Sonate pentru Violoncel

George Enescu's opus 26, comprising his two Sonate pentru Violoncel şi Pian (sonatas for cello and piano) were issued for publication together but written years apart, the first dating back to 1898, when he was still a teenager; and the second from 1935. The earlier work "shows obvious influence" the CD booklet notes tell me "from both Massenet and Fauré, as well as Saint-Saëns and - especially - Brahms." It's happened several times that I've read of such-and-such a composer being influenced by Brahms, which typically leads me to wonder why it is I enjoy the music of such-and-such while deriving no such pleasure from Brahms'.

The first sonata, with those conventional Romantic ingredients, is a piece I find a good deal easier to apprehend & appreciate than the slipperier second. I end up feeling as if I'm too inexpert a listener to grasp many of the niceties of Enescu's mature style. Having said that, some parts of the later sonata do hit the spot for me, such as the plaintive cello line in the opening andante cantabile part of its third movement.

I bought this disc second-hand last year from an on-line vendor. It's a late '90s release from the Romanian 'Electrecord' label - which was the official state-run label during the Communist era. The perfomers are Cătălin Ilea on cello with Nicolae Licareţ at the piano: I'm not otherwise acquainted with their playing, but they acquit themselves admirably well in these works, which are well-recorded too.

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