In 1990 the first biography in English of George Enescu appeared. The author was Sir Noel Malcolm, and he described Enescu thus,

' ...the most valuable, extraordinary and unjustly neglected of all the treasures in the inheritance not only of Romania, but of Europe too.’

Despite more recent interest, such as the 2016 staging of his operatic masterpiece Oedipe at Covent Garden one might still describe his music, and without exaggeration, as the missing continent in twentieth century European music.

My explorations of Enescu and his art began with the encouragement of Romanian musicians who delighted in introducing me to sounds of which I was - shamefully - only dimly aware. One of these was the exceptional pianist and musicologist Verona Maier, now Vice-Rector of the National University of Music, the country’s leading music institution.

Guided and coaxed by Verona I have made my way into the wonderous realm of this man’s extraordinary sound world. Together we have played some of what is available to a violin and piano duo; the 3rd Sonata we have given some few times, and we are starting to present his Impressions d’Enfance. These are two totally different sound worlds and yet they are an expression of the same unmistakable and generous spirit – surely one of the freshest and most honest voices of the 20th century.

Verona and I have constructed two concert programmes of music each built around one of these two totally original creations of Enescu’s own.

The other music reflects some of his special loves and his itinerant life as a touring virtuoso – his ‘bread and butter work’, as it were. He knew and was on friendly terms with Ravel in Paris; he adored Bach, Handel and Corelli and played all three with a mysticism that is way beyond much of today’s obsession with authenticity in a more literal sense; he was renowned for the depth of his interpretation of Chausson’s Poème, whilst the Beethoven Kreutzer Sonata and that most underplayed epic of the romantic violin and piano repertoire, the Schumann D minor Sonata, was one of his favourite works.

Programme 1:

Handel: Sonata in D HWV 371 or Corelli: ‘La Folia’ Sonata op 5 no 12

Beethoven: Sonata op 47 ‘Kreutzer‘
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Chausson : Poème 

Enescu : Sonata no 3 Op. 25 ‘dans le caractère populaire roumain’

Programme 2:

JS Bach : Sonata in C minor BWV 1017 or Corelli: ‘La Folia’ Sonata op 5 no 12

Enescu: Impressions d’Enfance Op. 28
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Schumann: Sonata in D minor op 121

Ravel :Tzigane