George Enescu

Enescu's Roumanian Rhapsody No. 1 dates from 1901. Although its popularity tends to eclipse other equally deserving works in Enescu's oeuvre, the first rhapsody deserves its universal acclaim, for its succinct encapsulation of the Roumanian gypsy style of music, as well as its masterful deployment by a virtuosic composer. Though in later years Enescu relied less on quotation of actual folk music, allowing the elements of folk style to …..

Roland Pöntinen is a virtuoso pianist whose busy concert and recording schedule would seem to preclude work as a composer and arranger, but he has managed to produce a substantial and worthwhile output in both those creative roles. As a pianist Pöntinen has developed a vast repertory of standards by J.S. Bach, Beethoven, Brahms, Schumann, Grieg, Rachmaninov, and Prokofiev, to name just some.

George Enescu was first and foremost one of the great violinists of his day, but he was also a brilliant pianist, admired by pianist colleagues of the calibre of Alfred Cortot, who stated that Enescu had a better piano technique than Cortot himself. And it is obvious that some of this music puts the pianist to severe test. The music is also extremely diversified.

Enescu's symphony No. 2 was written during years when he was very busy as a leading concert violinist of his times. He was always a careful and slow worker, so like many of his major compositions this symphony took several years to complete. It was first performed in Bucharest on March 28, 1915, an event that could not make a large impression in Western Europe, which was then consumed in World War I. The A major tonality …….

Joseph Stevenson @ AllMusic.com

A monumental and distinctly Brahmsian work, Enescu's Third Symphony is an emotionally intense war symphony of grandiose dimension. Scored for orchestra and chorus, it calls for large forces to be deployed in execution of the composer's vision – 12 double basses, for example, including two soli. It anticipates Oedipe in its philosophical approach and indeed in some of its thematic material which finds its way into Enescu's magnum opus…..

Tim Mahon @ AllMusic.com

Anton Rubinstein was one of the towering figures of nineteenth-century music, a great piano virtuoso, conductor and influential teacher. The fifth of his six Symphonies is thoroughly Russian in its melodies, and is often compared to his student Tchaikovsky's First Symphony. The overture to Rubinstein's first opera Dmitry Donsky is based on a similarly national Russian theme, while Faust, written in Leipzig in 1854, is the sole surviving movement of an abandoned Faust symphony.

Through her generous movements on the instrument and a feel for the piano that seemed like painting color on a canvas, Daria’s feelings were externalized in sounds, which made up the sublime, romantic music.

George Enescu (1881-1955) was known primarily as one of the great virtuoso violinists of his day, although he was also a celebrated conductor and influential teacher of his instrument – Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Grumiaux, Ivri Gitlis, and Christian Ferras were just a few of the great violin soloists of the latter half of the 20th century who passed through his classes in Paris. Apart from the First Romanian Rhapsody, it is only recently that Enescu, the composer of a small but substantial catalogue of works, has come to the fore and this set, comprising his three completed symphonies and his best-known Violin Sonata, should further enhance his reputation.