Enescu follows Walt Whitman’s injunction to “sail for the deep waters only” in Vox maris, a work which the sixth volume in Olympia’s admirable series reveals as standing in the same relation to his three major symphonies as Sibelius’s Tapiola does to his seven (Enescu’s first draft of his tone-poem was made in 1929, a decade after the metaphysical Third Symphony, but thoroughly revised around 1954 and not performed until after his death the following year). Not only that, but it represents a mysterious refinement both of the Debussian dream and the romantic apotheosis, an aqueous fantasy which is certainly more a matter of feeling than painting.
If you listen, as I did, with a score but without any knowledge of the programme (Enescu’s outline is given in Noel Malcolm’s excellent study), then the form is clear enough: a calm sea followed by a catastrophic, rather than a prosperous, voyage with a storm more subcutaneous, less pictorial than that of La mer and a siren-song meditation on the disaster which goes beyond even the enigma of Melisande’s death (to which Enescu pays explicit homage, I think, towards the end of the score). The one false note seems to be the soprano-solo wail of “Miserere, Domine” as disaster strikes, but that may be the fault of the Romanian lady on the recording (both the tenor declaiming the Breton text and the wordless chorus are fine, but too far off-stage for impact). The orchestral writing cries out for a more sensuous string tone, more biting woodwind and fuller-throated horns than Andreescu’s orchestra can muster; the conductor does at least make sure that melodic lines surface through the gauze – and very strange and original they are, too.
Nothing could come as more of a shock after the percussion-only postlude of Vox maris than the block orchestration of Enescu’s Study Symphony No. 1. As the work of a 14-year-old, it steps into the record books ahead of first symphonic offerings of Glazunov, Bizet and Shostakovich, but can hardly claim the same distinction. Although Enescu had great affection for the work and even conducted it in 1934, the ‘study’ designation seems about the measure of it; in spite of two admirable themes that are pure Brahms and one that stems from Enescu’s Wagnerian enthusiasm, the packaging is sclerotic and teacher Massenet’s praise of his “instinct for development” seems wide of the mark. The performance is clean and decent, without noticeably trying to spruce things up; the same goes for the negligibly sweet Ballade composed in the same year.'