulen vortrefflich verschmolz. Ein weiteres Studium sei überflüssig und Enescu könne von nun an eine brillante Konzertkarriere starten.

Mit seinem Glückwunsch schenkt Joachim ihm als Zeichen der Anerkennung seine Kadenzen zu Beethovens Violinkonzert9 und schreibt darauf das Datum und die Widmung.

Auch diese Begegnung muss Enescu sehr stark beeindruckt haben, man bedenke nur, welch eine große Autorität des Musiklebens Joachim damals verkörperte, anerkannt in aller Welt. Dennoch, drei Jahre später und ein Jahr nach der Veröffentlichung von Joachim's Kadenz zu Brahms' Violinkonzert schrieb Enescu seine eigene Kadenz dazu. Also fühlte er einen Drang, sich dieser Musik anders und ganz persönlich anzunähern, nämlich von Innen heraus darauf zu reagieren und als Teil des Brahm’schen musikalischen Diskurses zu agieren.

Enescu war nicht nur äußerst einfühlsam, sondern fühlte sich Brahms besonders nahe. Einmal gefragt, welche Komponisten er bevorzugt, antwortet er: „alle die Großen. (…) Ich verneige mich vor Bach, er ist unübertrefflich. Unter den Modernen, Brahms (***, 1988, p. 268).“ Enescu war das Komponieren von allen seinen Gaben die liebste. Er verriet einmal: „Eine einzige Sache weiß ich, dass ich in mir den Geist spüre, der mich zum Schreiben zwingt. Wenn der liebe Gott mir eine Gabe schenkte, dann gab er mir auch eine Pflicht. Solange ich diese Gabe in meiner Seele verspüren werde, solange werde ich schreiben und werde lieben, was ich schreibe, denn es ist meins und es ist aus dem Innersten. (…) Ohne mir anzumaßen, mich mit ihm zu vergleichen, nehme ich mir Brahms als Vorbild.” (***, 1988, p. 247) Unzählige Quellen belegen, wie hoch seine Kunst der Interpretation war, wie bewegend, tiefgreifend und treffend sein Gespür für Stil und Proportion der Werke – in Verbindung mit Brahms für manche geradezu wie eine Offenbarung. Nach einem der Auftritte in Pittsburgh mit dem dortigen Symphony Orchestra unter der Leitung von Antonio Modarelli 10 notierte der Musikkritiker J. Fred Lissfelt am 7. Januar 1937 im Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph: „After the quiet, graceful close of his cadenza of the first movement, the delicate cantilna of the adagio and the stirring, joyful rhythms of the finale, Pittsburgh had again learned new meanings in Brahms.“ (***, 2015, p. 221) Enescus Kadenz wird hier aus drücklich erwähnt. Der Kritiker drückt fast genau die Reaktionen aus, die ihren Echo überall in der Presse der Zeit fanden, und bemerkt das Erhabene seines Spiels, was seine Deutungskraft und die Faszination zugleich aus machte. So schrieb ein Kritiker ein Jahr zuvor in Rumänien, dass „Enescu (…) als Aufführender uns mit seiner stupenden Musikalität und mit seiner Kraft verblüffte, Brahms' innerste Komplexität zu deuten (***, Cronica Muzicală, Concertele Enescu) (***, 2015)11. Die Betonung liegt also immer wieder auf Enescus Fähigkeit, Brahms' Werk zu deuten.

Für die Kadenzen anderer Musiker zu diesem Violinkonzert hat Enescu sich offensichtlich schon immer interessiert, er schrieb liebevoll mit der Hand die längst veröffentlichte Kadenz von Hugo Heermann12 ab (oder, möglicherweise hatte er zum gegebenen Zeitpunkt keinen Zugang zu den gedruckten Noten und schrieb sie nach Gehör nieder). Das undatierte Manuskript dieser Handkopie lässt durch den zuweilen noch kindlichen Schriftzug vermuten, dass sie vor 1903 entstand. Diese Kadenz bildet vor allem durch das musikalische Material gerade ein Antipod zu der Kadenz von Enescu. Jedoch, bei allem inhaltlichen Unterschied haben beide fast denselben Umfang und gehören bis heute zu den wenigsten, die so knapp verfasst sind. Vielleicht ist dies kein Zufall ist und war durchaus im Sinne von Brahms selbst gewesen.

Enescu also spielte immer seine Kadenz als Ausdruck seiner innigen Verbindung zu Brahms und seine tiefe Empfindung für Stil und Form des Violinkonzerts. Er konzipierte Sie virtuos, nicht aber um Bewunderung für sich selbst zu ernten, sondern weil es diese Stelle der Komposition danach verlangt. Vielmehr durchdringt er analytisch und komprimiert zugleich darin tiefgründige formale Aspekte des Werks. Seine Haltung ist offensichtlich diejenige eines komplexen Musikers, eines spielenden Komponisten, der immer nach einer vollkommenen Harmonie der Proportionen und nach einem organischen Zusammenhalt aller Elemente trachtete. Er verstand sich selbst auch hierin als Teil des höheren Ganzen.

Fasziniert von Enescus Persönlichkeit und von seiner Kunst zeigte sich David Oistrach, der jahre später (1961) den „Begegnungen mit Enescu“ einen berührenden Artikel widmete. Darin berichtete er über die einfache wie eloquente Geste, die er in 1946 erlebt hatte, während der damaligen Moskau-Konzertreise von Enescu. (***, 1971, pp. 1027, 1029) Als der russische Geiger den Wunsch äußerte, seine Kadenz zu dem Violinkonzert von Brahms näher kennenzulernen, brachte Enescu sie sofort aus dem Gedächtnis zu Papier und schenkte sie ihm mit einer Widmung 13.

So erklärt sich der Aspekt dieser Niederschrift von 1946 mit schwungvollen, spontan und rasch ausgeführten Schriftzügen, die inhaltlich fast identisch ist mit derjenigen von 1903. Beim genauen Vergleich jedoch belegen winzige, unterscheidende Details, dass diese von Anfang an sehr gründlich überlegte Musik im Laufe der 33 Jahre, in der sie von ihrem Autor immer wieder gespielt wurde, klarer, geschliffener, ja vollkommener wurde – in ihrer inneren Logik des Aufbaus sowie in ihrem Umfang als Teil des gesamten Brahms'schen Satzes.

ANALYTISCHE ÜBERLEGUNGEN Bekannt ist, dass sich Brahms während des Kompositionsprozesses in violinistischen Fragen von Joseph Joachim sich intensiv hat beraten lassen und diesem die Komposition der Kadenz, die auch bei der Leipziger Uraufführung des Konzerts unter der Leitung des Komponisten gespielt wurde, überlassen hat. So läge demnach die Vermutung nahe, dass diese Kadenz des Widmungsträgers auch die in allen Belangen von Brahms akzeptierte gewesen sei. Dennoch, genauer hinzuschauen lohnt sich immer.

Brahms war sicherlich sehr dankbar, eine so kompetente Unterstützung in Sachen Technik des Violinspiels zu bekommen. Hier galt, bis an die Grenze der Möglichkeiten zu gehen, wenn nicht sogar diese zu erweitern, und der Komponist selbst war vom Haus aus nun mal kein Geiger, sondern Pianist. Hinzu kommt, dass der alte Freund Joachim ohnehin eine starke Autorität darstellte, sodass all dies um die menschliche und künstlerische Konstellation uns vermuten lässt, dass Brahms sich kaum erlaubt hätte, ihn in seiner Entfaltung einzuschränken.

So erklingt bekanntlich bis heute am häufigsten die Kadenz von Joseph Joachim. Fraglos lässt sie den Solisten mit ihrer Virtuosität und ihrem ausladenden Umfang wunderbar glänzen, motivisch knüpft sie zunächst an den ersten, einleitenden Auftritt der Violine an. Schon vor ihrer Veröffentlichung kursierte sie in zahlreichen Abschriften unter den Schülern Joachims.

Ein Detail (Brahms, pg. 198-201) jedoch erweckt unsere Aufmerksamkeit: „Besonders aufschlussreich ist dabei eine Abschrift der Kadenz von der Hand der jungen Geigerin Marie Soldat (1863-1955), die nicht nur von ihrem Lehrer Joachim, sondern auch von Brahms maßgeblich gefördert wurde. Für ihren ersten Wiener Auftritt mit Orchester am 8. März 1885 wählte sie Brahm s' Violinkonzert und entzückte den Komponisten mit ihrem 'unübertrefflichen' Spiel (…). Sieben Monate vor jener Aufführung muss Marie Soldat Brahms selbst um eine Kadenz gebeten haben, was dieser am 9. August 1884 freundlich-ironisch ablehnte: 'ja, wenn die Kadenz für Flöte sein sollte! Von der Geige verstehe ich gar zu wenig u. das ist in dem Fall doch nötig.' (…) Daraufhin schrieb die Geigerin sich Joachims Kadenz ab (…). Wie Marie Soldat ihrer Mutter sechs Tage vor der Wiener Aufführung berichtete, strich Brahms ihr allerdings 'in der Cadenza etwas (…), da er sie zu lang fand'. (…) Die knappere Kadenzgestalt (…) sagte ihm erwiesenermaßen mehr zu als die 'zu lange' Fassung. (…)

Diese Fassung wurde 2004 im Rahmen der neuen Gesamtausgabe erstmals veröffentlicht.“14 Beim ersten Blick fällt auf, dass der Umfang dieser von Brahms favorisierten Fassung (62 Takte15) tatsächlich um ein Viertel kürzer ist, als die gedruckte Fassung Joachims (82 Takte) und erstaunlicherweise fast gleich, bzw. um nur vier Takte länger als die erste Fassung (1903) von Enescus Kadenz, die mit ihren 58 Takten ihres Umfangs eine sanfte Stufe darstellt zu der späten Fassung (1946) mit 56 Takten – und diese letztere wiederum, hat die identische Anzahl von Takten wie seine Abschrift der Kadenz von Hugo Heermann, die ihn in der frühen Jugend offensichtlich besonders interessiert hat und an der, wie hier später gezeigt, Enescu in seiner eigenen Kadenz an entscheidenden Stelle eine Reminiszenz einbaut.

Man muss sich natürlich fragen, was es damit auf sich hat; warum Johannes Brahms die ursprüngliche Version von Joachims Kadenz als „zu lang“ empfand und warum Enescu dann mit seiner Kadenz fast genau auf die Länge kam, die Brahms selbst vorschlug – höchstwahrscheinlich, ohne davon Kenntnis zu haben. Ein Vorbild für Enescu, auch was das Volumen angeht, war vielleicht Hugo Heermans Kadenz. Man fragt sich dann, wieso genau diese, auch wenn es um die Zeit recht wenige Kadenzen existierten. Und wieso erreichte Enescu am Ende, durch das „ziselieren“ sein er eigenen Kadenz im Laufe der 33 Jahren seiner Konzertpraxis, die zwischen den Zeitpunkten seiner zwei notierten Varianten lag, eine noch verknappter Form als ursprünglich, und zwar nun identisch in der Länge derjenigen von Heermann?

Man muss davon ausgehen, dass nichts davon, bei keinem dieser Musiker, bewusst oder gar berechnet gewesen ist. Vielmehr, ausgehend von einer starken Intuition, muss es etwas mit dem Gefühl für Zeitgestaltung, für Abläufe und harmonische Proportionen, etwas mit der Ausgewogen heit der Form als ein Ganzes zu tun haben.

Man könnte aber ein Blick darauf werfen, was passiert mit dem gesamten Satz, wenn darin eine Kadenz nur so lang ist, wie etwa die späte Version von Enescu: Der Kopfsatz zählt ohne die Kadenz 570 Takte 16. Zählt man die Kadenz mit 56 Takten dazu, dann hat der gesamte Satz 626 Takte. In diesem Fall kommt die Mitte des Kopfsatzes genau auf auf Takt 313 der Partitur, was zugleich dem Ort des goldenen Schnitts der Durchführung entspricht (zwischen Takt 312 und 313). Da entdecken wir, dass genau dort im Verlauf des Satzes etwas vollkommen Unerwartetes geschieht: Unter der Bezeichnung tranquillo fängt die Violine ein neues, anmutig verspieltes Motiv an, mit einer prägnanten, fortwährend wiederholten rhythmischen Formel (Anapäst), die immer weiter gesponnen wird über die sanften, aus dem zweiten Thema abgeleiteten Bewegungen der Holzbläser, die allmählich zu den Streichern wandern. Später wandert dieses Motiv selbst in den Orchestersatz, als ein neues Motiv der Durchführung.

Diese Länge der Kadenz mit 56 Takten bringt also den Kopfsatz des Werks in ein ganz besonderes Gleichgewicht: Die Mitte des Satzes und der Goldene Schnitt der Durchführung werden

eins! Und außerdem ergibt sich noch eine Gleichteilung, und zwar steht dann der Anfang der Reprise genau in der Mitte zwischen Anfang der Exposition (bei Takt 136) und Schlussakkord des Satzes 17 (Takt 381 bis Takt 626). Je länger die Kadenz angelegt wird, desto mehr verschieben sich diese Proportionen und desto weniger steht das Gefüge im Gleichgewicht.

So viel zur Quantität, die sich nun für die musikalische Architektur des Konzerts als bedeutend erweist.

Ihr Aufbau und die Art, wie Enescu darin über die motivische Arbeit von Brahms nachsinnt, ist scheinbar frei und dennoch hintergründig sehr streng. Gleichsam eines komprimierten Rückblicks verbindet er die Themen des Konzerts so, dass dramaturgisch zunächst das Orchestrale mit evoziert wird bis zu einem Punkt, wo die Einführung der Kadenz regelrecht zitiert wird. Dort inszeniert George Enescu den Anfang einer Kadenz in seiner Kadenz (!), die von dem energisch punktierten Motiv des Seitensatzes eingeführt wird (genau von dem Motiv, mit dem Hugo Heermann seine Kadenz eröffnet!). Mit Trillern verziert, mit 6tel-Figurationen, die immer in die Höhe steigen, bis hin zu einer großen Arpeggienwelle und einem Doppeltriller (sforzato-fortissimo in hoher Lage), betont dieser letzte Abschnitt spektakulär die Virtuosität des Solisten. Er klingt am Ende immer sanfter und weicher aus (rit. molto und diminuendo) und beendet so die Kadenz.

Enescu eröffnet also seine Kadenz mit einer Gestalt des Hauptthemas, darüber nachsinnend, wobei er sie dekomponiert, komprimiert sowie zugleich darin spielerische melodische und harmonische Verwechslungen einbaut. Die eröffnende Gebärde mit dem schnellen Aufstieg, gefolgt von absteigenden Dreiklangtönen ähnelt zwar in etwa dem allerersten Einstieg der solistischen Violine in der Brahms'schen Einleitung, daran jedoch knüpft Enescu nicht an, wie etwa Joseph Joachim, sondern simuliert nur ihren Anfang, um gleich zu seiner eigenen Präsentation des musikalischen Materials des Hauptthemas zu gelangen. Er kokettiert mit ihr und, tief ihre Geheimnisse durchdringend, verneigt sich zugleich vor Johannes Brahms'.

Der virtuose Aufstieg von a zu a''', ein anfangs leicht chromatisch angereichertes Arpeggio, wird aufwärts rhythmisch immer schneller 18, gleichsam eines accelerando. Dieser leitet das Hauptthema ein, jedoch der Ton stimmt nicht mit demjenigen vom Anfang des Satzes (fis'), sondern mit demjenigen vom Takt 5 der Brahms'schen Partitur (a') überein. Dort erreicht die melodische „Welle“ des Themas einen zweiten Gipfel, von wo aus sie wieder absteigt, diesmal auf den „klaren“ Tönen des Grundton-Dreiklangs. Diese übereinstimmende melodische Bewegung wird gleich genutzt, um eine Verwechslung zu bewirken. Gleich aber wird sie mit dem ursprünglichen Element verwoben, bzw. konfrontiert: Als zweite Stimme erklingen die Töne, die an dieser Stelle bei Brahms tatsächlich da sind – der melodische Schritt h-a, im Übergang von Takt 2 zu Takt 3. Damit entsteht plötzlich ein harmonisches Verhältnis, das diesen Schritt als Teil einer Subdominante-Tonika-Verbindung sinnig macht und die noch deutlicher wird durch eine harmonisch dichtere Sequenz in der tieferen Oktave.

Diese wird nur im Ansatz fortgesetzt, ändert aber dann melodisch ihre Richtung und läßt den besagten Schritt h-a, nun als Oktave-Unisono strahlen. Die melodische Wendung, die hier erscheint, ist für das Ohr mit der Schlusswendung des Vordersatzes leicht zu verwechseln, vor allem, weil die harmonische Einbettung der Töne, die Enescu schon hat hören lassen (S-T), verhältnismäßig der harmonischen Verbindung des Halbschlusses (T-D) entspricht, die tatsächlich am Ende des Vordersatzes steht. Es klingt „als ob“, aber wiederum stimmt hier weder der Ort, noch das tatsächliche Harmonische Verhältnis.

Was wir erleben, ist also ein Entlarven der Verhältnisse, die bei Brahms eine wichtige Rolle spielen, vor allem um eine archaisch-erhabene Farbe zu erzielen. Man bedenke beispielsweise die absteigenden Quarten, die von den Bläsern in Unisono in der zweiten Themengruppe erscheint (Unisono fis''-cis''-fis'-cis', Takt 61-64), das Spiel der Oktaven im hiesigen Motiv wie auch in der Überleitung oder gar die Pizzicatti im Bass vor den Schlussakkorden im Finale des Rondos.

An der Stelle nun, wo dieser trügerische Schluss erklingt (Enescus Takt 5), übernimmt der Ton a' (bzw. der Doppelgriff a-a') seine Funktion vom entsprechenden Ort der Referenz im Brahms'schen Satz und setzt die Bewegung nahe am Vorbild fort. Am Ende jedoch, durch den neu entstandenen Kontext, klingt der Halbschluss wie ein echo jenes trügerischen plagalen Schlusses 19, was wiederum der tatsächlichen harmonischen Farbe seiner Vorbildgestalt bei Brahms entspricht.

Enescu braucht bis zum Halbschluss ein Takt mehr als Brahms, verziert schließlich die Töne des dominantischen A-Dur Dreiklangs und leitet damit den Nachsatz des 1. Themas in C-Dur ein.

Das lyrische C-Dur Thema (Enescu, Takt 10), knüpft nun an seine Gestalt von der Exposition an und wird kontrapunktiert mit der zweiten Stimme, die zuerst von der solistischen Violine initiiert wurde. Nach den ersten vier Takten dieses Segments „versteckt“ sich die Fortsetzung in Figurationen (Takt 14 und 15), um dann wiederum deutlich zu erscheinen und zu der Überleitung mit ihren energischen Oktavensprüngen zu führen.

Die Überleitung, zu Anfang in reinen Oktaven, in forte, sostenuto marcato, wird harmonisch erweitert, expandiert in die Höhe und bringt aus dem Seitensatz das Thema ein, das der solistischen Violine in der Exposition als erstes angehörte. Die chromatische, sanft absteigende Linie aus dem Seitensatz erscheint hier eingebettet in Doppelgriff-Figurationen und führt über einen kräftigen

Doppelgriff Aufstieg zu dem drei zitierten Takt, die die Kadenz einführen (entsprechend Takt 522524 bei Brahms). Die so inszenierte „Kadenz der Kadenz“ startet, wie schon erwähnt, mit dem prägnanten punktierten Motiv, das am Ende des Seitensatzes vorkommt und mit dem Hugo Heermann seine Kadenz eröffnet hat. Dieses punktierte Motiv kommt jedoch zunächst nicht wiederholt vor, sondern wird mit trillern improvisatorisch verziert. Es mündet gleich in die rasch absteigenden 16tel Figuren, die hier fortwährend in die Höhe sequenziert werden. Sie treiben höher und höher, und darunter schimmert als neue Stimme erneut das Drei-Takte-Motiv durch, das die Kadenz eingeführt hatte – eine Verschränkung, die zu einer Neuerscheinung punktierten Motivs führt, in hoher Lage und rhythmisch augmentiert. Hier leitet das Motiv ein Arpeggiobogen ein, der langsamer ab, als anschließend aufwärtsläuft. Von ihrem Gestus her erinnert diese Stelle an Joachims Kadenz, die in dem Segment wiederum der Einleitung der Violine bei Brahms entspricht. Dennoch gehört dort ihr Tonmaterial dem Grundtonakkord, während hier die Töne der Dominante angehören. Es war dort der Anfang, hier nähert sich der Satz und die Kadenz dem Ende zu. Eine Synkope auf dem tiefsten Ton dieser letzten großen „Welle“ lässt wiederum an die rhythmischen Verhältnisse vom Anfang des Geigensatzes denken. Oben angelangt, nach all dem dichten Geflecht der Reminiszenzen bleiben die Töne in olympischer Höhe, der Triller schwillt dynamisch auf und ebbt schließlich sanft ab.

Zusammenfassend kann man sagen, dass George Enescu in seiner Kadenz - bei allem verspielten Umgang mit den musikalischen Elementen - die bedeutendsten Themen des Satzes gleichsam nacherzählt, und in „ordentlicher“ Reihenfolge. Er inszeniert also ein Konzert in nuce als Kadenz, eine Art Dramolett konzentrierter Substanz, samt Kadenz, als würde er das Ganze Geschehen nur mittels der Geige kurzfassen, und führt diese „komprimierte“ Form bis hin zu dem Zeitpunkt, wo es auch im Satz nun weitergeht.

Wohlgemerkt, diese „Miniexposition“ der Themen verläuft durchgehend, vom Anfang bis zum Ende der Kadenz, mit dem Kunstgriff, das Motiv des Übergangs zur Kadenz reinzunehmen und vor das punktiere Motiv des Seitensatzes zu schieben. So mutiert das letzte Thema des Seitensa tzes zum Moment der Kadenz, durch den Charakter seiner Verwandlung mit Trillern und dazu noch als Reminiszenz an Hugo Heermanns Kadenz - in der schließlich auch noch Elemente aus der Kadenz von Joseph Joachim hineinfließen (letztere in Enescus Takt 48-49). Dies schafft gewiss wiederum noch mehr Gleichgewicht im Rahmen der gesamten Komposition, denn hier kommen nochmal die wichtigsten Ereignisse der ausladenden, verästelten Form auf den Punkt.

Enescu nutzt – wie auch Brahms – motivisch-thematische Arbeit und erreicht dabei durch Doppelbödigkeit eine organisch-einheitliche und sehr konzentrierte musikalische Substanz. Mehr noch, geistvoll und auf sehr persönlicher Weise schafft er mit seiner Kadenz ein Moment im Satz, der seine Funktion erfüllt, aber so, dass er damit den Satz nicht auseinandersprengt, sondern darin für noch mehr Kohärenz sorgt. Die Kadenz wird so zum organischen Teil des Ganzen und passt sich auch stilistisch Chamäleon Haft an. Es zeigt sich hier also einmal mehr, von welcher Erhabenheit die legendär gewordene Demut von George Enescu angesichts der Kunst gewesen ist.

Dass er erst am Ende seiner Karriere sie an David Oistrach weitergab, kann man als ein Zeichen ansehen, dass er ihr eine Chance geben wollte, im Konzert weiterzuleben. Er tat das aber nur, weil Oistrach sich dafür interessiert hat, er wollte sie offensichtlich niemandem aufzwingen.

Dieses Geschenk – damals als eine so großzügige wie spontane Geste entstanden – hat sich schon zum siebzigsten Mal gejährt, und es ist nicht bekannt, dass jemand außer Enescu diese Kadenz jemals gespielt hat.

So wäre es vielleicht wieder an der Zeit!

DANKSAGUNG Die Autorin dankt herzlich ihrem Mentor, Professor Viorel Cosma, für die Erwähnung der Existenz dieser Archivdokumente und seinen Impuls, sie zu untersuchen.

Vielen Dank ebenfalls der Leiterin des George Enescu Nationalmuseums samt des Archivs, Cristina Andrei für die Überlassung der Fotokopien aller Dokumente.

Auch vielen Dank allen ehemaligen Mentoren, Lehrern sowie allen bis heute bewunderten und befreundeten Kollegen, die direkt oder indirekt, bewusst oder unbewusst zur Entstehung dieser Arbeit beigetragen haben.

Danke meiner Tochter Catharina von Bülow für die moralische Unterstützung und Hilfe bei der Korrektur.

Ganz besonderen Dank an Prof. Dr. Mihai Cosma für seinen umfangreichen Einsatz in Verbindung mit dem Symposium, für seine professionelle Ausdauer und die liebenswürdige Geduld.

ENDNOTEN 1

Das Archiv befindet sich im George Enescu Nationalmuseum, Rumänien, Bukarest, Calea Victoriei Nr. 141

2

Hier seien beispielsweise, außer der Kadenz zum Violinkonzert von Johannes Brahms von Joseph Joachim (1831-1921), diejenigen von Edmund Singer (1830-1912), Leopold Auer (18451930), Franz Ondricek, (1857-1922), Eugène Ysaye (1858-1931), Franz Kneisel (1865-1926), Ferruccio Busoni (1866-1924), Henri Marteau (1874-1934), Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), Donald Francis Tovey (1875-1950), Max Reger (1879-1916), Jan Kubelik (1880-1940), Adolf Busch (18911952), Jascha Heifetz (1901-1987), Nathan Milstein (1903-1992) und Ruggero Ricci (1918-2012, der eine Aufnahme dieses Konzerts mit 16 verschiedenen Kadenzen hinterlassen hat). Siehe auch Endnote 5 und .

3 Original auf Rumänsich, deutsche Übersetzung aus dem Satz: „(...)Schumann si Brahms vor trai de-a pururi. De-altfel, ei sunt muzicienii mei preferati, pe ei îi simt cel mai aproape de fiinta mea, întrucât – de ce as nega – în adâncul sufletului, îmi cânta cea mai strabuna muzica germana...“ (***, 1988, p.237) 4 Dazwischen ein Wort, nicht erkennbar, vermutlich très, ist überfleckt 5 Original auf Deutsch, mit der angegebenen Orthographie. Es handelt sich um die Kadenz des deutschen Violinvirtuosen Hugo Heermann (1844-1935), eines ehemaligen Schülers von Joseph Joachim. Nur diese Kadenz (1896) und diejenige (1895) von Karl Halir (1859-1909), ebenfalls eines Joachim- Schülers, sind zu Lebzeiten von Johannes Brahms in Druck erschienen (Michael Struck).

Die Kadenz von Joachim, obwohl er sie bei der Uraufführung des Konzerts am 1. Januar 1879 in Leipzig vortrug und seitdem sie in zahlreichen Abschriften unter seinen Schülern kursierte, wurde erst 1902 gedruckt.

6 Es handelt sich um Hugo Heermann. Wie oben erwähnt, ist der Name falsch buchstabiert.

7 Darauf ist gedruckt: Cadenzen zu L. Van Beethovens VIOLIN-CONCERT für die Violine allein componirt von Joseph Joachim – Pr. M. 2.- Für alle länder Verlag und Eigenthum der Schlesinger`schen Buch. & Musikhandlung (Rob. Lieanu) Berlin, Französische Str. 23, Wien, Carl Haslinger, S. 8599. Auf der nächsten Seite, klein unten: Copyright 1894 by Schlesinger`sche Buchund Musikalienhandlung(Rob. Lienau) Berlin, Stich und Druck von C. G. Röder, Leipzig .

8 Die Prinzessin Elena Bibescu (1855-1902), eine der anerkanntesten europäischen Pianistinnen des 19. Jahrhunderts und berühmte Mäzenin, unterstütze, wie auch die Königin Elisabeth von Rumänien (1843-1916) den jungen George Enescu auf dem Weg seiner musikalischen Karriere.

9 Siehe Endnote 7.

10 Antonio Modarelli (1894-1954), amerikanischer Dirigent und Komponist von internationalem Rang.

11 Zit. Orig. Rumänisch: „(...) 'Concertul re major' de Brahms în care d. George Enescu a aparut în prima lui hipostasa, de executant, uimindu-ne cu formdabila sa muzicalitate si putere de lamurire a complexitatii sufletesti a lui Brahms.“ 12 Siehe hierzu die Endnote 5.

13 Im Gegenzug dazu wird später George Enescu von David Oistrach dessen Kadenz zum Violinkonzert von Aram Chatschaturjan mit Widmung erhalten. Ebda., S. 1027.

14 Der Musikwissenschaftler Michael Struck betonte, dass diese gestrafte Gestalt von Joachims Kadenz, die Marie Soldat nach der doppelten überarbeitung festlegte, von Brahms eindeutig favorisiert wurde. Im Manuskript stehen „einige flüchtig skizzierte Kürzungs- und Änderungsvorschläge von Brahms' Hand. Daraufhin notierte die Geigerin ihrerseits zwei verkürzende Übergänge, die die von Brahms angedeuteten Einschnitte teils präzisierten, teils abwandelten.“ Ebda, S. VI. 15 Es ist nicht genau nachzuvollziehen, welche genaue Länge Brahms' Kürzungen von ihm aus bewirkt hätten, ohne das Zutun von Marie Soldat mit ihren „zwei verkürzenden Übergänge“, die zum Teil Brahms Vorschläge abwandelten (siehe Endnote 14) 16 In jeder Partitur stehen 571 Takte, jedoch ist Takt 526 mit dem Triller der Violine auf dem Leitton cis''' Teil der Kadenz und gehört zunächst abgezogen.

17 Es sind 245 Takte vom Anfang der Exposition (Takt 136) bis Anfang der Reprise (Takt 381) und es ergibt eine Anzahl von 626 Takten, wenn man ab Anfang der Reprise (bei Takt 381) eine Anzahl von 245 Takte wiederum addiert. So steht der Anfang der Reprise in der Mitte dieses Segments. Und 626 Takte ergeben sich, wenn man den 570 Takten der Brahms'schen Partitur eine Kadenz von 56 Takten hinzufügt.

18 Hier glättet sich mit der Zeit (1903 bis 1946) die Stufung, als Unterschied zwischen den zwei notieren Varianten, so dass die drei 16tel-Triolen und die vier 32tel des dritten Zeittaktes zu einer Septole werden.

19 Enescu baut die melodische Wendung dieses Schlusses mit ein, durch eine zweite Stimme am Ende des Vordersatzes.

***. (1971). George Enescu, Monografie (Vol. Vol. II). Bucuresti: Voicana, Mircea; Firca, Clemansa; Hoffmann, Alfred; Zottoviceanu, Elena in Zusammenarbeit mit Marbé, Myriam; Niculescu, Stefan; Ratiu, Adrian. ***. (1971). George Enescu-Monografie. (M. Voicana, Ed.) București: Academia de științe sociale și politice, Institutul de istorie al artei, Editura Academiei Române. ***. (1988). George Enescu, Interviuri din presa româneasca, Vol. 1 (1898-1936). (L. Manolache, Ed.) București: Editura muzicală. ***. (2015). Documente din archiva M. N. G. E. (F. Popa, & C.-A. Sârbu, Ed.) Bucuresti: Ed. Muzicala, Bucuresti. ***. (fără an). Cronica Muzicală, Concertele Enescu. Neamul românesc.

Brahms, J. (ohne Erscheinungsjahr). Neue Ausgabe sämtlicher Werke, Urtext, Studien-Edition, Serie I, Band 9, Vorwort von Mihcael Struck, S. V-VI und Anhang, .

Brown, C. (Ed.). (2017). Johannes Brahms, Violinkonzert D-Dur op. 77. Urtext. Partitur. Kassel, Basel, London, New York, Praha: Bärenreiter Verlag.

Busch, A. (Ed.). (ohne Erscheinungsjahr). Johannes Brahms. Konzert für Violne und Orchester DDur op. 77. Klavierauszug. Violinstimme bezeichnet von Adolf Busch. Kadenz von Adolf Busch. Wiesbaden: Breitkopf & Härtel Verlag.

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Tudor, A. (1957). Enescu. Bukarest: Verlag für fremdsprachige Literatur.

Musical Narratology, a Possible Tool for the Analysis Of Enescu’s Music?

Case Study: Symphony No. 3, Op. 21

NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF MUSIC BUCHAREST ABSTRACT : The study aims to investigate the possible contribution of the musical narratology to the analysis of the Enescian music, having as foreseen result the emphasis of the relationships between structures, of the gradual becoming of the musical material, including the emotional coordinate. The Enescian work chosen for the case study is The Third Symphony op. 21. The paper will use concepts and terms proposed by Eero Tarasti in the volume ”A Theory of Musical Semiotics” (1994), which are crystallized mostly by adapting the concepts formulated by the semiotician A.J. Greimas to the musical field, but also by integrating other research, coming from the field of philosophy (Georg von Wright or Charles Sanders Pierce) or from that of musicology (Boris Asafiev - the theory of musical intonation, Ernst Kurth - the theory of kinetic energy of music, related to phenomenology and recently reevaluated as a precursor of musical semiotics).

Submitted: May 25, 2017 Admitted: June 25, 2017

KEYWORDS : MUSICAL NARRATOLOGY, MUSICAL SEMIOTICS, ENESCU, 3RD SYMPHONY I. THEORETICAL CONSIDERATIONS

ALTHOUGH he entitles his work A Theory of Musical Semiotics (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994), Eero Tarasti does not offer a general theory of musical semiotics, but rather a theory of narratology, which is an extension, a ramification of the former. The monograph was published against a background of fierce debate about the applicability of the concept of narrativity to music. One of the most balanced studies, among those published on the subject, is Lawrence Kramer’s (1991), which states that “the very premise of musical narratology is the recognition that music cannot tell stories” (Kramer, 1991, p. 154), and goes on to offer a number of examples of narrativity in music (the last movement from the String Quartet op. 135 by Beethoven, Carnaval by Schumann and the lied Geistes Gruss by Schubert), which, in the author’s opinion, confirm the initial statement according to which “narrative abrogates form, social or esthetic, to accommodate experience” (Kramer, 1991, p. 154). At the end of the study, Kramer concludes that “the narrative elements in music represent not forces of structures, but forces of meaning” (Kramer, 1991, p. 161) that adapt and sometimes even “betray” their structure and form, in order to adapt their meaning.

This, one could claim, is something that every great composer does – the musical works impressing precisely to the extent that they do not fully overlap with already established cultural schemata and do not entirely fulfill the listener’s expectations, which are likewise dependent on the same patterns.

In the abovementioned monograph, which has become a seminal work in the field, Tarasti does not merely propose edifying explanations, but also offers concrete examples of analysis in which the presented concepts prove their pertinence. By bringing into discussion the various understandings of narrativity in the field of music, where only some musical structures can be considered narrative, Tarasti observes that, in a particular circumstance, narrativity can become a concept with a fairly wide applicability: narrativity can be understood in the very common sense as a general category of the human mind, a competency that involves putting temporal events into a certain order, a syntagmatic continuum. This continuum has a beginning, development, and end; and the order created in this way is called, under given circumstances, a narration (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p.

24).

According to Greimas, quoted by Tarasti (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 73) (Greimas & Courtés, Sémiotique, dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, 1979, pp. 119-121), to be able to speak of a narrative level, we require three types of structures or processes, as for example three areas open to the process of disengagement or engagement, represented by the three categories: temporal, spatial, and actorial. By adapting Greimas’ generative approach (Greimas, Sémantique structurale, 1966) (Greimas, Sémiotique et sciences sociales, 1976) (Greimas & Courtés, Sémiotique, dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, 1979) to the particularities of musical discourse, Tarasti proposes four levels of analysis (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, pp. 48-49) (Tarasti, Musical Significations. Essays in the Semiotic Theory and Analysis of Music, 1995, p. 435): 1. Isotopies refer to musical structures/sections that are perceived as a coherent musical idea (“In music, isotopies mean the principles that articulate musical discourse into coherent sections” (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 6)), and are employed as criteria in the segmentation of the text. Sometimes two isotopies (structures) may overlap in the same section. Other times, the same passage may belong to different sections (isotopies).

2. The categories of Spatiality, Temporality and Actoriality. The first two can be outer or inner, while Actoriality refers to the themes-actors and to the dramaturgy of distributing them. To speak of a narrative level, three types of structures or processes are necessary, such as three areas open to the process of disengagement or engagement, represented by the three categories (temporal, spatial, actorial) (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 73) (Greimas & Courtés, Sémiotique, dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage, 1979, pp. 119-121).

3. Modalities are based on the categories of level 2. According to the Larousse dictionary, a modality (la modalité) is defined as “ensemble de formes permettant au locuteur d’indiquer la manière dont il envisage le contenu de son énoncé” (***, modalité, n.d.). From the way in which modalities entwine and succeed one another emotions are derived, and when their sequentiality is grounded in a particular logic narrativity emerges: “Where ordering of passions occurs /.../ we are approaching /.../ narrativity” (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 73). The two fundamental modalities are: • being, representing the stable element, a decrease in tension; • doing, representing the dynamic element, an increase in tension; Their intermediary is becoming, which reflects the normal processualism of music.

To these are added: • will, which attempts to imprint a particular direction to the musical development; • know, which refers to the degree of novelty of the musical information; • can, which refers to the efficacy of the techniques employed; • must, which concerns the degree of conformity to certain conventions/norms; • believe, which points to the ascertainment of the text’s power to persuade; 4. Phonemes/Monemes (Rădulescu, 2003, p. 8)1 and Figures. The first two refer to the smallest units of the musical substance (the phoneme – the musical substance in itself, and the moneme – its signification, rendered concrete in emotions, thoughts and concepts that are musically suggested (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 75)), while Figures represent certain musical situations, determined by reference to prior contexts (Battle, Victory, etc.) (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 49).

Outer temporality refers to rhythm, meter and tempo. The various combinations of meter and tempo can give rise to cultural units (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, pp. 120, 66-76), already suggesting a certain atmosphere/state. Outer temporality can be measured by taking into account changes of pulse (accelerations, decelerations), and by referring to a determined unit of time.

Inner temporality concerns the subjective – more subtle – aspects of the perception of musical time, linked as it is to musical memory and to the expectations (fulfilled or challenged) that emerge depending on the information already accumulated. In the construction of musical time, certain strategies are employed which pertain to the order of events, their prominence on the temporal axis, and the manner in which they relate to one another, creating frames to which the listener positions himself or herself in his or her experience of future events (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, pp. 59-66, 121).

Outer spatiality refers, in particular, to playing with the register, to the way in which pitches are managed, which is reflected in the musical writing through their placement on the staff. At the same time, outer musical space also concerns the placement of sources of sound, from the different arrangements of the instruments of the orchestra, to the creation of special spatial effects, where the composer instructs musicians to sing from off-stage or from other more unusual spaces of the concert hall (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 79) (this includes instrumental theater).

Inner spatiality refers to the notion of a center and follows the way a musical structure engages or disengages with this particular signpost, which creates centripetal or centrifugal tendencies (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, pp. 78-79).

Tarasti proposes that we organize outer or inner musical space from a broader perspective, according to the three spatial dimensions: the horizontal (before/after), the vertical (up/down), and

dimension of depth (closer or farther away). In this situation, we can observe that coordinates that pertain to temporality (before/after) and to prominence (which is, in itself, the result of a hierarchization: in the foreground or in the background) are introduced into the equation of musical spatiality. To these three dimensions, Tarasti adds a fourth one: a relative dimension, created by the kinetic center-margin relationship, which, as we might infer, presents a number of consistent similarities with the third dimension, resulting from the overlapping of several planes of importance which are different, or to which are attributed various degrees of prominence: he distinction of center/periphery, in the sense that something in music can be surrounded by something else. /.../ Some musical element, say, a theme (musical actor), pushes itself to the fore, while the rest of the texture „surrounds” or envelops it (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, pp. 79-80).

In this manner, one can create the musical counterpart of the chiaroscuro visual effect, which Tarasti identifies, for examples, in the presence of thematic material in the accompaniment.

Actoriality in music is represented “by all those features that render abstract musical structures as anthropomorphic” (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, pp. 106-107). The main flow of the narrative is the result of the interaction between two subjects (or a subject that acts and an object that is acted upon), in which the two might engage or disengage or in which one might dominate or even destroy the other, etc. We find here the prototype of the passive-subject or of the active-subject. The presence of the subject in the musical text is not strictly related only to the concrete moments of its representation, but also to those moments where he is absent, in which the character remains latent in the listener’s memory. Actoriality is perhaps the dimension most dependent on the subjectivity of perception and memory, and thus to the competence and psychological profile of the listener, who is himself or herself a subject capable of intent (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 109).

Tarasti puts forward the problem of distinguishing between two types of narrative program, generated by two types of structures: surface structures (structures of communication, whose signification is culturally accepted, such as the minuet, the march, a hunting signal or the various rhetorical figures of the Baroque, for example) and deep structures (structures of significations which presuppose the emerge of interactions, influences, etc.) (Tarasti, A Theory of Musical Semiotics, 1994, p. 26).

In a more recent work, Tarasti brings back into discussion the earlier theory of music as an organism (where cyclicality is seen as a particular phenomenon of organicity 2), which is particularly relevant for Enescu’s music: Greimas’s generative course and other such models can clarify the „organic” course of processes of meaning. At the same time, however, they contain an inorganic and architectonic aspect, which is a strange principle when applied to phenomenal musical experience (Tarasti, Signs of Music - A Guide to Musical Semiotics, 2002, pp. 101-102).

Then, to explain the notion of the organic in music, Tarasti references Veijo Murtomäki’s work dedicated to organic unity in Sibelius’s symphonies (Murtomäki, 1993), in which a number of instances are identified. The one that comes closest to Enescu’s music is the fourth one, in which the parts of the cycle are connected through the modifications of the same themes 3.

II. CASE STUDY: SYMPHONY NO. 3, OP. 21 BY GEORGE ENESCU Symphony No. 3 was written during the First World War, and its first audition took place on the May 25, 1919. The work is closely connected to the context in which it was created, representing “the product of the meditation upon a historical period full of awful trials and suffering” and expressing “the feelings of a humanity tortured by horrors, /…/ which made huge efforts to rise above the dead ends towards a superior equilibrium and peace.”4 Seeing that a narratology-based analysis requires the thorough exploration of the sonorous material, I will limit myself to investigating the first part of the Symphony, especially when considering the fact that due to some analogies with the Divine Comedy made by the first commenters5, special attention has been paid to parts II and III (***, 1971, pp. 469-470).

Out of the multitude of tools offered by musical narratology, I will choose, as it may be necessary, the ones that contribute to the definition of certain areas, mentioning certain parameters only in the situations in which they become relevant. To start, let us say that the chosen meter (the more seldom used measure of six quarter notes), when correlated with the Moderato, un poco maestoso movement, seems to be the ideal frame for telling an eventful story, as the range of a single measure can contain several characters. Using the tools of narratology and my own intuition, I have divided the first part in three sections quasi-equal in size: exposition (m.1-74), development (m.75-137), and reprise (m.138-200). Within these sections I have identified fifteen sub-sections (isotopies), asymmetrically laid

out as follows: seven in the exposition, three in the development and five in the reprise (out of which two make up the coda). The explanation for this asymmetry could be found, as we will see, in the variety of the thematic material which Enescu constructs right under our eyes through the exposition.

a. THE EXPOSITION Isotopy I (m.1-7) encompasses the exposition of the theme I.A, which is made up of three structures with musical character values (A1, A2, A3), placed in a crusis (ex.1). All coordinates converge to a state of incertitude, a pensive state, of smothering tension: the theme is brought in a low register, being accompanied by a pedal on the acute and low C, as well as by a kettle drum dotted rhythm. A1 and A2 describe together a descending and then ascending ark, with windings also in the rhythmical plan (a triplet followed by semiquavers in A2). The sonorous material of characters A1 and A2 is a Dorian C with a raised IV, as the sounds highlighted by the duration are precisely VII and IV, in a dissonant relationship with the tonic. It is important to note that A2 can be seen as an inversion as well as an extension of A1. The apparition of A3 (a major arpeggio having a 7m and a 9M, brought forth in a descending zig-zag) brighten the mood up a bit.

Isotopy II (m.7-12) exposes the I.B theme in the same low register (ex.2), accompanied by the same C pedal. The point of equilibrium is represented by the tonic, which is repeatedly the starting point in a toilsome effort of ascension. The ending of theme I.B has lyrical touches, while preserving the generally heavy mood.

Isotopy III (m.12-19) re-exposes the I.A theme, transposed on the fifth degree, in a medium register. By changing the register and the sonorous material (an ascended Lydian-Mixolydian with a raised II), the mood becomes less gloomy, and A3 confirms this direction, becoming a hyper-consonant C major, quickly shaded by the return of A1 and of a rhythmically-augmented A2. The isotopy is continued through a short two-measure transition, in which we note the partially chromatic ascending path that is lost in the distance, in search of more lyrical areas.

Isotopy IV (m.20-26) brings with it an immense surprise. Starting from an acute register, conquered with difficulty, the discourse becomes dramatic, militant and energetic. We find for the first time the anacrusis gesture, derived from A2. The exposure of A2 is now also anacrusic, in incisive semiquavers (ex.3).

The role given to this anacrusic impetus can be seen as a dislodgement from assertion to action.

After an ascension which is encompassed by the same militant and dramatic mood, three apparitions of A1 ensue (as a descending third), which seem, through their placement in the register (low, medium, acute), to synthesize the path so far and also to prepare the following surface.

Isotopy V (m.27-48) plays the role of a bridge, but the thematic labor on characters A1, A2 and A3 is already consistent. The section begins with a third exposure of theme I.A which, though identical to the first when it comes to sonorous material, is full with dramatic force, being located in the acute register, in tutti and ff. The A3 character is developed (m.30-31), which becomes incisive due to rhythmical diminishing, anacrusis and mode of attack. It is clear that the transformation from crusis to anacrusis represents an important compositional objective, as A1 itself ends up being anacrusic (m.3132), or is fragmented by the insertion of an anacrusis (m.34-35), which enhances the feeling of soaring involvement. After the re-iteration of the new aspect of A3 (m.36-38), the time comes for A2 (also anacrusic) to probe unique expressive territories. The direction is changed to exploring tenderer and more lyrical areas, by using triplets, the legato, the progressively ascending sequencing placed asymmetrically in the measure (m.40,42, 44-45), which brings forth naturally, as if it were an anticipation6 of the future surface, the first cell (m.45) of the second theme (C), whose reiteration (m.4748) fills the mood with light and tenderness (ex.4).

Isotopy VI (m.48-59) represents a first section of the second thematic group, throughout which we assist at the unraveling of multiple potentialities of the C theme. By always keeping its anacrusic profile, the C theme first presents itself in a suave, delicate, nostalgic manner, lyrical, with interrogative nuances, in a dialogue between two soloist instruments (hautbois and solo violin, m.48-52, ex.5). Though far away from the initial mood, the intrinsic structure of the theme shows a clear descending progression from A2 (whose transformational process we have witnessed throughout the former isotopy) and A3.

The touch of femininity, of marked subjectivity is counter-balanced by a more objectified appearance, more extrovert, showing ballad features (C2 theme, m.53-54), followed by a return of the introvert lyrical state in a new version (C1 theme, m.56-57). On top of the various apparitions of the C theme, we can see A1 floating from time to time (m.54, 56), contaminated with the same dreamful, tender mood. The isotopy ends through a new ascension to an even more intense level of the lyrical discourse (m.59).

Isotopy VII (m.59-74) suggests two new versions of the C theme: the C3 theme (m.59-62), which represents a variation of C1, which keeps the tender, soothing profile, but which conquers the area of intense lyricism, full of force. The transformation is obtained through the exploration of the superacute register, by co-opting the whole orchestra and by using more daring dynamics, which reach f and ff. We must note that the end of theme C3 is an inversed version of theme B, in which the higher sound of the interval is the stable point (ex.6, end of m.61). The counter-balancing strategy used in the previous isotopy is still in operation, as Enescu presents C4 (m.62-70, ex.6) as a pair for the C2 theme, which is a related theme that shows the same movement towards the area of the rather objective storyteller, having playful features. As we can see, isotopy VII re-engages somewhat symmetrically the path of the previous isotopy, bringing forth two states of the C theme (C3 and C4), as well. Still analogous to isotopy VI, the sub-section will end with reminiscences of the A2 (m.71-72, varied re-editing of the m. 44-45) and A1 (m.73) themes and also with an ark that this time progressively covers the registers upwards and downwards, exploring once again, after a long time, the area of the low register through a catabasis which brings up again the heavy mood from the beginning.

b. THE DEVELOPMENT Isotopy VIII (m.74-96) brings forth the most heterogeneous and fragmented discourse of the whole movement, alternating dramatic pieces with lyrical fragments, either mysterious or heroic. The characters from the A theme dominate the first measures (m.75-80), having a militant allure and being full of energy in the beginning (m.75-77), and going towards a more and more lyrical area later on (a chromatic A1, m.78-79). Next we have a variant of the C1 theme, which is lyrically intense and continued through a unique version of the same C theme, which explores a new expressive area: the heroic state, being the only strongly affirmative C theme, defined by crusis (C5, m.83-84, ex.7). In an oblique juxtaposition, over the ending of the C5 theme we can find the A1 theme (m.84), which, after a general break, continues through A2 (m.85-86) and A1 (m.86), converting the heroic jubilation to threatening mystery. Enescu alternates extreme registers (low-acute) and uses thematic material from all three themes. Therefore, in only five measures, we listen to a fragment of C1 (m.87), a chromatic A1 (m.87-88), a superposition of A2 and C2 (m.88-89) and a surprising re-editing of the B theme, now placed in the acute register, which transfers it to a lyrical area (m.90-91). After the more and more relentless exploration of the lyrical area, a new change of direction ensues towards the dramatic (A1, A2, A3, m.92-98), in which our attention is drawn by a hybrid variant, settled in two stages: A2-C1 (m.95) and A2-A1-B-C1 (m.95-96, ex.7).

Isotopy IX (m.97-121) takes advantage of the very last hybrid variant, which represents the convergence of no less than four characters (A1, A2, B, C1), grafting it to the stem of isotopy IV and firmly installing itself on a unidirectional course of frenetic accumulation. Therefore, the first four measures re-engage isotopy IV almost identically, continuing through a more and more heady inrush (Bentoiu calls this a cavalcade), made up of the alternation between A1 and A2 in the incisive variant of the hybrid complex. The discourse translates various tonal centers in a manner close to the B theme (F sharp minor, C sharp minor, F sharp minor, G sharp minor, D sharp/E flat minor), F sharp minor playing the role of the stable point. Once E-flat minor (m.111) is reached (through enharmony), the mood becomes heavy once again, pensive, even painful, and A2 gives up its hybrid appearance. It is a turning point, where time seems to be suspended. For the first and the last time during this movement, the pulsation is purged of any kinetic manifestations, being condensed to a minimum: for several measures, only quarter notes, alternately exposing A1 as descending fourth or third (m.114-115). The effort of recollection and concentration is extreme, in spite, or actually because of the suggested timelessness.

And thus the concentration pays off; through the simple inversion of the sense, in measure 116 there is a spectacular change of direction: A1 is now ascending (m.116, 118), thus becoming militant and dramatic and installing itself once again on the Promethean trajectory, accompanied by the same synthetic-hybrid variant of A2 (m.117, 120-121), between which the ballad echoes of the C2 theme infiltrate (m.119-120).

Isotopy X (m.121-138) is dedicated to the idea of ascension. After the fight in the preceding isotopy, we now witness a long anabasis (m.121-126), doubled at first by a catabasis (m.121-123) together with which it composes a diverging course which seems to comprise the whole sonorous substance, and even more. The steps of this anabasis are made out of the very substance of that ascending A1 which had been presented at the end of the former sub-section. If in measures 121-122 this is not obvious, it becomes so in measures 123-126, in which it removes any doubt through the changes in register and tone color. This repeated re-editing of A1 in an ascending state leads us to a unique appearance of the C theme (C6, m.126-131), which now reaches sublime dimensions in the E-flat major tonality.

We must highlight the relationship between theme C6 and theme B, in the sense of progressively conquering the acute register, starting from a stable base. The celestial moment is interrupted for a brief period of time (m.132-135) by the return of the mysterious mood, characterized by tension and doubt, brought back by A2, which then continues its path to the area of transcendence to a new chromatic ascension towards light (m.135-137). This whole path is covered from the C sound (which is fugitively presented as in a kaleidoscope, as a fifth in the F chord, a third in the A-flat major chord, and then as a fundamental in C minor, m.131-132) to the B-flat major sound (m.138).

c. REPRISE Isotopy XI (m.138-145). Already insinuated in measure 137 through the apparition of the C3 theme intonations, the reprise begins in measure 138 with the C theme. Therefore, it is an inversed reprise. Moreover, it is also a false reprise, because the first exposure of the theme (m.138-141) is not in C major but in D-flat major (the tonality in which that important change of direction had taken place in the 116 measure). And it is not done with the C1 theme, but rather with C3, the more lyrically intense variant, which contained that descent that represented a pair for theme B. Pascal Bentoiu (Bentoiu, 1984, p. 204) considers that the reprise would take place earlier, along with the apparition of the C6 theme, which probes the sublime. I believe that this moment represents the apex of the development (for that matter, it is an E-flat major and not a C major), and the reprise debuts discretely, almost unfelt, returning however to the base tonality after only four measures through the repetition of the C3 theme in C major (m.142-144), followed immediately by the apparition of the incipit of the C4 theme, the narrative one, bathing in the light of the C major arpeggio (m.144-145).

Isotopy XII (m.146-154) represents the reprise of theme A, but with important transformations.

The first part of theme A (A1 and A2) is exposed in stretto, in two versions: a diatonic A1 in the medium register (a perfect fourth tetrachord, a form that anticipates the events in parts II and III) and an A1 in the initial situation, descending a diminished fourth in the low register. Not only that, but the foregoing events have been settled down in the memory as superposed layers, so that simultaneously with theme A or continuing it, different echoes of theme C can be heard: C2, the ballad version (m.147), then C1, the initial lyrical variant (m.148) and then C3 (m.150-151). Because of the compressed exposure of the B theme (m.152-154), we will include it in the same isotopy this time, especially since it lives now together with motifs A1 and A2. The last two measures represent the seam, again discrete, with the following surface, through a fugitive insertion of themes C1 (m.154-155) and C4 (m.156).

Isotopy XIII (m.157-174) is dedicated to the reprise of the C themes. First, the C3 theme (m.157-160), which is overlapped by A2, and then the ballad C2 (m.160-162). A more extended surface

is destined to the re-engagement of the C4 theme (m.163-168), and then the C3 theme appears again (m.169-172), whose end is converted into a developing moment, which ascends from low to acute.

Similarly to the case of passing from the development to the reprise, extremely gentle through the creation of an anticipative surface with the aid of C3 (see m.137), Enescu concatenates the reprise and the coda through the anticipation of the A1 motif, which emerges as a final destination at the end of the rise of the C3 theme (m.173-174).

Isotopy XIV (m.175-185) debuts with a kettle drum hit on C and coincides with the first surface of the coda. In the first measures (m.175-177), after the brief turbulence in the beginning, a slow descensio is created using the diatonic material of the A1 motif, whose path – which seems to advance in the low register towards the re-iteration of the tension – is rapidly hijacked through a jump in the acute register. Then the incipit of the C1 theme, which is exposed three times (m.177-179), is converted to a scintillating diatonic ostinato (m.179-182), placed as an iridescence in the extreme acute register, which transgresses C1 in the area of jubilation, of beatitude, of supreme fulfillment (ex.9), on a harmonious path which descends from third to third in the field of the sub-dominant (C major I, VI, IV, II). The apparition of the hybrid motif (representing the common denominator of the themes/motifs A2-A1-BC1), used for the first time in the development (m. 95-96) and which had constituted one of the ferments of the cavalcade (see m.101-110), galvanizes even further the discourse through vigorous reiterations (m.183-184). The last apparition of the hybrid motif (notes A-B-C, m.184) is then augmented in the diatonic ascent which exults in joy, created through the multiplication of A (m.184-185), thus marking even further its descent.

Isotopy XV (m.186-200) is marked by triumph and victory. A1 appears condensed in the variant of the hybrid motif, which is exposed in a descendent manner, and between A1 and A2 Enescu inserts C5, that heroic state which now seems to be an intrinsic part of theme A (m.186-187). The rhythmically diminished A1 motif explodes in bursts of light in the medium and acute registers (m.188).

When A1 regains its burdensome appearance (with the diminished fourth), foreboding clouds appear briefly, which are almost lugubrious (m.189-190). But the sovereign calmness of the A3 motif gradually reinstalls the peace (m.191, 193), which is a starting point of a new upsurge towards light (m.194), dissolved into a solar, tender appearance of A1, in ff in the acute register (m.195). The brief reiteration of a quiet A2 (in triplets, m.196) and of the almost nostalgic incipit of C3 (m.197-198) represent the step back which prepares the solar, victorious upsurge towards the final C major (m.199-200), in which the last identifiable character is the heroic and glorious C5.

III. CONCLUSIONS The above viewpoints are synthesized in a scheme of the whole movement (the numbers of the measures are to be read from top to bottom, on the vertical of the first row), noting that the scheme cannot illustrate the troublesome and sinuous trajectory from darkness to light which is indubitably described by the music in this movement. (See next figure).

To summarize, we could say that the music starts from a state of tension (being, isotopies I-II), goes into episodes of confrontation, of battle (doing, isotopies IV, VIII, IX) that alternates with lyrical zones (new levels of being, isotopies VI-VII, XI, XIII), and reaches territories of sublime, jubilation, beatitude and victory (isotopies X, XIV-XV). We can always feel the will of the composer (the direction towards which we are guided), and the modality of know (the novelty of musical information) is achieved through the permanent variation of the material already exposed in the first isotopies.

What I believe should be highlighted after this journey is the way in which Enescu covers in both directions the One-Multiple path – an ancient theme, with ontological, axiological and metaphysical ramifications, approached in Antiquity by Heraclites and picked up again by philosophers and artists throughout time. Mentioned by Pascal Bentoiu regarding the beginning and the end of the symphony, which starts from and melts back into the C sound, the One-Multiple-One path comprises, I believe, Ariadne’s thread in this first movement as well. The One-Multiple path is symbolized by the multiple variants which he creates starting with the same character (see the various states of the C theme, varied in expression, but also of the A1 and A2 motifs); while the metaphor of the Multiple-One path is represented by the identification of the convergences, of the common denominators which symbiotically unite distinct characters (see the hybrid motif, which represents the combination of A1, A2, B and C1).

The two paths entwine, they co-exist through the first part.

What is the significance of these developments? Similar to the end of the Săteasca Suite later on, in which Enescu discovers the common denominator in several specific dances of different cultures, I believe that the musician wishes to reveal the sacred matrix of interdependencies 7 which connects distinct entities and events. With Enescu there are no fixed roles, either passive/dominated or active/dominating characters. His characters are fluid, each of them becomes active and influences the other at some point, in a permanent game of salience and transfusion of states, in which what really matters and unifies them is the common trajectory towards light. The story doesn’t seem to be an individual one, but rather a collective one, possibly caused by the tragic intrusion of an external event.

In this context, Enescu proves that ”everything is connected” (Barenboim, 2008), that opposite realities are actually related (coincidentia oppositorum). If people would understand this apparently simple truth, disastrous conflicts such as the monstrous World Wars would not be possible. On the other hand, the contrasts which are meant to highlight a certain side of the slope are welcome: that point of light in the darkness or the cone of shadow present in the light. Because a thing cannot be known and defined in any other way than through its opposite. As we have noted, this method is often used by Enescu, and he uses it not only to avoid a monochrome design, but also to highlight the dominant side. Finally, we must also notice the richness of the interior universe which the composer manages to create starting with only a few characters: the music is sometimes mysterious, heavy, introvert, pensive, full of smothering tension, and painful, and sometimes lyrical, delicate, calm, suave, slow-paced, dreamful, nostalgic, tender, soothing, narrative, introspective, concentrated, but also dramatic, militant, energetic, incisive, full of impetus, of force, of intensity, heroic or solar, sublime. And the registration (supported of course by other parameters) seems to be the favorite instrument in efficiently configuring the areas of light and darkness, extrovert and introvert in nature, especially through the anabasis and catabasis archetypes, but also through the different placement of the various characters. And if in the first part of the symphony Enescu seems to prove, similar to the poet Terentius8, that noting of what is human is foreign to him, in the following movements he probes territories beyond that which is human, going ahead both towards the inferno (in the second part) and towards paradise (in the final movement). And the character chosen to embark on this journey of initiation is none other than A1, the one we meet from the very first seconds of the symphony.

In the end, I believe we can give an affirmative answer to the almost rhetorical question in the title of the study: yes, musical narratology can constitute a useful tool in the analysis of Enescu’s music, as the detailed and well-structured path that it implies is of such nature as to discover significant details of the musical text and to offer justifications and correlations which are more than welcome.

Translated by Dragoș Manea ENDNOTES Tarasti writes of “Phemes/Semes”, associating the former with the level of the signifier and the latter with that of the signified 1

The current appeared in the 19th century, but can be applied to Bach’s music, for instance (Bonds, Harvard, pp. 141-149), the chapter ”The Metaphor of the Organism and the Emerging Paradox of Musical Form”.

3 “The principle may be one of family unity: the parts are connected by metamorphoses of the same theme” (Tarasti, Signs of Music - A Guide to Musical Semiotics, 2002, p. 102).

4 (***, 1971, pp. 469-470): The fragment dedicated to the Third Symphony was written by Alfred Hoffman in collaboration with Myriam Marbe.

5 Particularly by Alfred Alessandescu (Alessandescu, 1921).

6 The use of the method of anticipation and reminiscence, which was very dear to Enescu, is also obvious from the annexed scheme.

7 See the interdependencies proved by quantum physics on a subatomic level.

8 Line spoken by the main character of the Heauton Timorumenos play by Terentius: „Homo sum: humani nihil a me alienum puto” - act I, scene 1.

2

BIBLIOGRAPHY (1) journal articles Kramer, L. (1991). Musical Narratology - A Theoretical Outline. Indiana Theory Review, 12.

(2) books ***. (1971). George Enescu – Monography. (M. Voicana, Ed.) Bucharest: The Academy of Social and Political Sciences – Institute of the Art History, “Romanian Academy” Publishing House.

Alessandescu, A. (1921, June). George Enescu the composer. Muzica.

Bălan, G. (1962). George Enescu. București: Editura Tineretului.

Barenboim, D. (2008). Everything Is Connected: The Power of Music. London: Orion Publishing Co. Bentoiu, P. (1984). Capodopere enesciene. Bucharest: Editura muzicală.

Bonds, M. E. (Harvard). Wordless Rhetoric. 1991: Harvard University Press.

Ciomac, E. (1968). George Enescu. Monografie. Bucarest: Editura Muzicală.

Greimas, A. J. (1966). Sémantique structurale. Paris: Larousse.

Greimas, A. J. (1976). Sémiotique et sciences sociales. Paris: Seuil.

Greimas, A. J., & Courtés, J. (1979). Sémiotique, dictionnaire raisonné de la théorie du langage. Paris: Ed. Hachette.

Murtomäki, V. (1993). Symphonic Unity: The Development of Formal Thinking in The Symphonies of Sibelius. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Dept. of Musicology.

Rădulescu, A. (2003). Perspective semiotice în muzică. București: Editura Universității Naționale de Muzică din București.

Tarasti, E. (1994). A Theory of Musical Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Tarasti, E. (1995). Musical Significations. Essays in the Semiotic Theory and Analysis of Music. New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Tarasti, E. (2002). Signs of Music - A Guide to Musical Semiotics. Berlin, New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

(3) web documents ***. (n.d.). modalité.

Retrieved from Larousse: http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/divers/modalit%C3%A9/70769

Intuiting Form: Memory and (Dis)Continuity in Enescu’s Piano Quintet, Op. 29

ROYAL HOLLOWAY, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON ABSTRACT : George Enescu’s later chamber works evince a fascination with modalities of pastness and with the recollection and transformation of thematic material. I intend to explore the implications these mnemonic processes and effects have on the temporal and formal structuring of Enescu’s music, by focusing on the Piano Quintet, Op. 29 (1940).

My analysis traces some of the complex ways in which thematic and motivic material is reimagined, fragmented and synthesised over the course of the piece, treating the work as a nuanced example of cyclic form. The extent to which perception and memory can create an experiential continuity between past and present is mediated in the Piano Quintet by memory’s simultaneous capacity to create a sense of rupture or jarring, especially through contrasting lyric and progressive temporalities.

Underpinning the work’s structural aesthetic, then, is a dialectical question relating to form (rational plot) and poetic content, which could fruitfully be explored through two contrasting and historically resonant philosophies: Henri Bergson’s notion of continuous duration, and what Gaston Bachelard polemically referred to as the instantaneity and inherent discontinuity of lived time. Both philosophers’ alternative conceptions of intuition (as the essential product of imagination and desire, or something that allows for the influence of rational thought and is fundamentally the product of labour) allow us further to question the modes of intuitively (dis)continuous writing apparent in Enescu’s music, and the role that memory plays in it.

KEYWORDS : CYCLIC, QUINTET, BENTOIU, BERGSSON, BACHELARD AN unceasing preoccupation with modalities of pastness and the reimagining and blending of past thematic and motivic material characterizes many of George Enescu’s later chamber works. These works demonstrate remarkable emotional depth, and the intricacy of their melodic construction can be both disorientating and utterly beguiling. I am especially interested in how these works shape our experience of time, by the way they appeal to and play with our faculties of perception and memory. Both on a large scale (across movements, for instance) and on a local level, the extent to which memory can create an experientially continuous strand between past and present is mediated by memory’s simultaneous capacity to create a sense of rupture, especially through jarring clashes in affect, and in the contrast of what Raymond Monelle has called lyric and progressive temporalities (implying stasis and propulsion, respectively) (Monelle, 2000) (Klein, 2007) (Kramer, 1978) (Williams, 2006) (Bachelard, 1971) (Bachelard, Intuition of the Instant, 2013;1932) (Bentoiu, 2010) (Bergson, 2011) (Bergson, Time and Free Will: An Essay on the Immediate Data of Consciousness, 1910; 1889) (Menuhin, 1978) (Monelle, 2000) (Proust, 2002) (Taylor, 2011).

In this paper, I explore some of the implications that Enescu’s mnemonic processes and effects have for the temporal and formal structuring of just one of his late chamber works, the Piano Quintet, Op. 29 (1940). I will begin by showing some of the complex ways in which thematic and motivic material is reimagined, fragmented and synthesized over the course of the piece, treating the work as a nuanced example of cyclic form. In the second part of this paper, I will refer to two contrasting and historically resonant philosophies to help us make further sense of these thematic processes: namely, Enri Bergson’s (then regnant) notion of sheer, continuous duration, and what Gaston Bachelard polemically referred to as the instantaneity and inherent discontinuity of lived time. Both philosophers’ alternative conceptions of the experience of lived time allow us further to question the modes of intuitively continuous and discontinuous writing apparent in Enescu’s music, and the role that memory plays within it.

Much like Enescu’s other chamber works of this late period, the Piano Quintet exhibits temporal contrasts across and within movements, whilst engaging in a complex and constantly evolving process of thematic and motivic recollection, fragmentation, and synthesis. The degree of thematic crosspollination and recurrence between movements is such that it’s tempting to view the work as a particularly nuanced example of cyclic form - a technique to which Enescu would inevitably have been exposed during his time at the Paris Conservatoire, studying the music of César Franck and other

composers of the French School. It is hardly surprising, in that respect, that Enescu would use the phrase ‘oeuvre cyclique’ to describe an earlier work of his, the Octet for Strings, Op. 7, written in 1900, 1 the cyclic conception of which simultaneously points us towards another String Octet – that of Mendelssohn’s – which Benedict Taylor has called ‘one of the first and most significant compositions in cyclic form’ (Taylor, 2011: 54).

Cyclic form can be defined, broadly, as the long-range recollection of earlier material over the course of a piece, and most commonly towards the end. This is exactly what happens in the Quintet, so that the ‘remembering’ of several earlier themes heralds a kind of thematic apotheosis. However, I am less concerned with when past material is brought back in the Quintet, and more interested in how its retrieval shapes our experience of the music as it unfolds in time. As Taylor has observed, the Romantic conception of cyclic form, is ‘one which has notable implications for other aspects of musical experience and perception, most specifically… the phenomenology of form and conceptions of musical time’ (Taylor, 2011: 2).

The table in Figure 1 provides a basic structural and thematic outline of the Quintet. A pensive and lyrical first half gives way to a contrastingly livelier, and more extrovert second half. Compared with the outer movements, the middle movements are evidently more reliant on recurrence as a formal principle: internal repetitions, often within larger repeating structures, seem to privilege poetic content over generic form. This is most true of the third movement, the first half of which comprises the material indicated by the wavy line, while the second half provides a truncated repeat of the same material with the resumption of the initial tempo. Pascal Bentoiu describes it as a ‘double journeying on an asymmetrical trajectory’ with each journey presenting three ‘distinct surfaces’ (Bentoiu, trans.

Wallfisch, 2010: 429), which I have labelled A, B, and C. The B section, both times around, is the most fluid in conception, with cyclic recollections of Theme 3, and the introduction of new, largely unrelated thematic material (Theme Z).2 The second movement, which Bentoiu describes as appearing ‘like a vast lyric poem’, and whose formal scheme ‘does not present a customary plan’ (Bentoiu, trans. Wallfisch, 2010: 425), exposes similar problems regarding formal integration, brought about by the four character vignettes following the initial ABA section. These vignettes recall the same or related themes, yet present those ideas through formal juxtaposition.

Movement I. Con moto molto moderato –

II. Andante sostenuto e cantabile

III. Vivace, ma non troppo –

Più tranquillo – A tempo I –

Più tranquillo – IV. L’istesso tempo

Section Exposition transition Development (brief) Recapitulation transition A B (A1?)

A Fugato (A2?)

Lyrical (A3?)

Dramatic restatement (A) Disintegration Coda A B a b (Waltz) a1 A (truncated) transition C transition A1 B1 c (quasi fugato) b (Waltz) a2 transition C1 transition Bridge / Intro.

(Exposition) (Development) (Recapitulation) Coda

Thematic material Themes 1 & 2; anticipation of Theme 3 Themes 1 & 2 (plus variants) Themes 1 & 2 Theme 3 Theme 3 Theme 4 Theme 3 Theme 4 Themes 3 & 4 Theme 3 Theme 1 (motif 𝛿), Theme 3 Variations on motif 𝛿 ||: Theme 5 :||: Theme 5a :|| Theme 6 (Theme Z) Themes 3, 4 & 6 Theme 5 (very brief reminder) Theme 7 || Th. 5 || Th. 5a || (no repeats) (Theme Z) Theme 3 (brief reminder) Theme 7 Motif 𝛽 vars., cell 𝜒, Theme 6 Themes 8 (Theme 6 var.) & 9 Themes 5, 6, 8 & 9 Themes 8 & 9, and 3 (briefly) Synthesis

Fig. 1: Basic structural and thematic outline of Enescu’s Piano Quintet, Op. 29

The Piano Quintet’s formal ambiguity is in part derived from the extraordinary sense of fluidity and unpredictability in the melodic writing, which, architecturally, becomes increasingly fundamental to so much of Enescu’s later music. Often, thematic material is varied before it is even recognized as thematic; there is very little literal repetition throughout the piece; most significantly, the material seems entirely self-generated. Indeed, most of the thematic material of the first movement (and consequently most of the rest of the work) grows out of the initial theme. Bentoiu and others have rightly identified that this comprises five important motifs, illustrated as part of Example 1, below.

Theme 1 motifs

Th. 2

Th. 3

Th. 4

Th. 5

Th. 6

Th. 7

Th. 8

Th. 8 (cont)

Th. 9 Ex. 1: Motivic / thematic affinities and derivations in the Piano Quintet, Op. 29 Tracing how each of the work’s subsequent themes relates to the opening theme, and to each other, suggests that Enescu’s process of derivation becomes more complex, more nuanced, and fundamentally more allusive as more themes appear: by the time we encounter Theme 9, it is possible to point to a number of potential thematic influences, while being difficult to state which themes exactly, due to their shared affinities. By generating newer variants out of preceding variants, Enescu’s thematic process has less to do with the mere variation of an idea that recedes further into the past, and rather more to do with the constant reshaping and reinvigorating of the present-just-past, as a condition not just of our perceived present, but likewise of the anticipated future. To borrow from Marcel Proust, whose novel In Search of Lost Time remains an unrivalled literary meditation on time and memory, the past ‘project[s] in front of me that shadow of itself which we call our future’ (Proust, trans. Grieve, 2002: 395).For instance, the way Theme 8 evolves out of Theme 6 (which itself is a development on Theme 5 – which is essentially a more dynamic variant of Theme 3), makes it seem, initially, more like a variation on earlier material, only gradually becoming thematically assertive. Much the same can be said of the way Theme 4 grows out of Themes 1 and 3. Moreover, its qualitative emergence over time is also what helps to create a coherent strand across a set of affectively discontinuous vignettes. Continuity in this instance is not merely the result of concrete recollection, as if memory functioned on a purely retentive basis. Our perception of these and other themes’ gradual coalescence points likewise to the relational aspect of memory. Indeed, memory is fallible insofar as what we recall is always changeable, and therefore in some sense reimagined; the music is likewise suggestive of this mental process.

We could say that the manner of Enescu’s melodic development is reliant on a kind of thematic ‘outgrowth’: familiar contours are recalled and evoked through variation within the continuing melodic line, seemingly revitalizing the memory of the past within the present. Theme 9 and Theme 7’s continuations recall several thematic elements, but we sooner perceive them as part of the variational outgrowth of the melodic line, as opposed to a genuinely cyclic recollection.

Theme 9

Theme 7 Ex. 2: Melodic continuations of Themes 9 and 7 There is obviously an important distinction to be made between this process of continuous evolution and reminiscence, and the marked intrusion of earlier themes in a more conventionally cyclic sense. The momentary intrusion, or inbreaking of a variant of Theme 3 in the Finale’s recapitulation has the power to immediately draw our attention in a quite different sense – much like the way a sudden, involuntary memory might. The recollection (in the first violin, in the bar before Figure 58 in the score, shown in Ex. 3, below) brings with it not only Theme 3’s affective character (thereby simultaneously pre-empting the imminent recapitulation of Theme 9), but also a reminder of its earlier temporality, so that the juxtaposition of progressive and lyric time results in a sort of temporal clash: the temporality of the past is brought into conflict with that of the present, through memory. The strength, or clarity of the recollection arguably rests less on the vaguely familiar melodic contour, and more on its affective and temporal quality, further underpinned by the abrupt harmonic shift to the minor. In a moment, it’s over, and we press onwards with Theme 9, with the memory of the intrusion undoubtedly still lingering and shadowing our present. But is this intrusion overtly cyclic?

Ex. 3: Intrusion of Theme 3 variant (in First Violin) in the Finale’s recapitulation A general failing of cyclic form would seem to be its incapacity to distinguish between variously allusive degrees of thematic reincorporation. We may justifiably consider the Quintet as an example of cyclic form purely on the basis of the thematic synthesis that takes place in the fourth movement coda, although that would not take into account the highly nuanced means by which earlier thematic and motivic material is brought in and out of focus. Indeed, the coda’s whole contrapuntal fabric seems suffused with reminiscences and reveries, but the extent to which we might make sense of a particular melodic line or cell is obviously variable: thematic meaning, or the degree to which a melodic gesture is perceived or felt as thematically meaningful, is by degrees elusive, emergent, or plainly evident (and in that sense, more conventionally cyclic).The music plays with our perceptual faculties, in other words, prompting a kind of hierarchical interplay between sense and signification, ephemerality and representation.

The extent to which we recognize melodically familiar material is in one respect auditory: on initial listening, it is difficult to hear a particular thematic variant if submerged within the texture, for instance. But the means by which we perceive, or recognize a thematic variant also seems to draw on the memory of earlier material, so that we retrieve the past simultaneously in our perception of the present. Conceiving of musical time in these terms recalls Henri Bergson’s claim that ‘Perception and recollection… always interpenetrate each other, are always exchanging something of their substance’; and similarly, ‘if there be memory, that is, the survival of past images, these images must constantly mingle with our perception of the present, and may even take its place’ (Bergson, trans. Paul & Palmer, 2011/1896: 70-72).3 In Bergson’s conception of time, because the present is always turning into the past,

we require memory in order to prolong it, into what he calls durée, or duration. Duration is the central aspect of what we might call Bergsonian intuition, which Bergson himself describes as ‘the form which the succession of our conscious states assumes when our ego lets itself live, when it refrains from separating its present state from its former states’ (Bergson, trans. Pogson, 1910/1889: 100). The juxtaposition of conscious states, of past and present, is symptomatic, Bergson claims, of a modern understanding of time in terms of space. In our real experience of time, change does not take place through juxtaposition, but through the qualitative melting of one state into another. It is in these terms that Bergson likewise conceives of music. As Raymond Monelle describes, for Bergson there are ‘no spatial or “side-by-side” events in music. Musical continuity always “melts” into an intuitive unity, or it is not perceived as music’ (Monelle, 2000: 87).

Bergson’s comparison of time and space has been much criticized, but his real importance, Monelle suggests, lies in his separation of perceived time (our lived experience of time) from measured time (often referred to as ‘clock’ time).Moreover, ‘his intuition that music is heard simultaneously as a gestalt, rather than successively as points on a line, has been widely accepted’ (Monelle, 2000: 8788).Bergson’s intuition regarding the continuous nature of lived time is equally in evidence in Enescu’s Quintet: our perception of thematic variants as they appear (and reappear) is constantly linked with the memory of past variants, so that the past seems prolonged, through duration, into the present. And in the same way that Michael Klein has identified a qualitative melting of one theme into another (specifically through modal shifts) in Debussy’s L’Isle Joyeuse, we might also point to a qualitative difference in kind (as opposed to degree) between the thematic variants in the Quintet as evidence of an intuitive unity (Klein, 2007). Enescu’s permeable juxtapositions, as well as his constant undermining of a tonal center (especially by modal means), would further support such a reading. 4 However, Bergson’s intuitive time-sense arguably does little to account for the variable and contrastingly allusive means by which past and present can be melded together. How do we make sense of the sudden or heightened intensity with which are collection (thematic or otherwise) is perceived, for instance, in terms of its emotional, affective, or temporal resonance – aspects which are clearly so crucial to the sensuous means by which Enescu shapes his musical language? This proves to be an essential shortcoming of Bergson’s philosophy for Gaston Bachelard, for whom Bergson’s ‘doctrine of memory remains… a doctrine of the utility of memory’ (Bachelard, trans. Russell, 1971: 115-116). Duration may contain flashes of insight, but its concern is not with the detail of that insight. This, Bachelard contends, can only be rediscovered through a conception of time that is founded on the creative instant. The reality of time is in the present, and it is in the present instant alone that our conscious being experiences reality – the rest, against which it is juxtaposed, Bachelard implies, is imaginary. The importance of reinforcing the isolation of the instant serves to emphasize the rupture of being that it constitutes, and it is ‘in the experience of a certain rupture of being that the idea of discontinuity imposes itself’ (Bachelard, trans.

Rizo-Patron, 2013/1932: 7).

For Bachelard, then, time is inherently discontinuous, punctuated by creative instants, the retrospective grouping of which can form the impression of continuity. This intuitively discontinuous time-sense can be corroborated, Bachelard argues, by the fact that ‘the memory of duration is among the least enduring memories. One remembers having been, but one does not remember having lasted’ (Bachelard, 2013: 19). Indeed, how we recall aspects of the past has very little to do with pinpointing a memory along some chronological trajectory or locating it within some span of past time. In musical terms, when listening to the Quintet, we seem to recall ‘having been’ through the renewal of dramatic states of being, which impose themselves to varying degrees of intensity within our perceptual field.

Crucially, not only do we perceive ‘having been’ – we also feel it. Those states, or qualities, can, of course, have temporal resonances: music, in its unfolding, has the ability to signify time, so that we might feasibly recall a quality of timelessness, or of propulsion, as carried by a particular theme – as we saw with the intrusion of Theme 3.

Bachelard contends (in decidedly polemical terms) that ‘memory, that guardian of time, guards the instant alone. It preserves nothing, absolutely nothing, of our complicated and artificial sense of duration’ (Bachelard, 2013: 20). It is memory’s poetic content – expressed and understood through an act of instantaneity – that concerns us most. That content is perceived, as suggested, by virtue of its sensual, imaginative, affective, or emotional resonance, all of which give memory that remarkable capacity (to varying degrees) of drawing our attention.

If attention is a fundamental aspect of the instant, then its essence is to be found in novelty and in resumptions: attention, Bachelard tell us, is ‘a series of beginnings; it is constituted by those mental rebirths that occur in consciousness when it heeds time’s instants’ (Bachelard, 2013: 20). We might feasibly speak of an aesthetic of resumption in Enescu’s music, whether that concerns the ‘novel resumption’ that constitutes the introduction of a thematic variant, or the clear fascination his music has with beginnings, which are invariably played out on the threshold of silence. The introduction of the first movement’s second theme is archetypal in this respect. The piano’s gradually dwindling, chromatically elaborated extemporization in the bars leading up to Figure 6 eventually settle – it would seem almost arbitrarily – on an open fifth of D/A, but the rise up to the B (in the right hand, just before the fermata)

suggests an open-endedness (Example 4, below). We are immediately curious as to what will follow.

After the pause, the delicate, muted piano line in the violins, accompanied by gently decorative tremolos and flourishes in the piano furnish a moment of exquisite beauty – but more than that, the music here is marked out as memorable, by the way it was prepared, and by the way it resumed its own unfolding within a harmonically static landscape. Our attentive consciousness seems occupied entirely with the present moment – and, with Bergson, we might also point to the music’s durational quality here: our focus seems occupied with an extended present, one that doesn’t look beyond itself.

Ex. 4: Theme 2 of the Piano Quintet’s opening movement (Éditions Salabert, 1965).

There are countless such moments not only in Enescu’s music, but of course in music generally: we all know what it is like to be struck, suddenly, by some aspect of a piece of music in the course of its unfolding, or to lose track of time altogether, as if in some extended present.

Enescu’s case seems particularly intriguing, however, given the fundamental role that memory occupies in works like the Piano Quintet: in somewhat paradoxical terms, we find ourselves so often struck by the novelty of something already past. With Bergson, we can appreciate the importance that memory has in our perception of Enescu’s continual reimagining and transforming of thematic material in the creation of an intuitive unity; this kind of intuition has connotations with an inherently fluid creative process, unhindered by rational (meaning ‘spatial’) working, and highly personal.

Moreover, rather uniquely with Enescu, we could go even further and consider how his music might be suggestive of a kind of gestalt conception that stems directly from the composer’s own evidently prodigious memory 5.

With Bachelard’s atomist conception of lived time, we can further nuance the detail of that moment of perceptive clarity; this kind of intuition is more explicitly concerned with the labour for knowledge, so that lived time becomes a process of gathering experience of the world as bestowed on the mind through consciously perceived acts of instantaneity. In the creative instant, our attentive consciousness becomes enriched with objective knowledge: thought is nurtured by experience. In this formulation, intuitive thought combines subjective expression while ceaselessly negotiating, resisting, critiquing, or, as Alastair Williams once put it, ‘swaying with’ the past, and the knowledge we derived from it (Williams, 2006).

Ultimately, both philosophers’ intuitions regarding the lived experience of time provide us with conceptual tools for exploring the nature of recollection in Enescu’s music. The Piano Quintet, and much of the chamber music, seems invested in both these intuitions, so that the idea of an intuited form inevitably becomes a question about the ways in which continuity and discontinuity are explored musically.6 More than that, it is also a question of how we understand the work of memory – so fundamental to the temporal unfolding of the Piano Quintet – within a musical context.

ENDNOTES In the opening paragraph of the Composer’s Preface (presented in French and in English translation) to Enoch’s 1950 New Edition of the String Octet, Op. 7, Enescu writes the following: ‘This Octet, cyclic in form [‘Cet Octuor, oeuvre cyclique’], presents the following characteristics: it is divided into four distinct movements in the classic manner, each movement linked to the other to form a single symphonic movement, where the periods on, an enlarged scale, follow one another according to the rules of construction for the first movement of a symphony’.

2 Given the temporal and thematic contrast between the Vivace and Più tranquillo sections, and the fact that the transitional material enfolding Theme 7 remains the same, it may be tempting to consider the ABA and A1B1 sections as broader A sections to a more lyrical B section (or second subject area), resulting in AB|A1B1. However, that reading might risk glossing over the numerous contrasting aspects between A and B sections (in their original designation), which could just as temptingly be viewed as a scherzo and trio.

3 Bergson’s claim that past images might even ‘take the place’ of those perceived in the present reminds us of how Enescu’s lyric themes have the capacity to stick in the memory, affecting our perception of subsequent dynamic variants.

4 The comparison with Debussy is potentially rather apposite, since we know Bergson identified certain durational aspects in Debussy’s writing. However, he did object to the more ‘cinematic’ juxtapositions of musical material in Debussy – as did Enescu. More broadly, we might justifiably speculate as to how far Bergson’s philosophy – which so often uses music as a conceptual means of explaining durée – was influenced by the aesthetic conceptions of time explored in French music of the late-nineteenth and earlytwentieth centuries.

5 Among the numerous attestations to Enescu’s prodigious abilities, Pablo Casals’ famous description of the composer as ‘the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart’ stands out. Yehudi Menuhin recounts a particularly telling instance of his former teacher’s musical prowess: following a single run-through of the newly completed Violin Sonata Ravel had just brought him, Enescu placed the manuscript to one side and played the entire work once again, with Ravel at the piano, but this time from memory (to the astonishment of the young Menuhin, whose violin lesson Ravel had interrupted). See Menuhin (1978), pp.100-101.

6 As Jonathan Kramer has observed, the dissolution of functional harmony around the start of the twentieth century ‘removed the a priori of continuity’, making it a merely optional strategy in the creation of musical works (Kramer, 1978: 177-78). While growing numbers of composers explored the possibilities of minimising continuity (increasingly, through expressions of extreme discontinuity, but also through various forms of anti-teleological writing), many others of the post-tonal generation, including Enescu, were evidently still concerned with composing music that retained a fundamental sense of continuity while fully engaging with the expressive potential of musical discontinuity.

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