"George Enescu (1881-1955) is the greatest great composer whose greatness is not generally recognized," wrote Martin Anderson in his notes to this release of Enescu's rarely performed piano quartets. The statement is surely debatable, and Baroque buffs might hold out for Biber or Zelenka. But Britain's Schubert Ensemble makes a good case for Enescu here, with full-blooded performances of these difficult, complex chamber works. The massive Piano Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 16, demands a special round of repeated hearings; ...
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"George Enescu (1881-1955) is the greatest great composer whose greatness is not generally recognized," wrote Martin Anderson in his notes to this release of Enescu's rarely performed piano quartets. The statement is surely debatable, and Baroque buffs might hold out for Biber or Zelenka. But Britain's Schubert Ensemble makes a good case for Enescu here, with full-blooded performances of these difficult, complex chamber works. The massive Piano Quartet No. 1 in D major, Op. 16, demands a special round of repeated hearings; clocking in at almost 40 minutes, it is somehow Mahlerian in scope, although the basic harmonic language falls into the orbits of Fauré and Rachmaninov. Enescu's genius here is that the music in the opening movement keeps making turns into different realms, with major heroic, concerto-like statements from the piano, lyrical interludes, proto-Impressionist moves, passages influenced by Romanian folk music, and more. The quartet seems to, as Mahler put it, "encompass the world," but it...
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