Enescu’s
compositional precocity has been well surveyed over the years
but a hearing of the magnificent Octet still comes as a salutary
reminder as to just how advanced he was at the age of nineteen.
One usually hears it unadulterated but there seems to be
a fashion for string expanded and editorialised versions
of late. Gidon Kremer has already given us a version of the
work by Leonid Desyatnikov for the Kremerata Baltica (Nonesuch
CD 7559 79682-2). Here we have another by conductor Lawrence
Foster. If you want the version proper then I suggest the
ASMIF on CHAN9131
where it’s coupled it with Shostokovich’s Two Pieces Op.11
and the sextet from Strauss’s
Capriccio.
But if you have a yen for the opened out orchestrally sized
version then this latest entrant will do very nicely. Firstly
it’s very well recorded. And secondly the Orchestre
Philharmonique de Monte Carlo handles the powerful, confident
counterpoint, so preternaturally a product of Enescu’s genius,
with real assurance. The way Foster ensures the coalescence
of themes in the first movement attests to his sure absorption
of style, and the long limbed scherzo second movement is
similarly accomplished. The eruptive tutti passages – one
can see why some orchestrators are keen to expand the Octet
still further – register powerfully on the Richter scale.
Equally the players bask in the expressive and fascinating
slow movement with its admixture of early Schoenberg and
hints of the
Siegfried Idyll, and Strauss. The finale
is equally dynamic, its mass and weight subtly stratified
in the recording, and brilliantly projected.
The
Third Violin Sonata has a rather more established discographic
pedigree. Collectors will be aware of the twin totems – the
Enescu/Lipatti of 1943 and the Yehudi and Hephzibah Menuhin recording of 1936. The august
duo of Ida Haendel and Ashkenazy has recorded it in recent
years for Decca and there have been numerous other recordings
too; Sherban Lupu is as fine a contemporary performance as
you’ll find for instance. Into the non-breach step Valeriy
Sokolov and Svetlana Kosenlo. Some people have something
of a frenzy for Sokolov - Bruno
Monsaingeon’s film about the young player,
Natural Born
Fiddler, tended to trade on the violinist’s good looks
in concert. But he proves himself worthy of accolades. He
ensures that the charismatic folkloric writing is fully conveyed;
so too the frequent cimbalon imitations from his adept partner Kosenlo.
There is plenty of rubato here and the gypsy balladry is
spun with caprice and assurance; so too the meaty chewy tonal
commitment in the finale.
Is this a strange conjunction though? A sonata and an expanded
octet make for odd bedfellows. Should Sokolov have been encouraged
to add the other sonatas in an all-sonata disc? Should the
Octet have been coupled with something else? But for the
fact that this is Enescu - and the market can take such a
conjoining because the performances are so good and the fare
has the air of novelty - but for that fact I would have been
reluctant to endorse the disc. Given the circumstances however
this gets a ‘thumbs up’ from me.
Jonathan Woolf
Orchestre
Philharmonique de Monte Carlo/Lawrence Foster 
