About this event
Enescu – Octet for Strings in C major, Op.7
George Enescu (1881–1955) was a Romanian composer, violinist, conductor and teacher. His father was a landholder and his mother the daughter of an Orthodox priest. He was the eighth child of his parents’, and the only child out of twelve to survive infancy.
Enescu was a musical prodigy. He started the violin aged 4 and composition aged 5. He was admitted to the Vienna Conservatory at 7 years old, becoming the youngest ever student. Then, when he was 13, he graduated and subsequently spent 4 years at the Paris Conservatoire. His first mature composition was premiered when he was only 16.
Enescu was only 19 at the time of writing this monumental work, the Octet in C major Op.7. It has nine compositional themes woven throughout the piece, and four movements, but the work is to be played as one entity. Enescu set out to make the four movements flow from one to the next continuously to feel like the first movement of an epic symphony in sonata form.
I. Très modéré
II. Même temps (pause)
III. Très fougueux – moins vite – 1er mouvement – moins vite – Lentement – Plus animé
IV. Mouvement de valse bien rythmée
Even for a prodigy like Enescu, though, this Octet was a challenging composition to write. Enescu himself wrote: “I wore myself out trying to make work a piece of music divided into four segments of such length that each of them was likely at any moment to break. An engineer launching his first suspension bridge over a river, could not feel more anxiety than I felt when I set out to darken my paper.” (Gavoty, 1955)
The challenge for the composer is matched by the difficulty of the music for the players. The work was composed in 1900, but the first performance was cancelled after five rehearsals on the grounds that it was too risky to perform live. The work wasn’t published until 1905 and the premiere finally took place almost a decade after it’s conception, in 1909.
At this concert audience members will have the opportunity to explore George Enescu’s Octet for Strings in C major Op.7.
Concert 8.00pm; Doors open 7.30pm; Approx. End Time: 9.00pm
Tickets: £12 Concessions: £10 for under 30s
Musicians
Violin 1 – Madeleine Pickering
Violin 2 – Emily Turkanik
Violin 3 – Raphael Papo
Violin 4 – Zea Hunt
Viola 1 – Connie Pharoah
Viola 2 – Toby Cook
Cello 1 – Kieran Carter
Cello 2 – Toby White
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