BaL 8.04.17 - Kodaly: Dances of Galanta

**mikealdren** · 31-03-17, 07:30

Looking forward to this, a reasonably short list so we should have lots of discussion about the music.

Even after all these years, I think the Dorati will take some beating.

Mike

**Eine Alpensinfonie** · 31-03-17, 08:35

I don't usually do this, but I'm going to place a bet on Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer.

**mikealdren** · 31-03-17, 10:07

It was in a Brilliant classics box, NLA sadly.........

**vinteuil** · 31-03-17, 10:19

Originally posted by mikealdren View Post

It was in a Brilliant classics box, NLA sadly.........

... this one?

http://amzn.eu/1RqXgtM

**Parry1912** · 31-03-17, 10:25

Originally posted by vinteuil View Post

... this one?

http://amzn.eu/1RqXgtM

It better be good! I've just spent £1.45 on a copy from the amazon MP!

**richardfinegold** · 31-03-17, 10:33

I have the Dorati/ Minneapolis version as a single disc. I would have thought that it was included in the big box Mercury reissues, but apparently not

**Richard Barrett** · 31-03-17, 10:47

I've heard this piece a couple of times in recent years, once by a Hungarian youth orchestra who played very well, but principally it served to remind me why I think Bartók is such a great composer.

**greenilex** · 31-03-17, 11:16

I have heard dances from the Maros or Mures river played by village artists on the viola da braccia or bratsch. At one time people from all over Eastern Europe used to go to those villages to learn dances and folk fiddle techniques.

Probably they were inspired partly by Bartok's sets of dances.

**mikealdren** · 31-03-17, 11:49

Originally posted by vinteuil View Post

... this one?

http://amzn.eu/1RqXgtM

Funny how Google missed it, many thanks. Mind because I was slow it cost me £1.99!

Mike

**vinteuil** · 31-03-17, 11:51

Originally posted by mikealdren View Post

Funny how Google missed it, many thanks. Mind because I was slow it cost me £1.99!

Mike

... that'll learn you! I got it for £1.45

**HighlandDougie** · 31-03-17, 12:49

Originally posted by Eine Alpensinfonie View Post

I don't usually do this, but I'm going to place a bet on Budapest Festival Orchestra/Iván Fischer.

In addition to the (originally on Hungaroton) Budapest FO/Ivan Fischer Brilliant Classics performance, which has probably now gone to £100.00 a copy on Amazon, given the sudden spike in deamnd, there is the later Philips performance, as in:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Kod%C3%A1ly-J%C3%A1nos-Suite-Dances-Gal%C3%A1nta/dp/B00000JLEW/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490964205&sr=1-1&keywords=kodaly+dances+of+galanta+ivan+fischer

They are not the same performances as the timings are different. I have this CD - which is excellent - but haven't heard the earlier performance.

I really like Ferenc Fricsay's various recordings, especially the live one on:

Amazon.co.uk

https://www.amazon.co.uk/GREAT-CONDUCTORS-20TH-CENTURY-Fricsay/dp/B00005V33H/ref=sr_1_1?s=music&ie=UTF8&qid=1490964428&sr=1-1&keywords=ferenc+fricsay+great+conductors+of+the+century

It slightly plays to the gallery but is very exciting.

**Serial_Apologist** · 31-03-17, 15:32

Originally posted by greenilex View Post

I have heard dances from the Maros or Mures river played by village artists on the viola da braccia or bratsch. At one time people from all over Eastern Europe used to go to those villages to learn dances and folk fiddle techniques.

Probably they were inspired partly by Bartok's sets of dances.

I don't somehow think so. For one thing this work typified a lot of the later orchestral Kodaly in returning to the Lisztian way of dressing up easily up dressable "folk materials" that Bartok had got away from by the time of his Dance Suite of 1923; for another Bartok was more of an ethnomusicologist in his practices of sourcing different national materials in ways which demonstrated their provenance to lie beyond the national borders of his time, indeed beyond national borders of any kind; and thirdly, a modernist in how he applied these in growing understanding of the unsuitability of the 19th century harmonic and rhythmic means imposed by composers in the various nationalist traditions, from Chopin by way of Smetana to the Russian Five.

(I can feel a mini-dissertation coming on on the subject of the differences between Bartok's pan-nationalism, once he reached the point of letting his ethnic researchings drive his own musical direction, and Stravinsky's abrupt abandonment of his Russian identity and embrace of a Western style of cosmopolitanism; so I'll quickly shut up!)

**greenilex** · 31-03-17, 15:36

Pity not to write it while the impetus exists, but maybe on a new thread?

**Serial_Apologist** · 31-03-17, 16:13

Originally posted by greenilex View Post

Pity not to write it while the impetus exists, but maybe on a new thread?

You're most kind, greenilex. Unfortunately,
a) there's no ongoing topic to "hang it" on; and
b) in any case, once I get going there's no stopping me.
(I've just completed a piece of concert promotion which was supposed to be restricted to 750 words...

)

BaL 8.04.17 - Kodaly: Dances of Galanta

BaL 8.04.17 - Kodaly: Dances of Galanta

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