George Enescu – biography and work (I)
Considered to be a wonder-child, little Jurjac (the pet-name given by his family and the close ones), as early as the age of five, dreamt to be a composer: “It’s odd though: I never knew anything, I never listened to anything or to very little, I never had anyone near me who could influence me. And still, as a child, I had a definite idea about being a composer. Just a composer“, George Enescu said later to Bernard Gavoty, a music critic and a radio journalist.
At the age of 3, he had one of those decisive musical experiences when he heard, by accident and for the first time, some fiddlers playing near to his native village. Impressed by what he heard, the child tried to imitate the instruments of the folk music band the very next day: the violin was a “thread sewn on a piece of wood” (G. Enescu in B. Gavoty, George Enescu´s Memoires), the cembalo was a couple of wooden sticks, and he imitated the reed pipe by blowing through his lips.