Bartok

[Sundog]

...Can't comment on the Naxos Bartok String Quartet performances by which quartet I don't recall, haven't heard them.

The Vermeer Quartet performances of Bartok on Naxos are excellent. Easily recommended.

[tpt1]

The two discs considered must-have classics by smartypantses like me are:

-- The Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta by Fritz Reiner and the Chicago Symphony on RCA

-- and the three piano concertos by Geza Anda and Ferenc Fricsay on DG.

Both should be pretty easy to get. The former was just reissued on SACD hybrid.

From there, you'll need to expand into the string quartets. I recommend the Keller Quartet set on Erato above all, even the oft-recommended Emerson Quartet on DG.

Also grab the disc of violin and piano sonatas on Naxos. Some of Bartok's least user-friendly music, but you can handle it.

Hi, I'm new to this board. I recently started listening to Bartok after hearing a performance of String Quartet # 4 (by the Attacca Quartet - a group of young Julliard students). I ordered the RCA CSO recording mentioned above and look forward to hearing it (not the SACD edition). I also uploaded a String Quartet # 4 recording by the Emerson Quartet from iTunes to get more familiar with that work.

I'll look into some more of these recommendations. Thanks!

Did you know Bartok has a myspace page? -->

www.myspace.com/belabartokspace

[Bright Moments]

Did you know Bartok has a myspace page? -->

www.myspace.com/belabartokspace

way cool!!! thanks!!

[7/4]

May 20, 2008

Music Review

The Clarinet, Speaking in Many Voices and Accents

By BERNARD HOLLAND

When composers look for important voices among the family of wind instruments, they come away, more often than not, with a clarinet. It has many colors. Its acoustical presence makes it a good public speaker. It can sing simply or be complicated on demand. But there is something else: an ambiguous quality, a hint of delicious sourness that says to the listener, “You think I’m playing flat, but I’m not.”

Bartok’s “Contrasts,” as played at an evening called “Mitsuko Uchida and Friends” at Zankel Hall on Saturday, has the appearance of a European composer’s catering to the ambitions of an American jazz musician. And this three-movement trio for clarinet, violin and piano would indeed not have happened if Benny Goodman had not been restless to expand his immense talents beyond jazz.

But “Contrasts” is more Bartok’s using Goodman than the other way around. Goodman is given his virtuoso turns on the clarinet but is otherwise taken through a busy survey of Hungarian folk music. The first movement bounces with the inverted dotted rhythms that give Hungarian music its singular identity. The finale dances wildly. Those who discover jazz in Bartok’s more seductive syncopations may be imagining things. I hear more Central Europe than 52nd Street.

The pianist Llyr Williams began the evening with “La Lugubre Gondola,” whose morose vision, quiet voice and indifference to accepted rules of harmony show how far Liszt in old age had come from the florid paraphrases and rhapsodies of the past. Wagner is about to die, and Liszt has imagined his funeral procession by gondola in Venice. Liszt, the most public of all composers, turns intensely private. The impression is of an improvisation. Why he wrote it down at all is a question, but be glad that he did.

Ms. Uchida’s other “friends” on Saturday — recipients of grants from the Borletti-Buitoni Trust in a program conceived by Ms. Uchida — were a kind of United Nations of splendid talent: a Swedish clarinetist (Martin Frost), a Welsh pianist (Mr. Williams), an American violinist (Soovin Kim) and a Swiss cellist (Christian Poltéra). With Ms. Uchida now as pianist, the rest of the evening was Messiaen’s “Quartet for the End of Time.”

I have run out of adjectives and images to describe this great piece. It is in good part a series of soliloquies: for clarinet (bright and raucous), cello (soulful) and violin (more soulful). Messiaen is, as ever, the busy ornithologist, and his feathered friends chirp from every branch. In Messiaen’s unorthodox church, it is the birds who preach to St. Francis.

[7/4]

I've been listening to this quite a bit lately:

György Sándor - Piano Versions of Concerto for Orchestra / Dance Suite / Petite Suites

appears to be OOP.

[Peter Johnson]

Man, this thread exemplifies everything that's tremendous about this forum.

[Bright Moments]

true that!!!

[Mark Stryker]

Thanks to a licensing deal between Sony and the online source ArkivMusic, a bunch of the Juilliard Quartet's vintage performances are newly available, including the great 1963 recordings of the Bartok quartets. If you haven't used ArkivMusic.com, it's a huge storehouse of out of print titles that they burn on demand and then deliver with covers and liner notes. The Juilliard recordings are also availabe as downloads at the usual sources.

Tastes may vary, of course, but I love the Juilliard's Bartok performances: Ferocious attack, hight-wire intensity, pinpoint accuracy, beautifully integrated ensemble with each player allowed the highest degree of individual freedom without betraying the unity of the ensemble blend -- a very democratic, Americanized approach that was one of the Juilliard's signature contributions to the art of quartet playing when the group was at its prime. The Vegh, Takacs and perhaps others better capture the peasant, folkish qualities of the music, but nobody paints a more vivid portrait of Bartok the modernist, at least to my ears.

For what it's worth, we named one of our dogs Bartok.

Edited January 26, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[Chuck Nessa]

Had the set as my standard for about 20 years but left it behind. YMMV. It is very well played.

[Mark Stryker]

I will say that the quartets are like the late Beethoven quartets in that they are so rich and reward so many different interpretive ideas. I wouldn't necessarily count any single performance as definitive (though that certainly doesn't mean that all are created equal either). I may hold the Juilliard in special regard, but I have a gaggle of different versions and listen to them all -- this is really music where different recordings reveal different truths.

Edited January 26, 2011 by Mark Stryker

[7/4]

I snagged this recently, just to hear these pieces. (these recordings from 1975) :

Georges Solchany - Mikrokosmos.

wiki:

Béla Bartók's Mikrokosmos Sz. 107, BB 105 consists of 153 progressive piano pieces in six volumes written between 1926 and 1939. The individual pieces progress from very easy and simple beginner études to very difficult advanced technical displays, and are used in modern piano lessons and education. In total, according to Bartók, the piece "appears as a synthesis of all the musical and technical problems which were treated and in some cases only partially solved in the previous piano works." Volumes one and two are dedicated to his son Péter, while volumes five and six are intended as professionally performable concert pieces.

Volumes I-II: Pieces 1-36 and 37-66, beginner

Volumes III-IV: Pieces 67-96 and 97-121, moderate to advanced

Volumes V-VI: 122-139 and 140-153, professional

[7/4]

Here's one that I've owned for years. Also very OOP.

Oskar Gottlieb Blarr - Mussorgsky and Bartok on the Organ

dude...Pictures at an Exhibition on a church organ, sorta like ELP, but not.

Béla Bartók - Romanian Folk Dances (6) (Román népi táncok), for piano, Sz. 56, BB 68 4:54

Béla Bartók - Transylvanian Dances, for orchestra (arranged from Sonatina), Sz. 96, BB 102b 4:32

Béla Bartók - Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm (6), for piano (Mikrokosmos Vol.6/148-153), Sz. 107/6/148-153, BB 105/148-153 9:17

Modest Mussorgsky - Pictures at an Exhibition (Kartinki s vïstavski) 34:36

Performed By : Oskar Gottlieb Blarr

[7/4]

I bought this recently to find out what these pieces sound like:

Bela Bartok – The Piano Concertos (Pierre Boulez) (2005)

expecting this to be exciting, I liked it the first time I heard it.

[Late]

Any more recommendations for Bartok's Sonata for Solo Violin? And has anyone here ordered from Bartok Records? The site seems to be the only way to acquire Robert Mann's version of the sonata. I'm about to take the plunge, but wanted to check with other members' experience.

[Д.Д.]

Can't say about the solo violin sonata, but the resurgence of this thread peaked my interest to listen to the Zoltan Kocsis solo piano compilation on Philips that I have for ages and probably never even listened . Great stuff! Might go for the complete solo piano set.

[Spontooneous]

For the solo violin sonata, Gyorgy Pauk on Naxos is easy to get and one of the best. I'm also very fond of Mark Kaplan on an Arabesque CD from the '90s.

[paul secor]

Chuck introduced me to this:

Ivry Gitlis takes the listener on a wild and haunting journey through Bartok's Sonata for Solo Violin.

[Late]

Ivry Gitlis takes the listener on a wild and haunting journey through Bartok's Sonata for Solo Violin.

I have this set and just realized I've never listened to Disc 2.

Listening (for the first time) right now to the sonata. Whew — a lot different than Menuhin's version!

Has anyone here heard Robert Mann's recording of Bartok's Sonata for Solo Violin? I've never heard it; Peter Bartok evidently produced the record.

OK, time to log off and start at the beginning of the Gitlis.

[king ubu]

Don't know much of/about Bartók yet, but Lipatti's version of the third piano concerto (Orchestra of the Südwestdeutsche Rundfunk, cond. Paul Sacher, rec. 1948 in Baden-Baden) is amazing!

It can be found on the Lipatti EMI ICON box, which contains plenty of other great recordings (Chopin, Mozart, Bach, Schumann, Grieg, Liszt a.o.).

[Д.Д.]

3rd piano concerto is beautiful. Written when Bartok was already terminally ill. I have Argerich / OSM / Dutoit version. Interestingly, Frank Zappa is on record saying this is one of the mot beautiful pieces of music, and he even performed a nice little rearrangement of the 3rd piano concerto intro during the 1988 tour.

Still have to hear the first two piano concertos. Recommendations are welcome.

[A Lark Ascending]

Still have to hear the first two piano concertos. Recommendations are welcome.

The 2nd is as wonderful as the 3rd. The 1st is more severe but very exciting.

Don't know where this one is pinned on the butterfly board of significance but it's served me well for a few decades:

Though I believe it's hip to despise Pollini.

*********************

Hungaraton are currently recording a new complete edition of Bartok. They've not got round to the piano concertos yet. I have a few of the discs - a good way to get some of the less renowned pieces like the many folk song related suites.

http://www.bartoknewseries.com/en/audiophile-audition-john-sunier

Edited June 24, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Chuck Nessa]

Bartok wrote the third concerto for his wife to play (and earn some income) after he was gone.

My favorite versions of the set are in the following order:

1st - Zoltan Kocsis / Ivan Fischer on Philips

2nd - three way tie; Anda / Fricsay on DGG, Jando / Ligeti on Naxos, Sandor / Gielen & Reinhardt on Vox.

I like these pieces a lot and enjoy comparing versions.

As you can tell from my choices, I prefer performances by Hungarians.

[Д.Д.]

Thanks, gentlemen. I will probably go for Anda / Fricsay - it's cheap and I have no familiarity with Anda at all, while I have heard some recordings by both Pollini and Kocsis. I have Fricsay conducting Kodaly (on DG as well) - love it.

Was browsing some stuff on Bartok... stumbled upon a picture of him... does not he look like Robert Fripp?

Edited June 24, 2012 by Д.Д.

[A Lark Ascending]

I had a Anda/Fricsay DG LP back in the late 70s which I know I enjoyed very much. Think it was 2 and 3. Only moved away from it based on what was available in the early years of CD. So I'm sure you'll be in safe hands.

Don't overlook the Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion. Not as frequently recorded as the larger force pieces.

[Д.Д.]

Don't overlook the Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion. Not as frequently recorded as the larger force pieces.

This one I have, great piece.