George Enescu invitation Enesco New England Conservatory violin violinist

Description

Hello!
For sale I have an invitation to a reception given for violinist George Enescu (Georges Enesco) in Brown Hall at the New England Conservatory of Music in Boston.  Held Tuesday, March 26th, 1929, invited by Wallace Goodrich, Dean of the Faculty.  There's a bent corner and some writing on the back.  Excellent condition.  3.25 x 5.5 inches.  USPS Priority Mail insured.
I have been a professional violinist for 20 years. I currently teach violin at University of California, Berkeley, and play Concertmaster for the Sacramento Philharmonic and Opera. I've been buying and selling music memorabilia on eBay since it was invented and I've been buying antique art from European and American auction houses for a decade. All pieces for sale are guaranteed authentic and come from my personal collection, which numbers in the thousands.
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George Enescu
(
Romanian pronunciation:
[ˈd͡ʒe̯ord͡ʒe eˈnesku]
(
listen
)
19 August [
O.S.
7 August] 1881 – 4 May 1955), known in France as
Georges Enesco
, was a Romanian musician. Enescu is regarded as one of the greatest musicians in Romanian history; he was a composer, violinist, pianist,
conductor
, and teacher.
[1]
He is featured on the Romanian
five lei
.
Enescu was born in Romania, in the village of
Liveni
(later renamed "George Enescu" in his honor), then in
Dorohoi County
, today
Botoşani County
. His father was Costache Enescu, a landholder, and his mother was Maria Enescu (née Cosmovici, the daughter of an Orthodox priest). He was their eighth child, born after all the previous siblings died in infancy. His father later separated from Maria Enescu and had another son with Maria Ferdinand-Suschi, the painter
Dumitru Bâșcu
.
[2]
A
child prodigy
, Enescu began experimenting with composing at an early age. Several, mostly very short, pieces survive, all for violin and piano. The earliest work of significant length bears the title
Pămînt românesc
("Romanian Land"), and is inscribed "opus for piano and violin by George Enescu, Romanian composer, aged five years and a quarter".
[3]
Shortly thereafter, his father presented him to the professor and composer
Eduard Caudella
. On 5 October 1888, at the age of seven, he became the youngest student ever admitted to the
Vienna Conservatory
,
[4]
[5]
where he studied with
Joseph Hellmesberger Jr.
,
Robert Fuchs
, and
Sigismund Bachrich
. He was the second person ever admitted to this university by a dispensation of age (there was a regulation that stipulated that no person younger than 14 years could study at the Vienna Conservatory), after only
Fritz Kreisler
(in 1882, also at the age of seven), and the first non-Austrian.
[6]
In 1891, the ten-year-old Enescu gave a private concert at the
Court of Vienna
, in the presence of
Emperor Franz Joseph
.
[7]
Joseph Hellmesberger Sr.
, one of his teachers and the director of the Vienna Conservatory, hosted Enescu at his home,
[
when?
]
where the child prodigy met his idol,
Johannes Brahms
.
He graduated at the age of 12, earning the silver medal. In his Viennese concerts young Enescu played works by
Brahms
,
Sarasate
and
Mendelssohn
. In 1895, he went to Paris to continue his studies. He studied violin with
Martin Pierre Marsick
, harmony with
André Gedalge
, and composition with
Jules Massenet
and
Gabriel Fauré
.
[
citation needed
]
Enescu then studied from 1895 to 1899 at the
Conservatoire de Paris
. André Gedalge said that he was "the only one [among his students] who truly had ideas and spirit".
[
This quote needs a citation
]
On 6 February 1898, at the age of 16, Enescu presented in Paris his first mature work,
Poema Română
, played by the
Colonne Orchestra
, then one of the most prestigious in the world, and conducted by
Édouard Colonne
.
[9]
Many of Enescu's works were influenced by Romanian folk music, his most popular compositions being the two
Romanian Rhapsodies
(1901–02), the opera
Œdipe
(1936), and the suites for orchestra.
[
citation needed
]
He also wrote five symphonies (two of them unfinished), a
symphonic poem
Vox maris
, and much chamber music (three sonatas for violin and piano, two for cello and piano, a piano trio, two string quartets and two piano quartets, a wind
decet
(French, "dixtuor"), an
octet for strings
, a piano quintet, and a chamber symphony for twelve solo instruments). A young
Ravi Shankar
recalled in the 1960s how Enescu, who had developed a deep interest in Oriental music, rehearsed with Shankar's brother
Uday Shankar
and his musicians. Around the same time, Enescu took the young
Yehudi Menuhin
to the
Colonial Exhibition in Paris
, where he introduced him to the
Gamelan
Orchestra from
Indonesia
.
On 8 January 1923 he made his American debut as a conductor in a concert given by the
Philadelphia Orchestra
at
Carnegie Hall
in New York City, and subsequently visited the United States many times. It was in America, in the 1920s, that Enescu was first persuaded to make recordings as a violinist. He also appeared as a conductor with many American orchestras and, in 1936, was one of the candidates considered to replace
Arturo Toscanini
as permanent conductor of the New York Philharmonic.
[11]
In 1932, Enescu was elected a titular member of the
Romanian Academy
.
[12]
In 1935, he conducted the
Orchestre Symphonique de Paris
and Yehudi Menuhin (who had been his pupil for several years starting in 1927) in Mozart's Violin Concerto No. 3 in G major. He also conducted the
New York Philharmonic
between 1937 and 1938. In 1939, he married
Maria Tescanu Rosetti
(known as Princess Maruca Cantacuzino through her first husband Mihail Cantacuzino), a good friend of Queen Marie of Romania. While staying in Bucharest, Enescu lived in the
Cantacuzino Palace
on
Calea Victoriei
(now the
George Enescu Museum
, dedicated to his work).
[
citation needed
]
He lived in Paris and in Romania, but after
World War II
and the
Soviet occupation of Romania
, he remained in Paris.
[
citation needed
]
He was also a noted violin teacher. Yehudi Menuhin,
Christian Ferras
,
Ivry Gitlis
,
Arthur Grumiaux
,
Serge Blanc
,
Ida Haendel
,
Uto Ughi
and
Joan Field
were among his pupils. See:
List of music students by teacher: C to F#George Enescu
.
He promoted contemporary Romanian music, playing works of
Constantin Silvestri
,
Mihail Jora
,
Jonel Perlea
and Marţian Negrea.
[
citation needed
]
Enescu considered Bach's
Sonatas and Partitas for solo violin
as the "Himalayas of violinists". An annotated version of this work brings together the indications of Enescu regarding sonority, phrasing, tempos, musicality, fingering and expression.
[13]
On his death in 1955, George Enescu was interred in
Père Lachaise Cemetery
in Paris.
Today, Bucharest houses a
museum
in the Cantacuzino Palace in Bucharest in his memory; his house in Dorohoi is also open to the public; likewise, the
Symphony Orchestra of Bucharest
and the
George Enescu Festival
—founded by his friend, musical advocate, and sometime collaborator, the conductor
George Georgescu
[14]
—are named and held in his honor. Recently,
Bacău International Airport
was named George Enescu International Airport.
Pablo Casals
described Enescu as "the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart"
[16]
and "one of the greatest geniuses of
modern music
".
[17]
Queen Marie of Romania
wrote in her memoirs that "in George Enescu was real gold".
[18]
Yehudi Menuhin, Enescu's most famous pupil, once said about his teacher: "He will remain for me the absoluteness through which I judge others", and "Enescu gave me the light that has guided my entire existence."
[19]
He also considered Enescu "the most extraordinary human being, the greatest musician and the most formative influence" he had ever experienced.
[20]
Vincent d'Indy
claimed that if
Beethoven
's works were destroyed, they could be all reconstructed from memory by George Enescu.
[21]
Alfred Cortot
, one of the greatest pianists of all time, once said that Enescu, though primarily a violinist, had better piano technique than his own.
[22]
[23]
Enescu's only opera,
Œdipe
(Oedipe), was staged for the first time at the
Royal Opera House
in London in 2016, 80 years after its Paris premiere, in a production directed and designed by
La Fura dels Baus
which received superlative reviews in
The Guardian
,
[24]
The Independent
,
[25]
The Times
[26]
and other publications. An analysis of Enescu's work and the reasons why it is less known in the UK was published by musician Dominic Saunders in
The Guardian
.
[27]
Near Moinesti there is a mansion from
Tescani
, donated by Enescu's wife to the Romanian state, provided that a cultural centre be built there. In Liveni is the house where the composer grew up. There is a George Enescu memorial house in Sinaia (Villa Luminiş, Cumpatul neighborhood). In the mansion in Tescani, Bacău (the "Rosetti-Tescanu Cultural Center"), the Romanian state opened a creative center in the 80s, where literary works were composed (Jurnalul de la Tescani, Andrei Plesu) during annual painting and philosophy camps.
Enescu's maternal grandfather's house in Mihăileni, where Enescu spent part of his childhood, declined to an advanced state of deterioration by 2014. In August 2014 it was rescued from demolition by a team of volunteer architects.
Eugène Ysaÿe
's
Solo Violin Sonata No. 3 "Ballade"
was dedicated to Enescu.