Ruth Leon recommends… World in Harmony – Enescu International Festival
Ruth Leon recommendsWorld in Harmony – Enescu International Festival
From its first edition in 1958 that saw such luminaries as Nadia Boulanger, Claudio Arrau, and Sir John Barbirolli in attendance, the George Enescu International Festival and Competition has regularly attracted the biggest names in classical music from all over the world to Bucharest (Yuja Wang calls it “a must” for every orchestra).
Enescu was a master of multiple instruments, teacher of Yehudi Menuhin and Ivry Gitlis, and renowned composer. He was a champion of contemporary music, and his legacy is reflected in the choice of works at the festival.
This documentary takes us backstage at the 2019 edition—the first to unfold internationally in cities outside of Bucharest, including Montreal, Berlin, and Florence—where Mitsuko Uchida, Evgeny Kissin, Fabio Luisi, Vladimir Jurowski, Elisabeth Leonskaja, and more of today’s most important musicians discuss Enescu and the festival that bears his name.
The Enescu Festival’s commitment to a utopian vision of music and education as forces for unity and peace is beautifully evoked by Joyce DiDonato : “[The festival] gives a chance to gather and have a communal experience around the great themes of life and the great themes of humanity… It’s a beautiful statement by a culture to say, ‘this is something we value, this is something that makes us better as a society and as a culture because it connects us to our humanity in a deep way.”
who cares that Yuja Wang recommends it when RUTH LEON RECOMMENDS…
I stopped using yelp. I gave up Consumer Reports. Who needs Amazon reviews…
who needs an ¡algorithm! when we have RUTH LEON RECOMMENDS…
Exactly and classical is today too much under the influence of Decca and DG concerning the new albums who sould be heard.
When we talking about George Enescu, I think about Mariss Jansons… One night at the Waldbühne when he conducted Roumanian Rhapsody. Unforgatable. It’s on Youtube. Of course, there’s also with another tempo, the one of Celibidache.
Actually, Celi is not slow at all. In fact, I would recommend this performance to those who generally dislike Celi’s music making; they will have second thoughts.
But the best version of the Romanian Rhapsodies is that of Constantin Silvestri conducting the Czech Philharmonic. By a wide margin. Silvestri’s own remake with the Vienna Phailharmonic is nowhere close.
Enescu is an absurdly, almost criminally, undervalued composer. All that people know of him are his Romanian Rhapsodies — lovely examples of Enescu at his most populist — but hardly anyone knows his magnificent chamber works, symphonies, concerted works, or his opera, Oedipe.
I doubt Yuja Wang can say it’s a must for every orchestra when the orchestras are “forced” to play in an old, communist hall, with zero accoustics (the hall is amplified with microphones). I was only once in attendance in Bucharest and it was the worst experience in a so-called concert hall ever, everybody seemed uncomfortable, on and off stage