LDV97

16 CHAUSSON ∙ RAVEL ∙ ENESCU The Caprice roumain is a special case in Enescu’s output: he worked on it for many years, but never finished the score. It was the composer Cornel Țăranu who completed the manuscript in the 1990s after it was discovered in the archives of the Enescu Museum in Bucharest. Why did you choose this work? It’s a splendid piece of music. The first time I played it, I immediately wanted to record it. Although it was completed by Cornel Țăranu, who did a remarkable job, one senses the inspiration and the soul of Enescu throughout. Țăranu has devoted a considerable part of his activity to unearthing and completing works by Enescu (the oratorio Strigoii [Ghosts], the Fifth Symphony). Enescu must have been very fond of this piece, since he worked on it between 1925 and 1949. So there was no shortage of sketches, and one movement even existed in three different versions! There were twenty pages perfectly orchestrated in ink. Țăranu managed to orchestrate the second and third movements without too much difficulty because the music was already composed. The major problem came with the fourth movement, which was incomplete. The violinist Sherban Lupu, who was the soloist at the premiere, admirably describes the importance of this work produced by two composers: ‘ Caprice roumain is essentially an apotheosis of the portrait of the Romanian fiddler, a celebration of his art and soul; it is an invaluable living document of great violinistic complexity and technical virtuosity which also celebrates the richness of expressive resources so characteristic of nineteenth- century Romanian fiddlers.’