Words by Patricia Furstenberg on Enescu ‘s Suite Ancienne

Words by Patricia Furstenberg on the Prélude from Enescu ‘s Suite Ancienne inspired by a live performance of Laura Pauna. The recording below was performed in 1981 by talented Romanian pianist Aurora Ienei, particularly renowned for her interpretation of George Enescu’s piano compositions.

Below I wrote words strung in a short story inspired by first minutes, the grave Prélude of Enescu’s Suite for Piano No. 1, Op. 3 ‘Dans le style ancien’. Stories inspired by music. Enjoy!

Hit play and read my story below.

Words by Patricia Furstenberg on Enescu ‘s Suite Ancienne, Prélude

Cocooned in black clouds, the wind jumps from behind the forest and rolls down the valley, a tsunami of gravel and branches… Winded, the woodland draws breath…

Like an invader, the wind pushes over mighty trees still dazed by a summer of sunshine… Whipping their leaves about their trunks. Twisting their trunks towards the heavens. Their roots scream in protest. Their tears are torn leaves, yet they stand. Still…

Enraged, the wind leaps forward. Now wrestling and crumpling together shrubs and golden dandelions lost in its path.

Behind a boulder, a poppy flower. It quivers in the charged air, its tiny hairs like feelers, questioning life. And nearby, a sapling that grew in estranged soil, from a seed dropped by a hurried bird. It lowers its branches, the sapling does, and it tries to fight the gale. To shield the poppy…

The bluster got to them. It teases the sapling. It puffs and it pants, it spits ice lifting its branches into a dance. Now strumming its bows in a request for life, now lulling it into deceptive sanctuary… The sapling bends, it twists, it turns this way, and that in the wind. It remembers how he’d traveled, as a seed, it remembers the lesson – and it bends over the poppy, a pretense bow, till the gale unfolds further.

The wind, with only a handful of twigs and sand, rumbles away.

It hastens my way.

The witness.

Angry, he shows me his size by the cacophony of scents he surrounds me with. Earth, foliage, mulch, oils, dust. And steals my hat, hiding it in his clouds like molten lead.

I laugh. Wind spins around me. I am a tree. See my branches? See my leaves?

I lift my hands and feel the clouds with my fingers.
I touch raindrops. They fall like a curtain around me. And I cannot see.
‘I understand now,’ I laugh.

Copyright © Patricia Furstenberg. All Rights Reserved.

Where to discover the work of pianist Aurora Ienei: https://www.discogs.com/artist/1157010-Aurora-Ienei

With heartfelt thanks to Stanimir Leca, who admires the work George Enescu, Romanian composer, violinist, pianist, conductor, and teacher, one of the greatest musicians in Romanian history, and made some of his recordings available on his YouTube channel.

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Enjoy more short stories on my blog here or in my new book: