Oedipe

[underthecountertenor]

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned this, given that it has now finished a 6 performance run at the ROH and was broadcast live on R3 on Saturday.
I was at the first and last nights. I know the opera vaguely from the EMI recording, but had never thought I'd be lucky enough to see it staged. 10 years ago I would have laid money on ENO giving it a first London staging rather than ROH. It says a lot about the development (or otherwise) of both companies since then that ROH has done it.
And done it proud. Superbly cast (Johan Reuter deserves every gong going for his magnificent, tireless performance in the title role, but the rest of the cast made everything of their respective smaller roles - Sarah Connolly refulgent as Jocasta, John Tomlinson suitably raging as Tiresias, Sophie Bevan a touching Antigone to name invidiously but three); and the production was stunning. Chorus and orchestra were unsurprisingly a little nervy in places on opening night - this is very unfamiliar territory - but still gave a convincing account. Last night everything was in place and the piece pinned me to the back of my seat throughout.
Strange, wonderful, often chilling music (ok, another mention for Marie-Nicole Lemieux's weird and wonderful Sphinx). At times one might think one was listening to Debussy, Ravel or even (I think) Vaughan Williams. But at the same time the voice is wholly individual, with a distinctively Eastern European inflexion.
If you haven't heard it, it's well worth trying out on the iplayer. A shame the riveting production wasn't filmed (I think it was filmed in its original incarnation at La Monnaie, but this cast seemed pretty much unbeatable). Perhaps a BBC/ROH recording will be forthcoming. One can but dream. And dream also of a revival - the run sold out in the end with the aid of some generous discounts from the already lower than average headline prices, and perhaps also off the back of some very positive reviews.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

An annoying post, utc - a friend of mine offered me a ticket to see this, at a time when I was away in Edinburgh! I would really have loved to have seen it - glad to see that it lived up to your hopes.

[underthecountertenor]

Sorry about that, ferney! Perhaps someone will come on to cheer you up by disagreeing with me entirely

[Frances_iom]

I too was initially surprised by complete lack of comment but realised that this forum like R3 has changed - just look at the topics that now attract attention - like you I was at the first night and came away very impressed both with the voices, music and the unexpected tho mostly quite effective production - deserves a much better place in the repertoire.

[pastoralguy]

I'd always had a feeling that Enescu's time has yet to come. I think he's unfortunate in that the bulk of his work is overshadowed by he ubiquitous 'Roman Rhapsody' which, as Yehudu Menuhin pointed out 'isn't very typical of his output'.
His violin music does get an occasional outing but he wrote a lot of music which isn't well known.

[VodkaDilc]

It was simply not my cup of tea - and I've usually got very wide tastes. Stravinsky did it all so much better - and more concisely. I don't want to get into a Forumesque argument over it. I know many people would love it. It's a long time since I have gone home after the first half of a production - but last night the 9.10 train was more than I could resist.

[edashtav]

I logged on yesterday after an absence from these boards of some months caused by family illness because I wanted to hear what people had made of the complete radio broadcast. I was shocked to the core and greatly saddened to find not a word about Oedipe because I felt that the score was a fine achievement from one of the finest musical minds of the 20th century. I turned away not in disgust but in disappointment yet feeling that, in my present poor health, I could summon neither energy nor focus to initiate a thread on my own. So, imagine my relief and exhilaration upon returning today to find underthecounter has done the donkey work and opened discussion.

I listened with rapt attention to the whole of the R3. broadcast live and I do endorse the very positive comments made by underthecounter about the production and the fine singing of its cast. Works that are not top-drawer need powerful advocates. Oedipe was performed ( and apparently staged) with guile, craft and imagination. It's not a masterpiece and it's a difficult and poly-stylistic score, so we can't expect to hear many productions in our lifetimes. I suspect that few will outshine this production. The leading protagonists all produced highly characterful performances full of insight and authority. Conductor and orchestra worked tirelessly.

I was not always convinced by the chorus(es) on the night that was broadcast. But... Enescu gave them such darned hard stuff to sing. The work, as a whole, has relatively few big, chunky moments, although they are glorious when they do obtrude. So, much of the choral work is stuffed with intricate polyphony. Every line matters but each has to be both confident and yet balanced within a greater whole. Sometimes, individual choral lines became tentative and the whole subsided into a grey welter of undifferentiated notes.

What is masterly is the "book". Enescu's librettist succeeded brilliantly on two fronts: in compressing the main Greek myths and, thrillingly, in providing Oedipus's back story that make him a creditable man full of humanity and, maybe, even goodness, but a man whose virtuous intentions are undermined by unavoidable destiny. How many operas tell a better story or one so full of concision and power?

Enescu is not a good tunesmith. I fear that his formidable intellect allowed him to seize on the potential of almost any musical motif that popped into his head. Every idea is exploited by Enescu to the hilt, but that doesn't make, always, for pregnant or memorable music. His music grows on you with acquaintance but it doesn't seize you by the throat and shriek "masterpiece" or "Gosh, that's so novel". Enescu's greatest successes are with something borrowed - Roumanian folk music, for instance (hence the success of the Rhapsodies, the Suite Villageoises, the Impressions d' Enfances and his 3rd Violin Sonata). You have to be long-suffering to get the best out of Enescu. I feel somewhat the same when I'm settling down to hear a major piece by Sorabji, and sometimes the same can be said of some pieces by Enescu's near contemporary, Charles Koechlin.

Enescu's so Brahmsian 1st Symphony made a great impression on me when I first heard it played with huge panache by my "home" orchestra in Bournemouth under that mercurial genius, Constantin Silvestri. Since then, I've taken every opportunity to broaden my knowledge of Enescu's music. Hearing Oedipe played and sung so well, represented almost a final piece in my aural jigsaw of Enescu, the composer. If I think that Enescu's true greatness lay elsewhere, that's not to deny him a place as an important historical figure. Perhaps, like Oedipe, Georges was a flawed figure, an almost God-like human replete with every musical virtue and possibility yet denied by destiny when it came to composing the works his genius seemed to predict. Less gifted composers achieved more.

[Pulcinella]

I don't know (and didn't listen to) Oedipe, but can I put in another plug for the Dixtuor, available on this fine Naxos release:

http://www.prestoclassical.co.uk/r/Naxos/8554173

[Cockney Sparrow]

Oh Dear, I had to pass on my (cheap) ticket for Oedipe because it clashed with holiday dates (poor organisation on my part). I wondered whether to try to get a day ticket, but yesterday was the last performance, so n chance to see this rarely performed piece...

And while I'm at it, I'm sure there will be many comments of "welcome back" to Edashtav, so I'll add mine now.....

[Richard Barrett]

Thanks edashtav for that thoughtful and informative post. I don't know Enescu's work at all, and have never really thought of getting to know it, although I'm always interested in music that takes Greek tragedy as its starting point which was why I thought I'd take a look at this thread. I find your comparisons interesting too, with other composers for whose work the listener needs to be "long-suffering" - I don't feel that way about Koechlin's orchestral music because for me it makes such a fascinating and elusive sound, but whenever I've listened to his chamber music I've wondered what was so interesting to him about the material that it needed to have a composition made out of it. As for "less gifted composers", surely two important parts of "giftedness" are precisely the compulsive vision and the self-critical faculty to focus on it which (if I understand you) you're missing in Enescu.

[edashtav]

Thanks edashtav for that thoughtful and informative post. I don't know Enescu's work at all, and have never really thought of getting to know it, although I'm always interested in music that takes Greek tragedy as its starting point which was why I thought I'd take a look at this thread. I find your comparisons interesting too, with other composers for whose work the listener needs to be "long-suffering" - I don't feel that way about Koechlin's orchestral music because for me it makes such a fascinating and elusive sound, but whenever I've listened to his chamber music I've wondered what was so interesting to him about the material that it needed to have a composition made out of it. As for "less gifted composers", surely two important parts of "giftedness" are precisely the compulsive vision and the self-critical faculty to focus on it which (if I understand you) you're missing in Enescu.

You're a sharp-shooter, Richard, and your final thought is a pearl of wisdom!

Full marks, too, for scoring Koechlin's chamber music more lowly than his often gorgeous orchestral works.
[ "fascinating and elusive"! ]
Sometimes, a lack of complexity of texture reveals the fundamental absence of compositional profundity, too, don't you think?

[Richard Barrett]

Sometimes, a lack of complexity of texture reveals the fundamental absence of compositional profundity, too, don't you think?

Sometimes. But complexity comes in many shapes... and sometimes what seems like complexity is actually just a proliferation of "stuff", I mean in distinction from internal differentiation and interrelatedness.

I'm going to have to listen to some Enescu now, otherwise I won't have anything more to say on this thread!

[David-G]

I am very glad to read such praise for Oedipe at the ROH. Unfortunately I was abroad - the dates were fixed by a 90th birthday celebration, and so I unavoidably had to miss Oedipe. At least somebody benefitted from my ticket; and I understand that she enjoyed it very much.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Still available for the next three weeks or so - the Music begins after 20mins of chatter:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07dk7l0

[jayne lee wilson]

You're a sharp-shooter, Richard, and your final thought is a pearl of wisdom!

Full marks, too, for scoring Koechlin's chamber music more lowly than his often gorgeous orchestral works.
[ "fascinating and elusive"! ]
Sometimes, a lack of complexity of texture reveals the fundamental absence of compositional profundity, too, don't you think?

Greetings, Ed! Lovely to meet you here again....

I almost wish this hadn't come up, with a shelf-full of Enesco Orchestrals to peer at... but do not worry...no time just now for some grand overview.
I do think he has at least one out-and-out masterpiece to compel your attention: the 40-minute, continuous-play Octet, Op.7. Having listened to it often in its orchestral guise as well, I'd say it only really works for the Octet itself. Precious few recordings though (perhaps none of them ideal)... I prefer the Mandeal/Arte Nova to the ASMF/Chandos...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Enescu-Octet-Decet-George/dp/B000023ZLX/ref=sr_1_3?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1465606474&sr=1-3&keywords=enescu+octet

The Kremerata Baltica/Nonesuch string-orchestral version looks promising of course, but though beautifully played & recorded, in practice still sounds too bigboned and richly textured, to these ears. ( I'll probably play it again later now and change my mind...)...

For the Suites I would seek out Andreescu via Electrecord or Olympia (right palette, accent and idiomatic rhythms) or the less-subtly played, more explicitly recorded Mandeal (Arte Nova)(***), for the Symphonies 2&3 it would be Andreescu, the better-sounding (more clarified but more "objective") Monte Carlo PO/Foster (EMI) or best of all the recent hi-res versions from the Tampere Phil/Hannu Lintu (Ondine, or "2xHD" - audiophile sound-to-die-for). At least, if you're better at sticking with them (the post-Straussian 2nd is quite a challenge to patience, persistence, or perhaps just....endurance) than I often am. Still, make it through to the extraordinary final pages of No.3, you may discover an original vision, a transcendent sublimity of sound and mood, that at last rewards your mazy, often baffling, journey.

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=enescu+ondine&i=boutique

(***) if seeking these out, get the original whitefronted ones with Surrealist artwork like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Orchestral-...escu+arte+nova - I found later Arte Nova reissues of them veiled and "processed" sounding...and swiftly sent them back.
I must say though - this handy collection is a bit uneven in sound and musical qualities.... better for the Suites than the Symphonies (sensuous textures of 2 and 3 do need audiophile refinements), but, despite some sonic coarseness or bluntness I did enjoy most of it back in the day. It got me going at least...

* * *

Edit! I KNEW I'd regret getting into this. I've left the most significant newer issues out ... So, the Symphonies 4&5 here -

http://www.qobuz.com/gb-en/search?q=enescu+cpo&i=boutique

...are two of the most fascinating orchestral releases of the last few years. Both 4 (1935) & 5 (1941), complete in sketch form but with various degrees of instrumentation or expressive/dynamic markings, were substantially orchestrated by Pascal Bentoiu (composer, musicologist & Enescu doyen - true labour of love & it sounds like it). They strike me as musically superior to the earlier three, in musical cogency and melodic inspiration; they have a better focus, both structurally and emotionally, to their marvellously strange, & varied expressions. They could only be Enescu (despite much editorial intervention) and make you wonder what he might have achieved ...if only.
The album with No.5 includes Isis, another masterwork of astoundingly original, gallic-coloristic sensuousness (precedents? Perhaps Debussy's Saint-Sébastien, Szymanowski 3rd), to partner the gorgeously dreamlike Vox Maris Op.31...(these works all use wordless chorus as an atmospheric orchestral instrument, a feature going back at least to the 3rd Symphony's finale.)

So there you are, there are THREE masterpieces after all : Octet Op.7, Vox Maris Op.31, Isis (Op. posthumous 1923/1999, orch. Bentoiu)...
(but like I said, you'll get no grand overview from me ...
as for Oedipe... I just don't do Opera, sorry...)