Bartok anyone?

[DracoM]

But for me it's the Str Qts that really are Bartok. Love them.

[Stanfordian]

Not so much about Bartok performances as non-performances.

My perception is that BB is rather fading away on the live performance front. Ages since I heard a quartet, and he seems not to be getting his previous (IMHO rightful) share of performances (orchestral, chamber or instrumental) on R3. Perhaps he's still hanging in there on the opera front with Duke Bluebeard's Castle but not a lot else.

Somebody tell me I'm wrong please! If not, does anyone have any ideas why it's happening? Has he become disreputable in academic circles?

THINKS I've never heard a Bartok str quartet at the Truro chamber music club of which I've been a member for 10+ years. As I'm now on the artist/ programming committee perhaps I should try to do something to reverse the trend?

PS Have checked my diary of live concerts and the only Bartok I've heard in the last 10 yrs is some performances of violin duos by members of the Dante 4tet (in some cases arr for 2 violas)

I appeciate that Bartok's music is challenging for many people who attend classical music concerts. I'm off to the Berlin Musikfest 2013 in September and Bartok is one of the main featured composers along with Janacek, Lutoslawski and other featured composers are Britten and Shostakovich. Bartok's music being played includes: String Quartet No's. 2 & 6 (Emersons), Contrasts for violin, clarinet and piano (Chamber Orchestra of Europe), Piano concerto No. 3 (Yefim Bronfman, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra/Daniele Gatti), Four pieces for orchestra op. 12 (Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Berlin/Marek Janowski), Concerto for orchestra Symphonieorchester des Bayerischen Rundfunks/Maaris Jansons), String Quartet No's 3 & 4 (Quatuor Diotima), The Miraculous Mandarin for orchestra op. 19 (Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin/Tugan Sokhiev), The Wooden Prince pantomime ballet (Berliner Philharmoniker/Alan Gilbert), String Quartets No's 1 & 5 (Philharmonia Quartett Berlin), Sonata for Solo Violin (Carolin Widmann) & Suite for piano op.14 (András Schiff).

[AmpH]

Some upcoming concerts including works by Bartok :-

http://www.bachtrack.com/find-a-concert/what/composer=10-bartok

String Quartet cycle by the Takacs sounds wonderful ......... but Carnegie Hall probably a bit far

Same list filtered for the UK :-

http://www.bachtrack.com/find-a-concert/where/composer=10-bartok;country=1-united-kingdom

[salymap]

Phew saly - hats off is all I can say! The language of Bluebeard's Castle is not much more advanced than those of Debussy's Pelleas and Strauss's Elektra even though the mood is darker than that of the former; but even a Schoenbergian like me finds the two violin and piano sonatas of 1921/22 pretty hard going!

I had a good friend from work who lived in Guildford, played the violin in Tod's orchestra and practised Bartok chamber works with friends in one of their homes. I often spent a few days with her in the summer and spent many hours hearing the pieces taken to bits and put together again. Not that I can remember details now though, muppet that I am.

I love rehearsals

[Serial_Apologist]

I had a good friend from work who lived in Guildford, played the violin in Tod's orchestra and practised Bartok chamber works with friends in one of their homes. I often spent a few days with her in the summer and spent many hours hearing the pieces taken to bits and put together again. Not that I can remember details now though, muppet that I am.

I love rehearsals

Come to think of it, the Muppets playing Bartok would probably be more over the heads of most viewers than Tom and Jerry's famous performance of the Liszt Hungarian Rhapsody!

[LeMartinPecheur]

The amount of Bartok broadcast on R3 has fallen too. The Rumanian Dances always count for a fair number of what is broadcast (R3 these days seems to like to play most things that have the words Dance(s) or Waltz(es) in their title), the rest of what is broadcast seems to come in little bursts. I think his total so far this year is around 60 (I'll check when I get back later), which we show a decline of about 15% on last year so far and around 25-30% on 5 years ago. The Quartets seem to have suffered in particular as well as the piano music. I guess, as R3 seem to secretly read these postings, that we might get a little flurry of his works in the 2nd half of the year. Well here's hoping. Bartok is a great composer and let us hope the balance is soon redressed.

Suffolkcoastal: thanks for mentioning the Rumanian dances - I'd meant to exclude them from my strictures in my OP! It very nearly is possible to get sick of them

Presumably they do now count as 'popular' but maybe that's only because Bartok didn't acksherly write the chunes

[umslopogaas]

Bartok's music is like a cup of excellent, very strong, freshly brewed real coffee without milk or sugar, encountered after a long diet of sweet and milky instant. Its bracing and eye-opening if you can tolerate the shock, but a lot of people cant. There are very few equivocations in BB's offerings, what you get comes straight from the heart. For maximum shock, try the fourth quartet. I remember buying a secondhand LP of that when I was a student, cant remember who was playing, but several near neighbors threatened physical violence unless I turned it down. I did, they were bigger than me, but it still opened my eyes.

Bartok's music is for me a prime example of difficult stuff that repays the effort. I found it difficult at first hearing, but persevered and eventually it rewarded the effort and I still play it. Whereas once I listened to stuff from the likes of Delibes and Massenet and found it likeable, but now I play it no more.

[Phileas]

A CD of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings etc. was the first classical recording I ever bought. I used to rate him as my favourite composer. His music appealed to me immediately so it used to surprise me that so many people find him difficult.

Having said that, I've never mastered the solo violin sonata - that really is thorny. I must have another go at it.

[teamsaint]

Bartok's music is like a cup of excellent, very strong, freshly brewed real coffee without milk or sugar, encountered after a long diet of sweet and milky instant. Its bracing and eye-opening if you can tolerate the shock, but a lot of people cant. There are very few equivocations in BB's offerings, what you get comes straight from the heart. For maximum shock, try the fourth quartet. I remember buying a secondhand LP of that when I was a student, cant remember who was playing, but several near neighbors threatened physical violence unless I turned it down. I did, they were bigger than me, but it still opened my eyes.

Bartok's music is for me a prime example of difficult stuff that repays the effort. I found it difficult at first hearing, but persevered and eventually it rewarded the effort and I still play it. Whereas once I listened to stuff from the likes of Delibes and Massenet and found it likeable, but now I play it no more.

the 4th would be a sensational piece to introduce younger listeners to his music IMO.

The PCs aren't too hard to enjoy fairly quickly.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

the 4th would be a sensational piece to introduce younger listeners to his music IMO.

I know one Henrix-adoring seventeen-year-old whose psychological socks were blown of by the Bartok Fourth Quartet. I think this points out the basis of the problem that some listeners have with some of Bartok's works: if they come from the world of Borodin or Dvorak string quartets, then I can quite understand why the more "radical" works might sound alien - 'though the Third Piano Concerto, the Second Violin Concerto and the Concerto for Orchestra shouldn't hold too many terrors. Listeners from the world of the Howling Guitar (who might find Dvorak and Borodin alien) will hear closer affinities in works like the Fourth Quartet or The Miraculous Mandarin. Or Xenakis, for that matter.

[salymap]

When younger I spent some timein hospital. I found that Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is one of the works it is fun to try to 'play right through' in one's head.

Others for me are the Beethoven 8th symphony, Mozart's Eine Kleine, several more.

Does anyone else do this ?

[Serial_Apologist]

A CD of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra and Music for Strings etc. was the first classical recording I ever bought. I used to rate him as my favourite composer. His music appealed to me immediately so it used to surprise me that so many people find him difficult.

Having said that, I've never mastered the solo violin sonata - that really is thorny. I must have another go at it.

I'm much the same, Phileas. Having said that, I still hold Bartok among my favourites, along with Debussy and Schoenberg - possibly (?) the 3 most influential composers of the 20th century.

I first heard the solo violin sonata in the version by Ivry Gitlis I obtained in the '50s, and, like yourself, really didn't know what to make of it. But then I heard a version performed fantastically by a young German violinist, and immediately it made complete sense.

[Serial_Apologist]

When younger I spent some timein hospital. I found that Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is one of the works it is fun to try to 'play right through' in one's head.

Others for me are the Beethoven 8th symphony, Mozart's Eine Kleine, several more.

Does anyone else do this ?

Oh I do, saly. I've built up an inner repertoire of music, statrting at age 7 with the Schumann piano concerto - the first piece of "serious" music really to make an impact on me - and find nowadays that evoking particular works helpful for getting me to sleep. I often wake up next morning and think, hmmm, I must have dropped off somewhere during the slow movement! Another exercise which I've developed is trying to imagine familiar piano pieces in different orchestrations, i.e. Debussy's "En Blanc et Noir" re-arranged to become "En Couleur"! I think I would have been quite good at this if I'd been trained in orchestral techniques.

[teamsaint]

When younger I spent some timein hospital. I found that Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra is one of the works it is fun to try to 'play right through' in one's head.

Others for me are the Beethoven 8th symphony, Mozart's Eine Kleine, several more.

Does anyone else do this ?

Have to say it had never occurred to me to try this. Pity I didn't spend some time trying when I was recovering from a double hernia op a few years ago !
i think I might give it a go, though I think certain choral or piano music might be a gentle introduction.



Great tip, Saly. If I don't post for a few days, you will know why ....!!

Love S-A's idea about playing orchestration too.....

[teamsaint]

Oh I do, saly. I've built up an inner repertoire of music, statrting at age 7 with the Schumann piano concerto - the first piece of "serious" music really to make an impact on me - and find nowadays that evoking particular works helpful for getting me to sleep. I often wake up next morning and think, hmmm, I must have dropped off somewhere during the slow movement! Another exercise which I've developed is trying to imagine familiar piano pieces in different orchestrations, i.e. Debussy's "En Blanc et Noir" re-arranged to become "En Couleur"! I think I would have been quite good at this if I'd been trained in orchestral techniques.

Doubtless. Is it too late?