Bartok: Music for strings, percussion, and celesta

[Pulcinella]

I have recently listened to the seven recordings I have of Bartok’s Music for string instruments, percussion, and celesta, and have been surprised at some of the variation of timings for the movements between these versions.

In most of the scores of Bartok works I have (not many: Concerto for orchestra, Divertimento, Music for SPC, String quartets) the metronome markings he gives are quite specific, and there are overall movement timings given. Some, however, are ‘approximate’, the CfO and Music for SPC being among them. That in itself, though, should not account for such huge variation as I noted from the track timings.

Bartok (score): 6’30”, 6’55”, 6’35”, 5’40”

Bernstein (NYPO: Sony): 9’09”, 6’58”, 6’56”, 7’16”
Boulez (BBCSO: Sony): 7’59”, 7’31”, 7’44”, 6’46”
Boulez (Chicago SO: DG): 7’55”, 7’35”, 7’27”, 7’27”
Dorati (Detroit SO: Decca): 7’38”, 7’46”, 6’17”, 7’47”
Gielen (SWRSO: SWR): 7’43”, 7’58”, 7’45”, 7’20”
Marriner (ASMF: Decca): 8’05”, 7’15”, 8’32”, 7’15”
Solti (LSO: Decca): 6’33”, 7’21”, 6’48”, 6’35”

I could no doubt find some other timings from Presto’s site.

I can’t imagine that the finale could go quicker than Solti’s version, which is already quite a scramble.
Was Bartok being (unusually?) unrealistic in his tempo markings?

Any thoughts?
Which other versions do forumistas have and recommend?

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Curious - amongst my own favourite recordings, Karajan (his first recording for EMI) and Reiner both are around the Solti/LSO timing for the finale (6' 42" and 6' 41" - which, allowing for reverberation and track run-off is pretty close. Otherwise Reiner is pretty close to Bartok's suggested timings (7' 04"; 7' 00"; 6' 58" for the first three movements, agan allowing for differences of when Movements, as opposed to tracks, end). Herbie's not far off, either (7' 15"; 7' 09"; 7' 02" - he's more Marrineresque in his later DG recording). Solti's Chicago recording has 6' 34"; 7' 22"; 6' 51"; 6' 35" (I have for the LSO recording [on the Australian Eloquence reissue, download from Amazon] 6' 50"; 7' 30"; 6' 24"; 7' 10" - which if it suggests that timings from sites are not entirely reliable, also makes clear that 5' 40" is not something that performers feel inclined to match.)

The thing is, too - following Bartok's metronome mark, his suggested timings would need a slightly slower metronome mark (around 122, rather than 130). I'll have a go later at putting the start of the movement on SIBELIUS to see what it sounds like at Bartok's metronome mark.)

(The Reiner is the best recording of the work that I know.)

[Barbirollians]

Reiner - wins hands down !

I didn’t like the work much until I heard his version.

[Richard Barrett]

(The Reiner is the best recording of the work that I know.)

This is what people say... but I think I prefer Gielen. I wasn't aware of all the tempo/duration discrepancies. I do know that composers very often write faster metronome marks than is optimal for the music.

[Conchis]

I nickname this work 'Generic Music For A Horror Film'.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

A-level set work 1969

[Richard Barrett]

This is one of the few Bartók pieces (like the piano/percussion sonata or the 4 Pieces for orchestra) I feel really close to, as opposed to admiring more objectively (string quartets, piano concertos) or liking some parts of but not others (Bluebeard, Concerto for Orchestra). I think it's very difficult to interpret though, given that it's such a strange confrontation between a selfconsciously "modernistic" style and a more traditional kind of expressivity. There are other composers and pieces that have a comparable quality but nobody does it quite like Bartók. This is why I think Gielen is the conductor for me in this work - someone who has a deep understanding of both of these components and their complex interaction. I say that having grown up with the Karajan, which is marvellous but obviously at the modern end of that conductor's sympathies, and later Boulez for whom the romantic side of the music is of less interest than its forward-looking qualities (most of Ligeti is contained in this piece somewhere!).

[Pulcinella]

A-level set work 1969

Yes, for NUJMB.
I was the year before (Brahms S2) but stayed on in the third-year sixth, so got to look at this too, with friends studying it.
Indeed, my score has the school stamp still in it!

[Petrushka]

There is also an LPO/Solti version from 1955 with timings of 6'48'', 7'27'', 6'22'' and 7'06''. The Bartok score timing for the finale of 5'40'' looks to be impossible given that so many sound like a scramble (in a good way) and I wonder if it's a misprint.

The piece is a great favourite of mine with Reiner and Solti (CSO) my preferred recordings especially given their strong association with the composer.

[HighlandDougie]

My introduction to "modern" (as in 20th c) music when, as a pretentious 13 year old, I was loaned a 10" LP of Ansermet and the SRO - mono, no less, which I played endlessly. My father took pity on me when I had to return it, overcame his horror of anything more recent than Glazunov and bought me the Columbia Karajan/BPO (c/w 'Mathis der Maler' symphony) in glorious stereo. It instilled in me a life-long love of Bartók's music.

While I seem to have quite a few recordings from Solti and the LPO in 1955 onwards, the Ansermet is not one of them (the Universal Italy boxes seem to have stopped short at Hungarian music and I'm not sure that I could justify spending €19,00 on that 10" LP, although the black cover with what looks like a Malevich as an illustration is still very appealing). As well as the various versions cited in earlier posts (and Gielen is the version I most often listen to these days), Zoltán Kocsis, Iván Fischer and especially Ferenc Fricsay all seem to me worth adding to any list of versions worth hearing. And if multichannel SACD is your thing, Ed Gardner is worth a spin.

[Pulcinella]

My introduction to "modern" (as in 20th c) music when, as a pretentious 13 year old, I was loaned a 10" LP of Ansermet and the SRO - mono, no less, which I played endlessly. My father took pity on me when I had to return it, overcame his horror of anything more recent than Glazunov and bought me the Columbia Karajan/BPO (c/w 'Mathis der Maler' symphony) in glorious stereo. It instilled in me a life-long love of Bartók's music.

While I seem to have quite a few recordings from Solti and the LPO in 1955 onwards, the Ansermet is not one of them (the Universal Italy boxes seem to have stopped short at Hungarian music and I'm not sure that I could justify spending €19,00 on that 10" LP, although the black cover with what looks like a Malevich as an illustration is still very appealing). As well as the various versions cited in earlier posts (and Gielen is the version I most often listen to these days), Zoltán Kocsis, Iván Fischer and especially Ferenc Fricsay all seem to me worth adding to any list of versions worth hearing. And if multichannel SACD is your thing, Ed Gardner is worth a spin.

Looks like the Ansermet is available in this 2CD set:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7980148--bartok-concerto-for-orchestra-dance-suite-other-orchestral-works

Have just listened to the Reiner: it certainly fizzes and the sound is terrific. But that last movement IS a bit of a scramble.
Must relisten to the Gielen, but it won't be a true comparison: Reiner was streamed (Deezer/Sonos) and I have the Gielen on CD.

PS: Streaming the Gielen for possibly fairer comparison, as I found it on Deezer!

[HighlandDougie]

Looks like the Ansermet is available in this 2CD set:

https://www.prestomusic.com/classical/products/7980148--bartok-concerto-for-orchestra-dance-suite-other-orchestral-works

Ah, I should have remembered Eloquence. Many thanks for the info, Pulcinella - duly ordered from Amazon France.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

The Bartok score timing for the finale of 5'40'' looks to be impossible given that so many sound like a scramble (in a good way) and I wonder if it's a misprint.

It may well be a miscalculation, but it's not a "misprint", Pet - Bartok gives timings for each section between rehearsal figures, and they add up to that 5min 40".

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

Yes, for NUJMB.
I was the year before (Brahms S2) but stayed on in the third-year sixth, so got to look at this too, with friends studying it.
Indeed, my score has the school stamp still in it!

..
Snap!

I did the same. It put me off Brahms 2 for a good number of years, but I’ve never lost my fascination with the Bartok.

[Pulcinella]

..
Snap!

I did the same. It put me off Brahms 2 for a good number of years, but I’ve never lost my fascination with the Bartok.

It even got an analysis in Music Teacher by the esteemed Annie O Warburton, now in Book 3 of her series of Analyses of Musical Classics! The Brahms seems not to have featured, but I guess there were lots of other analyses of it available. I think the year after it was back to Brahms, with PC2.

PS: You may well be a couple of years older than me, Alpie. I was one of those precocious chaps who passed the 11plus at 10plus, and did my O-levels in four years (Pulcinella of the Remove!) so was only 16 when I sat my A-level exams in 1968!