EMBASSY OF ROMANIA to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
The Enescu Society Concerts is a joint programme of the Romanian Cultural Institute and the Enescu Society. The Enescu Society was set up in June 2007 by the Romanian Cultural Institute with the aim of promoting to UK audiences George Enescu’s outstanding but insufficiently known contribution to world music heritage. Patron: HRH Princess Margarita of Romania
A gala recital on the occasion of the National Day of Romania within the Enescu Concerts Series
President: Cristian Mandeal, conductor Executive Director: Dorian Branea, Director Romanian Cultural Institute London Artistic Director: Remus Azoiţei, violinist & violin professor at the Royal Academy of Music Secretary: Raluca Cimpoiaşu, Project coordinator, Romanian Cultural Institute London Board members: Pascal Bentoiu, composer, musicologist & Enescu historian Şerban Cantacuzino, architect Evan Dickerson, music writer & reviewer Christopher Eimer, historian & art critic Sherban Lupu, violinist, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois Noel Malcolm, historian, journalist & writer Gabriela Massaci, cultural diplomat, founding director of the Enescu Society Andrew Popper, banker, SG Hambros Under the auspices of the Enescu Society, The Romanian Cultural Institute will organise an annual concert season, offer scholarships, support the printing of Enescu music scores, books and articles about the composer. From September 2011, The Institute awards the Enescu Scholarship to outstanding students at the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School of Music & Drama.
2011/2012
Special guests Details about the Enescu Society at www.icr-london.co.uk/enescu To join the Enescu Society mailing list or to become a member, please write to: The Enescu Society Romanian Cultural Institute 1 Belgrave Square, London, SW1X 8PH office@icr-london.co.uk
Alexandra Coman, soprano Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea, piano Thursday, 1 December 2011, 7pm
Romanian Cultural Institute
Alexandra Coman - soprano Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea - piano
José Serrano (1873 - 1941)
Zarzuela ‘Los claveles’ - ‘¿Que te importa que no venga?’
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849)
‘Nocturne no. 19 in E minor op. posth.’
Claude Debussy (1862 - 1918)
Programme Tiberiu Brediceanu (1877 - 1968) La seceriş - ‘Mult mă-ntreabă inima’
Giacomo Puccini (1858 - 1924)
La bohème - ‘Si, mi chiamano Mimi’
Antonín Dvořák (1841 - 1904)
Rusalka - ‘Měsíčku Na Nebi Hlubokém’
Frédéric Chopin (1810 - 1849) ‘Nocturne no. 5 in F-sharp major’
Emmerich Kálmán (1882 - 1953)
Die Csárdásfürstin - ‘Heia in den Bergen’
Franz Lehár (1870 - 1948)
Giuditta - ‘Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiss’
‘Clair de lune’
Frédéric Chopin (1810-1849)
‘Fantaisie - Impromptu in C-sharp minor’
George Enescu (1881 - 1955) ‘Estrenne a Anne’
Alexandra Coman Alexandra Coman is one of the most talented and well-known Romanian sopranos. She has attended master classes held by Luciano Pavarotti and Katia Riciarelli, has performed in prestigious concert halls both in Romania and in Europe, and has shared the stage with illustrious artists such as Jose Carerras, Placido Domingo, Alex Vicenes and Carry Persson. Alexandra has an impressive repertoire as well as a versatile use of vocal registers. Jose Carreras said about her: ‘Alexandra Coman is a very talented artist with a great career before her’, while Luciano Pavarotti described her as having ‘a beautiful voice of interesting colour and brilliant quality’.
Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea (b. 1959) ‘Evangheliile toamnei’ (Autumn Gospels)
Richard Strauss (1864 - 1949) ‘Zueignung’
Fernando J. Obradors (1897 - 1945) ‘El vito’
Federico García Lorca (1898 - 1936) ‘La tarrara’
Tiberiu Brediceanu (1877 - 1968) ‘Floricică de pe apă’ ‘Vai bădiță dragi ne-avem’ ‘Dragu-mi-i mândro de tine’
Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea is a Romanian composer, concert pianist and associate professor of Composition at the National University of Music in Bucharest. Her honors include two Grand Prizes of the Romanian Composers Union (2001 and 2002), for the Red and Black Ballet (based on Stendhal’s novel) and Oratione aliquot Sanctae Briggitae choral composition. Ms. Teodorescu-Ciocănea published several articles in Romanian and international music magazines and two books. Her music is a part of the repertoires of the Bucharest National Opera and many other musical institutions in Italy, Spain, UK, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Denmark, Australia and USA.
violin sonata (1926), the third orchestral suite (1938) and the suite Impressions d’Enfance (1940) for violin and piano.
Enescu also wrote five mature symphonies (two of them unfinished, later completed by Pascal Bentoiu), a symphonic poem Vox maris, and a lot of chamber music. Aside from works already mentioned there are two sonatas for cello and piano, two sonatas for piano, three piano suites, a piano trio, two string quartets, a piano quintet, a dectet for wind instruments and a chamber symphony for twelve solo instruments. A large number of other pieces remain unpublished or in sketch form and are performable only from manuscript. Throughout his life Enescu combined composition with multiple performing careers across that took him across Europe and the USA. As a violinist he was renowned for his performances of Bach’s concertos and solo music. The concertos by Brahms, Beethoven, and Mozart were central to his repertoire, though the cadenzas he wrote for them remain scandalously underused by today’s violinists. Chausson’s Poeme and Lalo’s Symphonie Espagnole largely owe their place in the modern repertoire to Enescu’s early advocacy. As a pianist and conductor Enescu often played his own music or that of other Romanian composers such as Constantin Silvestri, Dinu Lipatti, Mihail Jora, Ionel Perlea and Marţian Negrea. Many of them were winners of the Enescu Prize, which he established in 1921. Outside Romania Enescu conducted orchestras such as the Lamoureaux, Orchestre Symphonique de Paris, the Philadelphia and the New York Philharmonic, where in 1938 was considered a potential successor to Arturo Toscanini. His violin pupils included Guila Bustabo, Christian Ferras, Ivry Gitlis, Arthur Grumiaux, Ida Haendel, Yehudi Menuhin, Ginette Neveu and Ion Voicu, amongst others. From a very early age Enescu was highly appreciated and became close to the Royal House of Romania. Several of his early songs are settings of texts in German written by Carmen Sylva, the pen name used by Queen Elizabeth of Romania. She gave him the use of a private study in Peleş Castle at Sinaia and, for this 17th birthday, a near complete edition of the Bach-Gesellshaft – most of which Enescu committed to memory. For much of his life, Enescu was devoted to Maria Rosetti (Princess Cantacuzino through her first marriage). Enescu married her in 1939. He lived in France and in Romania but after World War II and the Soviet occupation, Enescu remained in Paris, where he died in 1955. Enescu is buried in the Père Lachaise Cemetery. Today, Bucharest has a museum in his memory; likewise, the Bucharest Philharmonic, and the bi-annual George Enescu Festival, are named and held in his honour. Through the Enescu Society, the Romanian Cultural Institute aims to make Enescu’s outstanding music better known to wider audiences in the UK.
About tonight’s programme For their gala concert on the National Day of Romania, Alexandra Coman and Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea present a varied programme on the theme of love which places Romanian music amongst an international repertoire. Enescu’s seven Clement Marot settings are generally agreed to be the finest of any composer at capturing not only the cadence but the spirit of the medieval French texts. Estrene à Anne tells of the singer’s plight, scarred by love, at having to give away her precious heart at New Year. Tiberiu Brediceanu was a noted collector of folksongs on wax cylinders and his activity rivaled that of Bartók. Many of his compositions, particularly his art songs, show this influence. Vai, bădiţă, dragi ne-avem tells of a couple who cannot love because they are too alike, whereas Dragu-mi-i, mandro de tine tells of a girl who is reminded of nature when she sees her lover at her side. Brediceanu was also general manager of the Bucharest Opera and wrote several operas, of which La seceriş which centres on life at harvest-time in a rural Romanian village and dates from 1936 is the most famous. The aria Mult mă-ntreabă inima marries the bitter-sweet use of a doina tune to words that tell of a heart’s longing for its youth and the inner distress that is keenly felt. By contrast, Floricică de pe apă is a jolly number in which a girl tells the waterflower to keep the cuckoo silent that her boyfriend can sleep without becoming angry. To complete the selection of Romanian art songs on the theme of love we hear a contemporary example by tonight’s pianist Livia Teodorescu-Ciocănea, who has also long been active as a composer, which sets the poem Autumn Gospels by Nichita Stănescu. The programme contains two of the most famous soprano love arias ever written. Puccini’s La bohème was premièred in Turin in 1896, conducted by the young Arturo Toscanini. With her Act I aria Si, mi chiamano Mimi, the seamstress Mimi introduces herself to the poet Rodolfo. Dvořák composed his opera Rusalka in 1900. Rusalka, a water-sprite, tells her father she has fallen in love with a human Prince who comes to hunt around their lake and she wants to become human to embrace him. He tells her it is a bad idea, but nonetheless steers her to a witch, Ježibaba, for assistance. Rusalka’s aria, Měsíčku Na Nebi Hlubokém, is her sensuous Song to the Moon asking it to tell the Prince of her love. Emmerich Kálmán was a Hungarian who wrote operettas in the Austro-German tradition. Die Csárdásfürstin, or The Gypsy Princess, dates from 1915 and tells the tale of singer and dancer Sylva Varescu, who is preparing to depart the Viennese stage for an America tour against the wishes of her lover Prince Edwin. Sylva’s Act I aria Heia, Heia, in den Bergen ist mein Heimatland is at first nostalgic about her distant mountain homeland, set to folk-tinged rhythms in the accompaniment, before the tempo quickens and she launches into a rip-roaring philosophy of life. The première of Franz Lehár’s musical comedy Giuditta took place at the Vienna State Opera in 1934 with the famed Czech soprano Jarmila Novotná in the alluring and feisty title role and Richard Tauber as her love interest Octavio, an army officer. Octavio leaves Giuditta to follow his career. She becomes a night club dancer, only to be re-discovered by him after he deserts his unit. Giuditta is a success in her new profession, as
is attested to by the aria Meine Lippen, sie küssen so heiss but Octavio’s self-esteem is destroyed and he becomes a club pianist. Parallels with the plot of Bizet’s Carmen are unavoidable. A single art song by Richard Strauss provides a contrast to the world of operetta. Zueignung is one of his most famous and also technically testing songs for the singer. Composed in 1882–3, this opens Strauss’ first mature song group. As accompanist Roger Vignoles has noted, ‘it immediately reveals the essential features of his style: arching vocal phrases, a seductive play of harmonic colour and an orchestral bravura to the piano accompaniments.’ The text is by the Tyrolean poet Hermann von Gilm, who actually gave the title of Zueignung (‘Dedication’) not to this song, but to two other poems. It is, however, an apt title for the song as the singer dedicates her heart anew to her distant beloved. José Serrano was a prolific composer of zarzuelas – the Spanish lyric-dramatic genre that alternates between spoken and sung scenes, the latter incorporating opera and popular song, as well as dance – with over fifty works to his name. Los Claveles (‘Carnations’) is a single-act work that dates from 1929 and zarzuela experts consider it to contain some of Serrano’s finest music. Rosa, the boss of a perfume factory, falls in love with a new cashier, Fernando, but he shows an interest in another girl. In the aria ¿Qué te importa que no venga? Rosa reveals her unhappiness and faces up to the fact that she cares for Fernando much more than she cares to admit. Fernando Obradors was largely a self-taught composer and was active as a conductor. His reputation rests today on his classical Spanish songs, of which El vito is a fine example, being tuneful, charming and exciting. The poet, playwright, painter, and pianist Federico Garcia Lorca has inspired many flamenco and jazz settings of his lyrics – La tarrara is perhaps one of the most effective. Four piano solos inspired by the presence of moonlight complete the evening’s romantic ambiance. Chopin’s Nocturne no. 5 in F-sharp major was composed in 1832 and is a technically challenging piece in A-B-A form. The first section features an intricate and ornamental melody over an even bassline. The second section, labelled doppio movimento, resembles a scherzo with dotted melodic line, semiquavers in a lower voice in the right hand, and large jumps in the bass. The final section is a shortened version of the first with characteristic cadenzas and elaboration. Mystery surrounds the Nocturne no. 19 in E minor since the autograph score is now lost. Some opinions hold that it was possibly written around 1827, making it amongst the earliest of his compositions and this view is borne out by the work’s form, but Liszt claimed that it was a late piece, a view reinforced by the haunting melodic material. The Fantaisie-Impromptu in C-sharp minor is one of Chopin’s best-known pieces. Composed in 1834 it is dedicated to Julian Fontana who published it posthumously in spite of Chopin’s request not to do so. Some aspects of this piece are similar to Beethoven’s Moonlight sonata, which is written in the same key. Debussy’s Clair de lune is the third movement of the Suite bergamasque, which he began in 1890 and revised prior to publication in 1905. The title comes from a poem of the same name by Paul Verlaine, although the movement was originally called Promenade Sentimentale.
notes: Evan Dickerson
George Enescu (1881 – 1955) George Enescu is widely regarded as the greatest Romanian composer. The sheer range of his musical talents however threatened to overshadow his compositional achievements during his lifetime. He was a magnificent concert violinist, an insightful pianist, a conductor of depth and subtlety, not to mention being a fascinating teacher and an esteemed musicologist. He was a tireless organizer of Romanian musical life. Just some of the spectacular tasks he took on included the forming of a Philharmonic Orchestra, founding the Romanian National Opera in Bucharest and the Union of Composers in Romania. Enescu was born in the village of Liveni, in northern Moldavia on 19 August 1881. A child prodigy, he wrote his first composition at the age of five. Shortly thereafter, his father presented him to the violinist and composer Eduard Caudella, who advised that Enescu should study in Vienna. At the age of seven he entered the Conservatoire there as only the second pupil ever to be admitted below the age of ten; the first was the violinist Fritz Kreisler. Enescu’s violin tutors included Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., Robert Fuchs and Sigismond Bachrich. Enescu graduated before his 13th birthday with the silver medal of the Conservatoire. In his Viennese concerts Enescu played works by Mendelssohn, Sarasate and Brahms, from whom he is supposed to have received advice on playing the composer’s violin concerto. From 1895 to 1898 Enescu continued his studies at the Paris Conservatoire, where his main teachers included Martin Marsick (violin), André Gédalge (counterpoint and fugue), and Jules Massenet and Gabriel Fauré for composition. From this period come a host of songs, works for the violin, piano, several overtures, and four ‘school’ symphonies which weigh heavy under the dual influences of Brahms and Wagner, and his opus 1, the orchestral Poème Roumain. By his own admission, Enescu’s first mature works are the 2nd Sonata for piano and violin and the Octet for strings. Enescu was not yet 18 years old when he wrote the sonata and had not reached his 19th birthday when he completed the octet in 1900. The year before Enescu had secured the first prize in the Conservatoire’s violin competition with a performance of Saint-Saëns’ third concerto. Many of Enescu’s works bear the influence of Romanian folk music, though it is wholly inappropriate to colour him as just a folkloric composer. These include two Romanian Rhapsodies (1901–1902), the mighty opera Oedipe (1910-1931), the third