Symphony No. 3, the ‘Everest’ of George Enescu’s creation, performed by the Philharmonia Orchestra London
One of George Enescu’s most impressive works, his Symphony No. 3, will be performed today at the Grand Palace Hall by the famous British orchestra Philharmonia London, conducted by Santtu-Matias Rouvali.
It is a monumental and demanding symphony, involving orchestra, choir, and children’s choir. In this score the composer has treated the voices almost like instruments, to create the desired sounds. Maestro Vladimir Jurowski, who conducted the piece at the Enescu Festival before and also in London in 2015, likened the symphony to Mount Everest – “and to climb this mountain you need a group of well-trained musicians, willing to venture into this sound universe.”
Enescu began work on his Symphony No. 3 in C major Op. 21 in 1916, three months before Romania entered the war; he completed it in 1918 and revised it in 1921. The Third Symphony has generated many extra-musical and philosophical interpretations, although the composer gave no programmatic explanation for the work. Some commentators and musicians saw it as a reflection of the First World War. Others (such as Emanoil Ciomac) saw it as a “Dantean triptych.” For Pascal Bentoiu, it is a symphony of lights: “The terrestrial lights of Part I are answered, above the infernal glow of Part II, by the celestial lights of the finale.”
Conductor Vladimir Jurowski sees the Third Symphony as a philosophical work, taking into account the time when it was written and the terror and anguish it expresses: “In a way, Enescu tries to solve these problems by finding refuge in nature, using the pure voices of children or instruments that I would call non-musical, such as church bells, used in Part III together with the organ, thus creating a truly mystical atmosphere.”
Symphony No. 3 will bring the evening to a grand finale at the Palace Hall, following Bartók’s Dance Suite, which will recreate a festive atmosphere through themes from Arabic, Romanian, and Hungarian folk songs, and Prokofiev’s Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 63. The soloist will be the famous violinist Nemanja Radulović.
At the Radio Hall, the Transilvania Philharmonic Orchestra of Cluj-Napoca performs a unique concert with contemporary pieces only, under the baton of Alexander Liebreich. On the program: Cornel Taranu, Aphoristic Symhony, Jiří Kadeřábek, In me la morte for Soprano and Orchestra; Dieter Ammann, Piano Concerto, Pascal Dusapin, Wenn du dem Wind for Mezzo-soprano and Orchestra. Soloists: soprano Diana Tugui, pianist Andreas Haefliger, mezzo-soprano Iulia Merca.
From 4:30 PM, at the Romanian Athenaeum, the Athens State Orchestra and pianist Saskia Giorgini will perform under the baton of conductor Stefanos Tsialis. The concert will be opened by Nikos Skalkottas’s Five Greek Dances, performed for the first time in Romania. The music will take the audience on a journey through Greece with authentic Greek folk tunes from different parts of mainland and island Greece. This will be followed by George Enescu’s Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra and César Franck’s Symphony in D minor, the composer’s only mature symphony and his best known work.
DAILY AGENDA
CONCERTS
SERIES: ENESCU AND HIS CONTEMPORARIES
TIME: 10:30 AM
PRESS ARRIVAL: 10:00 AM
VENUE: AUDITORIUM HALL, National Museum of the Arts
QUATUOR DANEL with LISE DE LA SALLE piano
Program:
Enescu Piano Sonata No. 3 in D major Op. 24
Debussy String Quartet in G minor Op. 10
Franck Piano Quintet in F minor
The Quatuor Danel (Marc Danel, Gilles Millet – violins, Vlad Bogdanas – viola, Yovan Markovitch – cello) was founded in 1991 and has been at the forefront of the international music scene ever since, with important concert performances worldwide and a row of groundbreaking CD recordings. The quartet is famous for their bold, concentrated interpretations of the string quartet cycles of Haydn, Beethoven, Schubert, Shostakovich, and Weinberg. Their lively and fresh vision on the traditional quartet repertoire has delivered them subsequent praise from public and press. Another part of their force lies in the collaboration with major contemporary composers such as Wolfgang Rihm, Helmut Lachenmann, Sofia Gubaidulina, Pascal Dusapin, Jörg Widmann, and Bruno Mantovani.
In a matter of only a few years, with award-winning Naïve recordings and international concert appearances, 29-year old Lise de la Salle has established herself as one of today’s exciting young artists and as a musician of real sensibility and maturity. Her playing inspired a Washington Post critic to write, “For much of the concert, the audience had to remember to breathe… the exhilaration didn’t let up for a second until her hands came off the keyboard.”
SERIES: MUSIC OF THE 21ST CENTURY
TIME: 1:30 PM
PRESS ARRIVAL: 1:00 PM
VENUE: RADIO HALL
TRANSYLVANIA PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA OF CLUJ-NAPOCA
ALEXANDER LIEBREICH conductor
Program:
Cornel Taranu Aphoristic Symphony
Jiří Kadeřábek In me la morte for Soprano and Orchestra
DIANA TUGUI soprano
Dieter Ammann Piano Concerto
ANDREAS HAEFLIGER piano
Pascal Dusapin Wenn du dem Wind for Mezzo-soprano and Orchestra
IULIA MERCA mezzo-soprano
The 2018/19 season saw Alexander Liebreich begin his tenure as Chief Conductor and Artistic Director of the Prague Radio Symphony Orchestra. In 2018 he took over as Artistic Director of the Richard Strauss Festival in Garmisch-Partenkirchen and was elected head of the Richard Strauss Society, succeeding Brigitte Fassbaender and Wolfgang Sawallisch.
Diana Tugui is a versatile artist who, in addition to the operatic roles in which she has established herself, also successfully tackles the symphonic vocal genre, operetta, lieder, and even musicals. She has collaborated with every philharmonic and opera house in the country and in the last sixteen years she has made numerous appearances on important European stages. She has won numerous international competitions such as Jaume Aragall, Wilhem Stenhammar, Vox Artis, Elena Teodorini. In 2015 she was crowned Best Soprano at the National Opera Gala and in 2018 she received the Lya Hubic award for best soprano.
Andreas Haefliger comes from a rich musical tradition and is acclaimed for his sensitivity, musical intuition, and piano playing that is simply transcendental. Known for his innovative repertoire, he brings an all-encompassing passion and humanity to his concerts and recordings.
Iulia Merca is currently soloist of the Romanian National Opera in Cluj-Napoca. In 19 years of activity alongside the ensemble in Cluj, she debuted several roles in many premieres, such as Maria de Buenos Aires (A. Piazolla), Oreste / Oedipe (C. Taranu), Nabucco 12 (by A. Hausvater with music by G. Verdi), and many others.
SERIES: CONCERTS AND RECITALS
TIME: 4:30 PM
PRESS ARRIVAL: 4:00 PM
VENUE: ROMANIAN ATHENAEUM
ATHENS STATE ORCHESTRA
STEFANOS TSIALIS conductor
SASKIA GIORGINI piano (winner of the Mozart Competition Salzburg in 2016)
Program:
Nikos Skalkottas Five Greek Dances
Enescu Fantaisie for Piano and Orchestra
Franck Symphony in D minor
Stefanos Tsialis was chief conductor and artistic director of the Athens State Orchestra from 2014 to 202. In his six years in office, despite difficult circumstances, he managed to increase audiences by more than 60 per cent. For some seasons now, the ASO has been repeatedly collaborating with some of the most illustrious musicians of our time, thus demonstrating its greatly improved quality.
Saskia Giorgini’s concerts are described as “thrilling” and flawless in the Observer (The Guardian). Winner of the International Mozart Competition in Salzburg in 2016, where she also received the special prize for the best interpretation of the commissioned work, Saskia Giorgini is considered one of the most interesting pianists of the young generation. She is praised for her “unerring technique, a beautiful and moving sound, a phrasing full of fantasy and a pure musicality” (Salvatore Accardo).
SERIES: GREAT ORCHESTRAS OF THE WORLD
TIME: 7:30 PM
PRESS ARRIVAL: 7:00 PM
VENUE: GRAND PALACE HALL
PHILHARMONIA ORCHESTRA, LONDON
RADIO ROMANIA ACADEMIC CHOIR
SANTTU-MATIAS ROUVALI conductor
CIPRIAN ȚUȚU conductor of the choir
NEMANJA RADULOVIĆ violin (laureate of the George Enescu International Competition in 2001)
Program:
Bartók Dance Suite Sz. 77
Prokofiev Violin Concerto No. 2 in G minor Op. 63
Enescu Symphony No. 3 in C major Op. 21
In the 2020/21 season Santtu-Matias Rouvali has taken over as Principal Conductor of the Philharmonia Orchestra and will also continue as Chief Conductor of Gothenburg Symphony. Alongside these posts he retains his longstanding Chief Conductor position with Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra, close to his home in Finland. Starting the season on a high, Rouvali will give his highly anticipated debut at the BBC Proms with the Philharmonia Orchestra.
Ciprian Tutu’s conducting activity covers various artistic events, from opera performances to a cappella concerts as well as vocal-symphonic concerts, in the company of prestigious orchestras across the country (Brasov, Oradea, Cluj-Napoca, Bucharest) and abroad.
Winner of the 2015 Echo Klassik Award for Newcomer of the Year, Serbian-French violinist Nemanja Radulović has taken the classical music world by storm with his thrilling virtuosity, depth of expression, and adventurous programming, both in the recording studio and on the concert stage. An exclusive Deutsche Grammophon artist, his most recent album, Baïka, features his evocative interpretations of Khachaturian’s Violin Concerto as well as Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade, arranged for solo violin and chamber orchestra.
CREATIVE BUCHAREST
- Exhibition of photographs and unpublished documents about George Enescu and the Enescu Festival titled “Enescu. Genius and Festival. Face(t)s of Love” from September 1 to 26, 2021, at the Athenaeum and the Palace Hall. The exhibition is a joint project of the Enescu Festival, together with its official photographers Andrada Pavel, Catalina Filip, Andrei Gandac, and Alex Damian, the Diplomatic Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Enescu Museum.
- 7-episode film dedicated to the 2021 George Enescu International Festival, broadcast by TVR.
- 7-installment film titled Constantin Silvestri – Avant-gardist, master improviser, homme passionné, a 2021 UK production by Anda Anastasescu and Nicolas Gaster; installments: Prelude, Lead Soldiers, The Little Shepherd, Fireworks, Pictures at an Exhibition, Nocturne; program: Saturday, August 28 – Sunday, September 26, 2021.
- Mirrors of Brancusi
Program: Saturday, August 28 – Saturday, September 4, 2021
VENUE: GRAND PALACE HALL
FURTHER INFORMATION
PROGRAM, ARTISTS, NEWS: https://www.festivalenescu.ro/en/
DAILY AGENDA with interview, reviews, and additional information: https://bit.ly/3jneKsC
PRESS ACCESS: Concert access of accredited members of the press will be according to the accreditation forms. Accreditation is not required for any other events.
TVR VIDEOGRAPHY: Televisions may broadcast video excerpts from the link below, always citing the source (TVR), during their newsreels. It is not allowed to upload the excerpts to Facebook.
- ftp://newftp.tvr.ro/; username: enescu.tvr; password: b@sBx4Ui (please use FileZilla to open the files)
PHOTOGRAPHY AND VIDEOGRAPHY: All media may use photo and video images provided by the Enescu Festival via the following link: https://bit.ly/3DoPoCI. Kindly keep the credits visible for all photos.
