The recording industry has of late proved encouragingly supportive of those composers whose reputations rest on one or two popular pieces. Think of Dukas, Wolf-Ferrari, Korngold, Anton Rubinstein, Chaminade, Lalo and of course George Enescu, whose First Romanian Rhapsody and (to a far lesser extent) Third Violin Sonata have, up to now, served as the best-known representatives of a large and incredibly varied output. However, readers whose experience of Enescu extends to Oedipe, the symphonies and miscellaneous orchestral works (not to mention the larger chamber pieces) will already know what rich delights other collectors still have in store.
This particular CD extends the story to a pair of dazzling orchestral Suites, the Second (1915), a busy sequence of movements reminiscent – at one time or other – of Strauss, Bartok and, most especially, Reger; the Third (1938), or Villageoise, a series of versicoloured tone-poems that spell expertise in virtually every bar. Enescu's Third Suite suggests the sort of freewheeling invention that characterizes Tchaikovsky's Second Suite (especially the latter's ''Reves d'enfant''), with an opening evocation of ''Nature Awakening in Spring'' where inspired textural complexity puts one in mind of Strauss, Korngold, Mahler and even the filigree extravagances of Canteloube's Chants d'Auvergne. Piano and woodwind are employed with considerable imagination, while the range of sounds that greet the third and fourth movements (distant brass reminiscent of Don Quixote's sheep, a Tristanesque oboe soliloquy, atmospheric percussion, and so on) suggest a mastery of timbre that equals – in expertise if not in style – Messiaen and Takemitsu.
The Second Suite opens in the bustling manner of Strauss's Le bourgeois gentilhomme Overture before recalling the nature-music of early Bartok and broadening with all the weight and contrapuntal extravagance of Reger. A gipsy-flavoured ''Sarabande'' occasionally suggests the Faure of Shylock, while the odd discursive modulation again brings Reger to mind. There's a ''Menuet Grave'' that seems to mirror, albeit from a safe distance, the Sanctus from Bach's B minor Mass (of which Enescu was a master interpreter), then a sultry, Ravelian ''Air'' and a further Regerian peroration, this time to the closing ''Bourree''. The disc ends with a Brahmsian Andantino that Enescu penned when he was just 15 years old, a certain (and surprisingly skilful) augury of an exceptional talent in the making.
As with previous discs in this invaluable series, Horia Andreescu attends to each score with obvious affection and a fine sense of aural perspective, while the Romanian National Radio Orchestra – although not exactly of the front-rank – respond with obvious commitment. The recordings are spacious, the documentation (by Robert Matthew-Walker) useful, and the musical value of the enterprise, higher than one might have reasonably expected. I can't think of any composer whose work is in more urgent need of promotion and this particular CD provides as good an introduction as any.'