Most of Enescu’s best orchestral works are significantly inventive – but the Third Orchestral Suite, Villageoise, is exceptional even by Enescu’s own high standards. The plaintive, folk-style motive that opens the first movement has woodwinds play in unison with low strings before the music blossoms into a sun-drenched tutti. There’s a vigorous “Rural springtime” redolent of Copland and Bartok, an eerily atmospheric “Moonlight upon the river” (Moderato malinconico, ma senza lentezza) and a racy sequence of “Rustic Dances”. However, the score’s high spot is a scenic “old childhood house in sunset”, with Don Quixote-style sheep (braying brass), an off-stage oboe, rumbling thunder and a lonely Vesper bell. Try to think in terms of Bartok’s stage works, Debussy’s Pelleas, Strauss’s best tone-poems and the exotic, strongly aromatic modulations of Enescu’s Third Violin Sonata, and you’ll have some idea of what to expect. Gennadi Rozhdestvensky allows the music time to breathe and the recording is an object-lesson in aural perspective – which also helps to air the densely populated staves of Enescu’s First Symphony.
To think this dramatic, lavishly scored piece predates both of Elgar’s symphonies! As it happens, Enescu’s First and Elgar’s First inhabit parallel fields; they both share a certain resilience, melancholy (6'45'' into the Enescu first movement) and sweeping romanticism (Wagner, Scriabin and early Schoenberg join the fray for the nightmare sequence from 2'09''). The melodies are often glorious, the arguments discursive but compelling and the orchestration colourfully crowded. Wagner, Chausson, Debussy and Mahler are all possible influences (especially in the Lent slow movement), but you’re invariably carried forward and never bored.
Luckily for us, there’s no lack of choice in both works. Rozhdestvensky’s recording of the First Symphony (it’s his second) is broad, affectionate and carefully detailed. Lawrence Foster chooses faster tempos but his 1990 EMI recording is less lavishly textured than Rozhdestvensky’s for Chandos. Alexander Lascae’s Moldova PO version for Ottavo sounds boxy and rather constricted, though the performance – a lively, somewhat unrefined affair – isn’t at all bad. Cristian Mandeal and Hora Andreescu offer the swiftest first movements, the former being the less well played and recorded, though Mandeal’s view of the piece has plenty of character (his valuable Arte Nova disc is issued at super-budget price). Andreescu, too, has Enescu’s idiom under his skin and if you are interested in exploring further (Andreescu’s disc is part of an ongoing complete survey of Enescu’s orchestral music) then the Olympia CD – which is vividly recorded – is essential listening.
Rozhdestvensky’s version of the Suite earns top rating though, again, Andreescu is a strong rival. However, if you don’t yet know this marvellous repertory and fancy a premature East-European holiday, then Rozhdestvensky’s new CD forges the smoothest flight-path.'