page_title: Symphony No. 5 (Enescu)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Symphony No. 5 (Enescu) / History
caption_attribution_description: Română: casa memoriala G. Enescu de la Cumpatu
context_page_description: Symphony No. 5, in D major is a large-scale composition for orchestra, tenor soloist, and female choir by the Romanian composer George Enescu, using a text by the Romanian poet Mihai Eminescu. Drafted in 1941 and partially orchestrated at some later date, the symphony was left unfinished at Enescu's death, but has been completed posthumously, first partially by Cornel Țăranu in 1970–72 and 1990, then in complete form by Pascal Bentoiu in 1995.
context_section_description: Although the ideas in it had doubtless been gestating for some time, Enescu began writing the Fifth Symphony during his annual summer break at his villa, Luminiș, in Sinaia in 1941, completing the entire draft in a span of something less than one month. The starting date is unknown, but Enescu might have been prompted to begin the symphony by the outbreak of war in Romania on 22 June. The first movement is dated 1 July in the manuscript and the second movement 8 July. The third movement is undated, but the fourth and final movement of the draft was completed on 19 July. For reasons that are not entirely clear, but must have had something to do with the war, Enescu broke off work at this point (Țăranu 1973, 22). At some later date (perhaps in Romania before September 1946, or later, in Paris), Enescu set about the orchestration, completing twenty-five pages (about two-thirds) of the first movement, up to a culminating chord in the fifth bar of the recapitulation (Bentoiu 2010, 530–32).
  The first movement of the Symphony, in the completion by Cornel Țăranu, was premiered at the Cluj Musical Autumn in 1972 under the baton of Emil Simon. Encouraged by its reception, Țăranu set about the more difficult task of completing the rest (Țăranu 1973, 22). After finishing a piano-score version, he orchestrated the finale, which was first presented together with the first movement at the Enescu Festival of 1991 in Bucharest, performed by the George Enescu Philharmonic Orchestra under Cristian Mandeal (Bentoiu 2010, 529). Although Țăranu had hoped to complete the orchestration of the other two movements as well, he was prevented from doing so and asked Pascal Bentoiu to undertake the task. Realizing that the orchestrational integrity of the whole would otherwise suffer, Bentoiu (with Țăranu's agreement) reworked the entire finale as well as the unfinished third of the first movement, and the completed symphony was finally premiered in Bucharest by the Romanian National Orchestra and Radio Choir, with Florin Diaconescu, tenor soloist, conducted by Horia Andreescu, on the opening concert of the 1996–97 season (Bentoiu 2010, 530).
caption: Luminiș, Enescu's villa near Sinaia, where he composed the Fifth Symphony
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