George Enescu
(* August 19, 1881 in Liveni, Romania – † Mai 4, 1955 in Paris, France)
“In Enescu, music became the voice of humanity per se, a voice uttering what cannot be said.”
Yehudi Menuhin
“This story begins far away, on the hills of Moldavia and ends here, in the heart of Paris. … The journey was long, of course. However, it seemed so short!” (from Bernard Gavoty’s Les Souvenirs de Georges Enesco). Enescu was born in the small Moldavian village of Liveni on August 19, 1881. He was the eighth child of Maria und Costache, and the first to survive. At the age of four, he started taking violin lessons from the charismatic “Lăutar” Lae Chioru. Later, Eduard Caudella from Iași (a pupil of Vieuxtemps) advised the father to take the child prodigy to Vienna.
There followed a course of study at the Vienna Conservatory, which he finished by earning the Gesellschaftsmedaille. His teachers were Josef Hellmesberger Jr. for violin (at whose residence he even lived), Robert Fuchs (composition) and Ludwig Ernst (piano). After his debut as violinist in the Vienna Musikverein, critics called him “the new Mozart”. In this “European Tower of Babel” (Enescu’s name for Vienna), he met his “musical gods”: Brahms, “terrifying yet tender and full of genius”, and the “still living shadow of Beethoven”, from whose manuscripts the young Enescu played.
He left Vienna in 1895 to attend the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied composition under Massenet, Fauré and Gedalge, violin under Marsick and piano under Diémer. His colleagues were Ravel, Schmitt, Roger-Ducasse as well as Kreisler, Flesch and Thibaud. There followed the years of his first major compositions, starting with the triumphant debut of his Poème Roumain (1898), which brought him both fame and envy. Many were “irritated” by the early successes of this seventeen-year-old student as a composer and violin virtuoso. As Gavoty said, “Talent receives support, but genius causes alarm.”
Enescu’s greatest “sin” was his ability to master many things and excel at all of them, whether as composer, violinist, pianist, conductor, teacher, or even organist and cellist! This and his legendary musical memory were stunning. And yet his compositions were overshadowed by his career as a virtuoso – something he struggled with throughout his life. In 1909 Enescu saw the tragedian Jean Mounet-Sully in Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and felt the irresistible urge to make it into an opera.
He spent most of the First World War in Romania, where his friendship with Princess Maria Cantacuzino (Maruca) began, who was to be the love of his life. He founded the Symphony Orchestra in Iași (1917) and the “Romanian Composers’ Society” (1920). When the war ended, he once again took up his tours to foreign countries and his work on the opera Œdipe. In 1923, he debuted as a conductor with the Philadelphia Orchestra and as such gained fame in the USA. Although he spent long periods of his life in Paris and the USA, he remained closely tied to his homeland. In 1923, Enescu bought land in the Carpathians and had his Villa Luminiș built to his own design in Sinaia. Here he spent the summer months with Maruca, writing the many masterpieces of his second creative period. In addition, he continued his travels as a celebrated violin virtuoso and conductor, as well as his work as a teacher.
The first signs of a spinal condition ap- peared in the thirties, and later a hearing defect. He married Maruca in 1937 and moved into the Palais Cantacuzino in Bucharest (now the Enescu Museum). With a heavy heart, Enescu left Romania for political rea- sons in 1946 and traveled to New York. He had a feeling he would never see his native country again. Although he yearned for a reclusive life so he could compose in peace, he once again saw himself compelled to earn money as a virtuoso (his savings had fallen victim to postwar inflation); nonetheless, he donated a large portion of his fortune to charity. Enescu spent the last years of his life in Paris, where he suffered a stroke in 1954 (he would have to dictate the end of the Chamber Symphony). Enescu died on May 4, 1955 and was laid to rest at Père Lachaise Cemetery. His highly original works, which defy any sort of stylistic limitations, are still waiting to be discovered in full and receive the recognition they deserve.