Abstract

In a draft from 1935 of Enesco's Second Sonata for Piano and Cello, on one of the pages of the first movement, there is an unexpected notation: a transcription by Enesco of a country melody - a “hora lungă” (long song) from Bartók's collection, Volksmusik der Rumänen von Maramureş (Munich, 1923). The piece copied by Enesco is that of no. 23 e from the aforementioned collection. Right near this excerpt, Enesco inserts a quick sketch, written on a single staff, of the third movement from the sonata, Andantino cantabile senza lentezza. The close vicinity of the two notations is not random. Certain correspondences between the folk melody and the cello solo that opens the slow movement of the sonata are established at the level of some generative patterns that are actualized differently in the two melodic texts. A structural parallel can be traced between two piano pieces written, respectively, by Enesco and Bartók: Carillon nocturne - the last of the seven Pièces impromptus op. 18 (1916) written by the Romanian composer and piece no. VII (“à la mémoire de Debussy”) from. Bartók's cycle Improvisations sur des chansons paysannes op. 20 (1920). The analogy regards especially the harmonic language of the two pieces. The particular characteristics of this harmonic writing place the two compositions in the common realm of a post-Debussy modernity

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