Dedicated to the memory of composer and pedagogue Gabriel Fauré, the Second Piano Quartet contains some of Enescu's most luminescent and relaxed writing. Written during the worst period of World War Two (from a Romanian perspective, anyway), the piano part is very sparse and stark, emitting an ethereal, almost arctic chill. The slow movement is positively radiant and the finale offers a typically Enescu-like ending which refuses to end for bar after bar! The first performance of the work was not given till 1947, in Washington DC by the Albeneri Trio and Milton Katims.

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