Bacewicz • Enescu • Ysaÿe

Bacewicz: Concerto for String

Orchestra; Enescu: Octet for String Orchestra; Ysaÿe: Harmonies du Soir

Sinfonia of London/john Wilson Chandos CHSA5325 66:38 mins

Even in the context of Grażyna Bacewicz’s hugely striking output of music for strings, her Concerto for String Orchestra stands as one of this Polish composer’s major works. Dating from the fateful year of

1948, when Stalinism tightened its grip on music everywhere behind the Iron Curtain, the music treads a cleverly uncompromised path, saved perhaps by the accessibility of its neo-classicism. At its centre is a searing slow movement, rich and haunting, but the rest of the work crackles with energy, and the Sinfonia of London (at times divided into 17 parts) under John Wilson brings biting attack to a very polished performance.

No matter how good these strings sound, though, there is something less satisfying about their performance of Enescu’s Octet. Perhaps it was pragmatism that led the composer, late in life, to sanction performances of this masterpiece by string orchestras, but such an arrangement skews the music and detracts from the genius of a work really best heard as chamber music – expanding things for full orchestra undermines the point of the piece. Just as giving Beethoven’s Grosse Fuge to a string orchestra smooths things out, here one feels the loss of the striving energy that would be given off by only eight players.

Completing this album of works by composers who were also violin virtuosos, Eugène Ysaÿe’s

Harmonies du Soir makes a very welcome appearance (this long neglected work was not recorded until 2012), as well as a neat connection: idolised by Enescu, the Belgian returned the favour by dedicating one of his six solo violin sonatas to his younger Romanian colleague. Scored for string quartet and string orchestra, this highly perfumed music receives an exquisite performance.

John Allison

PERFORMANCE ★★★★

RECORDING ★★★★