GEORGE ENESCU (1881-1955): Symphony No. 4 in E Minor, Chamber Symphony, Op. 33, Nuages d’Automne sur les Forêts.

Description: World Premiere Recording of the other unfinished Enescu symphony! In this case, it was complete but only orchestrated through the first movement and a few bars of the second. Dating from 1934, it has much of the darkness of the political times about it, its extensive first movement passionate and troubled, rising to a glowering climax and the slow movement often has the feel of a bad dream to it, even a touch of what would come to be known as Shostakovichian irony. The final movement is brash and forward moving but can’t quite shake the unease that clings to the whole 35-minute work. Quite unfinished is the eight-minute Nuages (it ends in mid-bar), originally meant to be part of a triptych of which only Vox maris was completed; this is a sepia-toned, quasi-impressionistic piece whose “Autumn in the Forests” may be as much psychological as physical. North German Radio Philharmonic Hannover; Peter Ruzicka.