Biography (read more)
George Enescu (known in France as Georges Enesco) was a Romanian composer, violinist, conductor, and pianist active from the late nineteenth century through the mid-twentieth, trained in Vienna and Paris and dividing his career between Bucharest and Paris, where he died. His output includes the two Romanian Rhapsodies, five symphonies, the opera Œdipe, and extensive chamber music, drawing on both French late-Romantic training and Romanian folk idiom. He died in Paris in 1955 at the age of 73 and is buried at Père Lachaise Cemetery.
Widely regarded as the most important composer in Romanian musical history, Enescu was also celebrated as a violinist and teacher, and cellist Pablo Casals called him “the greatest musical phenomenon since Mozart.” As a teacher he decisively shaped the young Yehudi Menuhin, and his legacy is honored today through the George Enescu Festival in Bucharest, one of the major international classical music events, along with museums and institutions bearing his name.
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