GEORGE ENESCU (1881-1955)

COMPLETE WORKS FOR SOLO PIANO • 1

JOSU DE SOLAUN

“Discovering Enescu´s music was a personal landmark event in my personal biography. I felt, for the first time since discovering "the greats” in my childhood - Bach, Beethoven, Mozart - that I was in the presence of one of the most fascinating minds in the history of music. His work moved me deeply and has left a profound footprint in my consciousness: its infinite richness and multi-layered craftsmanship, its message of hope, the depth of its utterance. I will never be the same after it.”

– Josu De Solaun

Winner of the George Enescu International Piano Competition 2014

About this Recording

This first of three discs devoted to George Enescu’s piano music presents three significant pieces. Indebted to Romanian folk music and in three large sections, the ruminative yet striking Nocturne in D flat is a work of shifting sonorities and moods. The Pièces impromptues, Op. 18 are independent, unrelated character pieces that illuminate once again the composer’s fascination with the indigenous music of Romania. The Sonata No. 1 in F sharp minor, Op. 24, No. 1 is – by contrast – a massive statement characterised by harmonic surprises, innovative techniques, insistent rhythms and, in the final, slow movement, the doina, a type of Romanian song at once contemplative, nostalgic and melancholic.

JOSU DE SOLAUN

Pianist JOSU DE SOLAUN is a First Prize winner of the XIII George Enescu International Piano Competition in Bucharest (previous winners include the legendary pianists Radu Lupu and Elisabeth Leonskaja) and the XV José Iturbi International Piano Competition. He has been invited to perform in distinguished concert series throughout the world, having made notable appearances in Bucharest (Romanian Athenaeum), St Petersburg (Mariinsky Theatre), Washington DC (Kennedy Center), New York (Carnegie Hall, Metropolitan Opera), London (Southbank Centre), Paris (Salle Cortot), Mexico City (Sala Silvestre Revueltas), and all major cities of Spain.