Enescu performs Enescu: Glissandi in the Sonata op. 25 'dans le caractere populaire Roumain'

Performers and scholars regard G. Enescu’s Sonata op. 25 for violin and piano »dans le caractère populaire roumain« as one of the composer’s most important works. Previous research has explored the history, the musical form, and the style of the Sonata from diverse perspectives. From a performative approach, the extensive use of different types of glissandi is one of the most salient elements that strikes the contemporary violin player when facing this work. This aspect introduces in Enescu’s meta-folkloric idiom a characteristic trait of the Romanian lăutar style(s) of violin playing. However, the varied expressive use of glissandi has become a secondary element within contemporary schools and violin playing styles. The author takes Enescu’s own 1943 and 1949 recordings of the Sonata as enacted musical statements of the composer’s intentions to analyze the Romanian’s playing and articulate a theory of his expressive use of glissando.