Talk:Octet (Enescu)

Form

interesting- as a revival of the Liszt B-minor principle, it precedes the other examples I know of (for instance the two from a few years later by Schoenberg, for example, though after that there seem to have been a number of other chamber works that at least might be interpreted so- e.g. Suk's 2nd string quartet Op.31 of 1910-11, maybe Zemlinsky's 2nd of a couple of years later, maybe Rudolf Karel's 2nd from around the same time...) Schissel | Sound the Note! 11:13, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

I presume you are thinking that it might be useful to place the Octet in a larger historical context by mentioning Liszt as a predecessor, and then discuss the intensive interest in this sort of thing that developed just a few years after Enescu's composition. Like everything on Wikipedia this will of course require reliable sources, but it is a good idea and I shall see what I can come up with.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 23:20, 4 April 2015 (UTC)

It was easy enough to find a source for the precedents—it was already cited in the text, and only needed expansion. Finding a source discussing Enescu's Octet as a predecessor of the slightly later works by Suk, Zemlinsky, Karel, and Schoenberg may be a little more difficult, especially as they most likely are seen as having built their ideas on the earlier works of Berlioz, LIszt, and Schumann.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 06:52, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

One aside- the "Liszt B-minor sonata principle" should be distinguished from those precisely since no work (... that I'm aware of) by Berlioz or Beethoven has the double structure quality that Liszt's B minor piano sonata does. It's not cyclic thinking that I'm referring to here, but double structure (a work that can be viewed as a cyclic multi-movement-without-breaks work (though with a little fudging, since the movements are "open", not closed, tonally) on similar themes, or as a one-movement large sonata form. The structure of the Suk quartet's a bit more complicated than the others (outline here), but still might generally fit.) What I'm not as positive of, is whether the Enesco octet also falls within the double-structure scheme instead of merely being cyclic (many works are cyclic, especially weakly cyclic in the sense of having at least some recall of themes; even very, very very strongly cyclic works like Vagn Holmboe's metamorphic works are - except maybe for his 7th symphony, some others? - not relevant to this particular discussion :) ) , very few have "double structure"), as Bentoiu claims- alas- need to listen again, no punishment that (I adore the work but it has been a little while.) However I don't think he's claiming that the Enesco influenced the works by Schoenberg, Suk, Zemlinsky, etc., just that chronologically it preceded them and that they were all influenced by Liszt (very little doubt of this part; as Walker (1989) points out, Dohnanyi was teaching this analysis of Liszt's B minor piano sonata to his pupils in the early 20th century, and I expect it was known earlier still.) Schissel | Sound the Note! 10:15, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

"The most likely model for Enescu's organization of the Octet is the latter's Piano Concerto in E♭ major (1855) which... pursues the outline of a sonata form throughout its four movements"

Yes, but not, IIRC one in which the four sections also really do function as individual, if tonally open (necessarily, as per the essence of a real sonata form, an exposition needing to close somewhere other than where it began), individual movements- so not "more than [his] B minor sonata", pace Bentoiu, but with rather less of a "double structure" of the sort I thought he thought he was finding. Well, if the piano concerto no.1 is closer to his analogy than the B minor, then I really did misunderstand Bentoiu; my mistake and much ado about nothing, thought he was making a much larger and more interesting claim than he was. Schissel | Sound the Note! 10:24, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

I believe the article's current wording accurately represents both Enescu's own claim of the "double structure" of the Octet and Bentoiu's conjectures about possible influences. If you disagree, then of course you should amend the article. Bentoiu does not mention any later examples from other composers of this kind of structure, though of course they famously exist. Whether any of them were influenced by Enescu's Octet is another question, and it seems unlikely that Schoenberg (for example) could even have heard of the Octet before composing his First Chamber Symphony, since Enescu's work was not performed until after Schoenberg completed his score in 1909. I think the main point that Bentoiu makes is that cyclic thematic treatment and its logical extension to this "double structure" is something that was of growing interest to many composers throughout the 19th century. I cannot tell whether you have his book in front of you, but as to Liszt's First Concerto, Bentoiou's exact words are:

Without insisting on the enormous expressive transformations inflicted upon the themes of his symphonic poems of of the Faust symphony, it is proper to linger for a moment on the E-flat Concerto for Piano and Orchestra (1855). Such a work, rather than the specific Franckian conception, could have provided Enescu—if my guess is not too far-fetched—with the idea of conceiving a work possessing the organizational profile of the octet. Indeed, the E-flat Concerto, even more than the exceptional, contemporaneous Sonata in B Minor of the same author, contains the clear utline of a sonata form extended throughout the four (possibly interpreted even as five) movements of the work. As in Enescu, these movements are played without interruption, and their succession (Allegro maestoso, Quasi adagio, Allegretto vivace, and Allegro marziale animato), while presenting the Classical cycle of the traditional symphony, also offers the main themes in the first movement, the development in he following two, and the recapitulation in the last one (with two successive stages). The extraordinary economy of thematic material favors the type of structure thus conceived. Liszt works on only two lines: a descending chromatic one (th utterly characteristic main theme) and a descending diatonic (or ascending in the preferred version of the adagio) that represents the secondary theme. The scherzo derives from the ascending cell of the adagio, and the finale contains the elements of a Classical recapitulation (for the first theme) a well as those of a fundamental, expressive transformation (for the second theme). (Bentoiu 2010, 13)

If you find that I have distorted his meaning or oversimplified his analysis, then by all means correct or expand my paraphrase.—Jerome Kohl (talk) 19:59, 5 April 2015 (UTC)

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