Très modéré –

Très fougueux –

Lentement –

Animé – Mouvement de valse bien rythmé

Born in Romania, Enescu was a child prodigy, writing his first compositions at the age of five, and a brilliant violinist. By the time he went to Paris in 1895, he was already an immensely accomplished musician having studied violin and composition at the Vienna Conservatoire. In Paris, he studied composition with Fauré and harmony with André Gedalge (who were also Ravel’s two most important teachers). The Octet was completed in 1900, when Enesco was just nineteen years old, and a year before he wrote the popular Romanian Rhapsody No.1 for orchestra. The composer’s Preface to the score of the Octet explains something of its unusual form:

This Octet, cyclic in form, 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 sections, on an enlarged scale, follow one another according to the rules of construction for the first movement of a symphony.

Scored for two string quartets, this splendid and grandly-conceived work had to wait nearly a decade for its premiere, given in Paris on 18 December 1909. Since Enesco was already a sought-after soloist in 1900, he composed the Octet in between performances of concertos by Beethoven, Saint-Saëns and Bach. From the start of the first section (presenting a theme that somewhat resembles the main theme of Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge), Enesco’s skill at writing for his unusual forces is apparent, generating a great sense of power and momentum. The second section – “very impetuous” – is angular and jagged, and this is followed by a rather unsettled slow movement. The finale is dominated by a spiky waltz, full of wide leaps, but ending with a bold close – D flat then C in powerful octaves.

Nigel Simeone © 2012