Raluca Stirbat: Go-BetweenGramolaThe Bucharest intelligentsia used to imagine they lived in an outer suburb of Paris, so aspirational was French influence in their Romanesque corner of Europe. In this bilateral recital, an exceptional Romanian pianist performs delicate Gallic sets by César Franck and Claude Debussy before applying heavy French polish, with a dash of added fire, to her own national heroes.The Pièces Impromptus by Georges Enescu date from 1946, the last summer he spent in his homeland before escaping into French exile. Wondrously melodic, they ripple with mutually antagonistic rhythms and underlying tensions, possibly a reflection of his inner turmoil. Enecus stands head and shoulders in influence above all Rumanian composers. Stirbat, who recently campaigned to save his childhood home from demolition plays his pieces with the greatest empathy.The composer Mihail Jora was found dying by Enescu in a military hospital during the First World War and literally played back to life by his mentor. His Joujoux suite (1925) has something of Debussy’s childhood pieces about it. Finally, Stirbat gives us Bartok’s Rumanian Folk Dances, a masterwork of musical anthropology played with limitless zest in a truly refreshing album.___Norman Lebrecht is a regular presenter on BBC Radio 3 and a contributor to the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg and other publications. He has written 12 books about music, the most recent being Why Mahler? He hosts the blog Slipped Disc.
