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September 08, 2025
The Gaggle Music Club: Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 3

This week's selection for The Gaggle Music Club is George Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25.

George Enescu (1881–1955) is considered to be Romania’s greatest composer; he was also a violinist, pianist and conductor, and wrote in almost every genre. He combined Romanian folk idioms, with German classicism (Brahmsian rigor, Wagnerian chromaticism) and French impressionism (color, atmosphere, subtle harmony).

Born in 1881 in Liveni, a village in northeastern Romania, Enescu showed musical genius extremely early; he reportedly played the violin at age four, began composing at age five, entered the Vienna Conservatory at age seven and made his debut as a violinist in Vienna at age 10. At 14, he entered the Paris Conservatoire, where he studied composition with Massenet and Fauré. In Paris, he absorbed the music of Debussy and Ravel.

In 1901, Enescu composed his Romanian Rhapsodies Nos. 1 & 2, which to this day are his most popular and most frequently-performed works. During World War I, he lived in Romania where he worked as a conductor and teacher, composing major works such as Symphony No. 3, a massive choral symphony, as well as outstanding chamber music works such as his Octet for Strings, Piano Quintet and Violin Sonatas.

During the 1920s and 30s, he lived in Paris, where he completed and premiered Oedipe--his opera and undisputed masterpiece--at the Paris Opera. He spent the World War II years in Romania, struggling with illness and financial pressures. After the war, Romania’s communist regime claimed him as a national icon, though Enescu spent his final years in Paris, in poor health but still teaching and composing. Enescu is as much an icon of Romanian classical music as Bartók is of Hungarian classical music.

Composed in 1926, Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25, is one of the most original chamber works of the 20th century. The work reflects Enescu’s dual heritage of French modernism and Romanian/Gypsy folk idioms.

Enescu had grown up hearing Roma (gypsy) folk fiddlers in Moldavia. These professional Roma musicians were central to village life. The musicians were not ethnically Romanian but Roma (gypsy), and they were the custodians of a highly sophisticated oral tradition of music used for weddings, feasts, dances and communal events.

Subtitled “dans le caractère populaire roumain”, the sonata evokes the style, spirit and improvisational character of Romanian folk fiddlers. The sonata combines French Impressionism (Debussy, Ravel) with Hungarian/Romani fiddle style in ornamentation, rhythmic flexibility and virtuosic flair. The classical sonata form is present but it is overlaid with irregular rhythms and expressive freedom.

The first movement is brooding and improvisatory and mimics a fiddler’s playing. The second movement is a nocturnal, atmospheric meditation, evoking shepherds’ calls, night sounds and ancient ritual. The third movement is a dance-like finale, using asymmetric rhythms and intense folk energy.

Enescu’s Violin Sonata No. 3 in A minor, Op. 25, is a fusion of French impressionistic color, Romanian folk idiom and classical form, resulting in a work that is virtuosic, improvisatory and deeply expressive. The violin “sings” like a Gypsy fiddler, while the piano provides harmonic depth and texture reminiscent of Debussy’s chamber writing.

In this performance from 2018, the violinist is Alican Süner and the pianist Angela Draghicescu.

00:25:14
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September 08, 2025
Monday Night At The Movies: "Mulholland Drive" (2001)

Chat.Join Gagglers for "Mulholland Drive"!
The screening starts at 3 p.m. ET sharp.
Share all of your thoughts, comments and criticisms on the Live Chat.

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September 07, 2025
TG 1963: Is This For Real? Trump Seeks To Redefine U.S. Strategic Priorities

George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle discuss the Trump administration's reported attempt to redefine the strategic priorities of the United States, and wonder whether there is any substance to these speculations.

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September 05, 2025
TG 1962: NATO, Coalition Of The Willing Continue Trying To Ensure There's No End To The War In Ukraine

George Szamuely and Peter Lavelle discuss the continued frenetic maneuverings of NATO and the Coalition of the Willing seeking to ensure that the war in Ukraine escalates or at the very least goes on for a little bit longer.

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January 21, 2023
More Leftie Than Thou
"Jacobin" Magazine Celebrates A Strike Against Ol' Blue Eyes

Here at "The Gaggle" we have very little time for the "more Leftie than thou" school of thought--that's the approach to life according to which the only thing that matters is whether you take the right position on every issue under the sun from Abortion to Zelensky. No one in the world meets the exacting standards of this school of thought; any Leftie leader anywhere is always selling out to the bankers and the capitalists. The perfect exemplar of this is the unreadable Jacobin magazine. 

The other day I came across this article from 2021. It's a celebration of trade union power. And not simply trade union power, but the use of trade union power to secure political goals. Of course (and this is always the case with the "more Leftie than thou" crowd), this glorious, never-to-be-forgotten moment on the history of organized labor took place many years ago--in the summer of 1974 to be exact. Yes, almost half a century has gone by since that thrilling moment when the working-class movement of Australia mobilized and prepared to seize the means of production, distribution and exchange. 

Well, not quite. Organized labor went into action against...Ol' Blue Eyes, the Chairman of the Board, the Voice; yes, Frank Sinatra. Why? What had Sinatra done? Sinatra was certainly very rich, and he owned a variety of properties and businesses. But if the Australian trade union movement were, understandably, searching for the bright, incandescent spark that would finally awaken the working class from its slumber there were surely richer, greedier, more dishonest, more decadent, above all more Australian individuals it could have discovered. Australia was never short of them. Rupert Murdoch immediately springs to mind. Why Sinatra?

 

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