One wouldn't normally associate Georges Enescu with the fin de siecle, and yet the String Octet of 1900 presents a vertiginous profile which was very much 'of the period'. Odd to relate, too, that the work is an almost exact contemporary of Schoenberg's Verklarte Nacht (1899 – Enescu's Octet was some 18 months in the making), although it is highly unlikely that either composer influenced the other, at least not at this stage in their respective careers. There's a further parallel in that both Schoenberg and Enescu were greatly influenced by Brahms. The Octet's first movement opens to a pulsating accompaniment and a rich community of interconnected melodic ideas, all of them earnestly argued. The Verklarte Nacht axis strikes home with particular force at 8'44'' and then again at 1'33'' into the second movement, a leaping Tres fougueux replete with Regerian-style modulations and an ethnic slant to the melodies (noticeable throughout the work). Beyond a warm-textured Lentement, Enescu rounds things off with a contrapuntally hyperactive Mouvement de valse bien rythmee.
Horia Andreescu – conductor of Olympia's ongoing Enescu orchestral music series – directs an ardent, sweetly-voiced performance, while his equally adept leadership of the Wind Decet (1906) makes a strong case for an even stronger work. Here Enescu's more assured style, tighter structures and luminous instrumentation make for a delightful 23 minutes' listening. Of particular interest is the Moderement second movement, which opens and closes with a plangent, sensitively embellished folk-style melody and switches half-way to a perky second set that recalls the roughly contemporaneous Romanian Rhapsodies.
Although the Decet strikes me as the more durable piece, both works should give considerable pleasure to lovers of late-romantic chamber music. The recordings are more than serviceable, although in the Octet some string lines are prone to edginess. Robert Matthew-Walker provides useful annotation.'