It takes some believing that these were all written by the same person, even allowing for the fact that Enescu's Second Violin Sonata was composed at the age of 17, while still a student, and his Third in his maturity, more than a quarter of a century later. Astonishing as No. 2 is as a technical achievement for one so young, in idiom it reveals its parentage fairly clearly—Brahms, who had strongly influenced the composer during his youthful studies in Vienna (and whose hand is conspicuous in Enescu's First Violin Sonata, written two years earlier), and Faure, under whom he studied in Paris after entering the Conservatoire at the age of 14. Dedicated to his fellow-student Thibaud and his brother, it is a cyclic work deriving much of its material from the curiously sinuous wide-ranging figure presented in unison octaves at the start; harmonically it is highly elusive. The shadow of Faure is most clearly observable in the melody and texture of the tranquil slow movement, which also introduces the rocking rhythmic figure found in Faure's First Piano Quartet. The recording of this work places the violin at some disadvantage, making its tone appear small and often swamped by an over-loud piano (though the pianist makes no attempt to begin the finale pp, as marked). The dynamic range is limited, pp and ff contrasts not being well made, nor are Enescu's markings always exactly followed (e.g. the dim. subito at fig. 1 in the first movement).
Balance is much more satisfactory in the remainder of the disc, presumably because of different recording dates. The ''Torso''—the opening movement (written out in 1911) of a sonata which was then abandoned—of which this is the first recording, has been stigmatized by a leading Romanian critic as one of Enescu's ''most stylistically impure'' works. Of great rhythmic complexity, it begins lyrically (though with more predictable romantic harmony), but its fluidity leads it into some shapelessness, and the movement as a whole founders under the weight of a superstructure that its thematic material cannot support. The final impassioned pages, however, are impressive.
The Third Sonata is one of the most individual works in the violin repertoire: without actually quoting any Romanian folk themes, Enescu produced an amalgam of an amazingly authentic folk-fiddle style (in both matter and method of playing) and classical sonata structure. It has often been recorded before, by artists such as Gertler, Stern and Menuhin (who was, of course, a pupil of Enescu), but Menuhin's one-time pupil Adelina Oprean, as a Romanian, may be presumed to have her country's music in her blood. In dealing with the music's elaborate ornamentation, portamentos, quarter-tones, innumerable harmonics, carefully notated non-rubatos and different rates of vibrato—the whole score is littered with the most minute indications of every kind—and with its fluctuations of mood and pace, she exhibits a cool virtuosity which, if less wild and exciting than some previous performances, must command whole-hearted admiration. The slow movement, which starts mysteriously in a kind of blood-brotherhood to Bartok's night music, is full of atmosphere. The wickedly difficult piano part is ably taken by the violinist's brother, though he does not always observe all Enescu's pernickety dynamic markings. There is an exceptionally good and informative note by Noel Malcolm, who has written a book about the composer.'