ENESCU George (E-17)

Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor and teacher. Regarded as one of the greatest musicians in Romanian history, he was child prodigy.  On 5 October 1888, at the age of seven, he became the youngest student ever admitted to the Vienna Conservatory,[4][5] where he studied with Joseph Hellmesberger Jr., Robert Fuchs, and Sigismund Bachrich. He was the second person ever to be admitted to the Vienna Conservatory by a dispensation of age, and was the first non-Austrian (in 1882, Fritz Kreisler had also been admitted at the age of seven; according to the rules, nobody younger than 14 years could study there). If Enescu's fame as a performer was worldwide, then his compositional work did not find proper understanding during his lifetime. Despite the fact that his music was highly appreciated by professionals, it was relatively rarely played to the general public. Only after the death of the musician was his great importance as a classic and the head of the national school of composition appreciated. Many of Enescu's works were influenced by Romanian folk music, his most popular compositions being the two Romanian Rhapsodies (1901–02), the opera Œdipe (1936), and the suites for orchestra.[citation needed] He also wrote five mature symphonies (two of them unfinished), a symphonic poem Vox maris, and much chamber music (three sonatas for violin and piano, two for cello and piano, a piano trio, two string quartets and two piano quartets, a wind decet (French, "dixtuor"), an octet for strings, a piano quintet, and a chamber symphony for twelve solo instruments).