Bartok

[ardcarp]

I'm not sure there's a thread anywhere, but it's been a great week, not only the music, but, as ever, the biog details from Donald.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

[Serial_Apologist]

Yep - my favourite composer given quite a good airing. Some compositions new to me, as were details of the life, and I suppose when one has to put up with excerpts one want to hear the best of what is or has been on offer, which this mostly was.

What is it about Bartok's music that makes him such a satisfying listen - to some of us, at any rate?

For me he combines all that I find best in one personality and career: like Schoenberg he was forward thinking to the point of being a genuine originator in matters of form, texture and expression of the previously under-expressed; a great contrapuntalist as well as harmonist; he eventually became a fine orchestrator, once shed of the Strauss influence; spontaneity, compared with his near-contemporary Stravinsky, who, after The Rite with noted exceptions, tended to build his music Leggo-like out of bulding blocks, his music seemed to burst like a life force from within him, expanding like branches on a tree self-correcting as it goes, with ofttimes visceral energy, and few blocks (though these were mentioned); and finally, for all its challengingness, itself a virtue for me, generosity of spirit, from the despair of the Sixth quartet to the joyous overflowing exultation of the second piano concerto; from the severe quasi-Schoenbergian concentration of eg the violin sonatas to the open-air warmth of the Cantata Profana and Concerto for Orchestra. And the fifth quartet, the Music for Strings, Harp Celesta etc, the Sonata for 2 Pianos & Percussion and Divertimento contain all these polarities; and last and probably least he was a great melodist, a composer of memorable, singable tunes, and not just the folk or folk-influenced ones.

[visualnickmos]

Well, for what it's worth, I haven't heard any Bartok that hasn't captured me. There is something magnetic and entrancing about his music, and yet if I was asked "what is Bartok's music like?" I really would not be able to answer or indeed, define it.
I have quite a collection - but yet to explore his piano music - any 'pointers' would be gratefully received!

[Black Swan]

I have had a reawakening of my interest in Bartok. And he is fantastic. I have this week acquired 3 recordings of the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste. Kocsis, Solti and Boulez. I have for years loved the Concerto for Orchestra. I have yet to explore his piano music but it is next on my list.

[ardcarp]

I saw Nigel Kennedy, not long out of the Menuhin School, playing the Bartok Sonata for solo violin. Unforgettable. Such a cleverly wrought piece.

[gurnemanz]

Re Bartok piano. Zoltán Kocsis complete set is an enticing and hard to beat option.

We saw Nigel K memorably do the solo sonata at an early stage of his career at a church in Bath during the Festival - on his "second-hand fiddle", as he called it, and with safety pins in evidence on his suit.

An exciting and fascinating variant of the Concerto for Concerto is a piano version from Gyorgy Sandor. CD seems to be not readily available but on Youtube

[richardfinegold]

Well, for what it's worth, I haven't heard any Bartok that hasn't captured me. There is something magnetic and entrancing about his music, and yet if I was asked "what is Bartok's music like?" I really would not be able to answer or indeed, define it.
I have quite a collection - but yet to explore his piano music - any 'pointers' would be gratefully received!

Have you ever heard the Music For Strings, Percussion, and Celesta in Concert, where the antiphonal effects can be realized? Or the 3rd PC, with the bird call effects in II?

[Serial_Apologist]

20 - 24 September 2021

A **handy** introduction today (pun intended):

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live:bbc_radio_three

[rauschwerk]

I await impatiently the much-postponed appearance of a new biography by Malcolm Gillies (Oxford Master Musicians).

[Serial_Apologist]

I await impatiently the much-postponed appearance of a new biography by Malcolm Gillies (Oxford Master Musicians).

I didn't know there was one _ there are so many already!

I thought I knew Kossuth (on right now) - but I'd never previously noticed the quote in it from "Deutchland"! The strong Straussian influence in this work (for which read Germanic) has always struck me as ironic.