George Enescu
George Enescu was a Romanian composer, violinist, conductor, and teacher, and a major Romanian classical musician. He began composing at the age of five. At seven, he was sent to study at the Vienna Conservatory, where he graduated with a silver medal, and he gave concerts in Vienna.
In 1895, Enescu moved to Paris and studied with Jules Massenet, Martin Marsick, and Gabriel Fauré; Guy Ropartz was a fellow student. He made his New York debut as a conductor in 1923. During the 1920s and 1930s he lived in Bucharest and Paris, and from 1946 he lived in Paris while continuing to perform as a violinist and conductor in Europe and the United States. He also performed in Moscow in 1909, 1919, and 1946. In 1932, he was elected a full member of the Romanian Academy.
Enescu performed with musicians including Béla Bartók, Eugène Ysaÿe, Clara Haskil, Pablo Casals, David Oistrakh, and Guiomar Novaes. His violin students included Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Grumiaux, Ginette Neveu, Christian Ferras, and Leon Surujon.
His works include five symphonies, three piano quartets, two string quartets, three violin sonatas, two cello sonatas, and vocal pieces setting poems by French Symbolists. He completed 33 opus-numbered works, while many others, including two symphonies, remained unfinished. His music developed from the influence of European Romanticism, including Schumann, Wagner, and Brahms, and later engaged with the work of Stravinsky and Prokofiev, Richard Strauss's operatic style, the Second Viennese School, neoclassicism, and neo-Baroque. Romanian folk music remained a consistent source of inspiration. His best-known works include the two Romanian Rhapsodies, composed in 1901 and 1902, and the opera Oedipe, written between 1910 and 1931.