Bartok (1881 - 1945)

[Gordon]

An email from Gramophone fell into my box yesterday with this in it, I'm not a subscriber so I'm not sure why this happened, anyway look here:

http://www.gramophone.co.uk/feature/...bdGI57gQR%2Fwv gasp!

An article by R3's Rob Cowan about the life and music of Bartok. Next week's BAL with Rob being about the MfSP&C I thought this would be of interest and might start a debate on the merits of Bartok. Except for the CfO I found him hard at first but slowly began to appreciate more even the quartets. When was the last CotW on Bartok I wonder?

Anyone who is keen on Bartok should visit here if they have not already done so:

http://www.bartokrecords.com/

it's run by his son Peter and it will explain some of the background to his attempts to set some records straight regarding his father's music in particular the scores, some of which seem to be corrupt or uncorrected. The CfO is a case in point. On his deathbed he had just completed his review before publication but somehow the corrected score got lost.

CDs and LPs are available some of which were recorded by Peter himself in London [Kingsway Hall, borrowing microphones from EMI!!] in the 1950s using the New SO, one of those session orchestras like the National PO, and conducors like Susskind.

[rauschwerk]

My first experience of Bartok's music was at age 13 when I chose to play the first of the Three Rondos on Folk Tunes Sz 84 for a piano exam. I had heard a broadcast and found this piece unexpectedly tuneful.I couldn't make head or tail of the second and third rondos which, I later discovered, were written ten years later than the first - in fact, in Bartok's most 'difficult' period. I then heard the Concerto for Orchestra and became hooked on that. I wanted to prepare the piano suite (Op. 14) for an exam but when I played the Scherzo to my teacher he wouldn't have any truck with it. (That, of course, was when I really should have sought out another teacher.) Later I learned the Allegro Barbaro which was one of my favourite party pieces for quite a time.

By my early 20s I was familiar with many of Bartok's major works. I went crazy over the string quartets (my family were most grateful that I usually listened to these on headphones!) via the Fine Arts Quartet's Saga recordings (3 LPs for the price of one).

I consider Bartok to be without question a giant of 20th century music whose pieces have given me unalloyed pleasure for over 50 years. Blind spots? Yes, mainly the Cantata Profana.

[Serial_Apologist]

My first experience of Bartok's music was at age 13 when I chose to play the first of the Three Rondos on Folk Tunes Sz 84 for a piano exam. I had heard a broadcast and found this piece unexpectedly tuneful.I couldn't make head or tail of the second and third rondos which, I later discovered, were written ten years later than the first - in fact, in Bartok's most 'difficult' period. I then heard the Concerto for Orchestra and became hooked on that. I wanted to prepare the piano suite (Op. 14) for an exam but when I played the Scherzo to my teacher he wouldn't have any truck with it. (That, of course, was when I really should have sought out another teacher.) Later I learned the Allegro Barbaro which was one of my favourite party pieces for quite a time.

By my early 20s I was familiar with many of Bartok's major works. I went crazy over the string quartets (my family were most grateful that I usually listened to these on headphones!) via the Fine Arts Quartet's Saga recordings (3 LPs for the price of one).

I consider Bartok to be without question a giant of 20th century music whose pieces have given me unalloyed pleasure for over 50 years. Blind spots? Yes, mainly the Cantata Profana.

Hear here - apart from the Cantata Profana, which unlike your good self I've always found immensely moving.

From scanning through next week's RT it would appear that we are to be given short pieces and mostly excerpts abstracted from longer pieces, which it will take a lot of reasoned explanation not to make a mess of the music as a whole, which I would think indispensable when listening to Bartok, of all people. We will just have to hope.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

My first encounter with Bartok was the CfP LP of the Concerto for Orchestra, the LPO conducted by John Pritchard. Not the most scintillating of performances, I spent a lot of time trying to become enthusiastic about it without fail. The piano Music and the String Quartets were a completely different matter, however, and it is still this composer's chamber Music that most floats my boat, and the Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, which is "chamber Music" in essence (written for a Chamber orchestra, the sound of whose string forces are further "thinned" by being divide into two groups). I'm very fond of the "solo" Concertos, but generally get much less from the orchestral works - and the CfO still doesn't excite, alas.

[LeMartinPecheur]

I can pretty much swallow Bartok whole! My 1st intro: a slice of the Concerto for Orch was used as theme for an early-evening R4 drama serial back in the early 70s and it hooked me. Didn't know what it was and we didn't have Google etc then, so I was mega-chuffed when, just getting into evening concerts on R3, suddenly there it was right in front of my ears

Live Big Bartok Moment: probably a Boulez prom c1976 that I went to because I had a free return ticket to London on business so went to the the Prom even though nothing on the menu thrilled me in advance<doh>. 2nd half was Duke Bluebeard's Castle with Troyanos & Nimsgern, something they took into the studio. Still a cracking listen on a Sony CD (sadly now only via Marketplace on Amazon it seems).

A while back I got worried that BB didn't seem to be figuring much on R3 or concert menus much these days (still true IMO). Here's the thread FWIW http://www.for3.org/forums/showthrea...ghlight=bartok

EDIT Gordon: I demand that you rename this new thread of yours!!! You're using the same title as mine and I WAS FUST!!!!!

[Gordon]

...EDIT Gordon: I demand that you rename this new thread of yours!!! You're using the same title as mine and I WAS FUST!!!!!

Yes, you were!!! Sorree!!! Have a Doom Bar on me. Yours is back in 2007 and I didn't think that it may have come up before.

As I said at the top this was triggered by Gramophone and the upcoming BAL/CotW. Doesn't harm to have another run around though. I also wanted to give heads up on Peter's web site. I had an email correspondence with him regarding his London recordings, which I had discovered, and it was in that correspondence that he described the difficulties he's had establishing an archive of his father's music. I had hoped that Peter would agree to an article or two about his father and his own exploits in recording in the CRQ quarterly but so far it has not happened so the Gramophone article is very welcome.

Anyway looking for ward to the BAL [with some trepidation that it may get irritating] and to the CotW. I know how to edit my posts but how do I edit the title?

[Serial_Apologist]

Yes, you were!!! Sorree!!! Have a Doom Bar on me. Yours is back in 2007 and I didn't think that it may have come up before.

As I said at the top this was triggered by Gramophone and the upcoming BAL/CotW. Doesn't harm to have another run around though. I also wanted to give heads up on Peter's web site. I had an email correspondence with him regarding his London recordings, which I had discovered, and it was in that correspondence that he described the difficulties he's had establishing an archive of his father's music. I had hoped that Peter would agree to an article or two about his father and his own exploits in recording in the CRQ quarterly but so far it has not happened so the Gramophone article is very welcome.

Anyway looking for ward to the BAL [with some trepidation that it may get irritating] and to the CotW. I know how to edit my posts but how do I edit the title?

I thinkg it requires drawing to the attention of the Lady of the House, or one of the other hosts, to put headings right.

[LeMartinPecheur]

Yes, you were!!! Sorree!!! Have a Doom Bar on me.

? !!!!

Yours is back in 2007 and I didn't think that it may have come up before.

NO!! I joined in 2007. My thread is very recent (OK, mid-2013...).

Seriously, I leave it to the Grand Panjandrums (Panjandra?) of the Bored to decide whether two threads with the same name will cause any problems. If not, I hereby grant you a licence to use my Intellectual Property...

...licence fees to be settled via PM, and solicitors if necessary

[ardcarp]

Whatever, thanks for the Gramophone article, Gordon. I makes one wonder why (and I know we keep banging on about this) Rob needs to have his hand held by Andrew this Saturday? Rob is surely one of the really knowledgeable presenters on R3 and doesn't need to have lines fed to him.

[Gordon]

? !!!!
NO!! I joined in 2007. My thread is very recent (OK, mid-2013...).

Not doing too well are we, best quit while I'm down. I really must learn to read the small print, always a failing....comes of doing more than one thing at a time, we chaps are no good at it.

Seriously, I leave it to the Grand Panjandrums (Panjundra?) of the Bored to decide whether two threads with the same name will cause any problems. If not, I hereby grant you a licence to use my Intellectual Property...

...licence fees to be settled via PM, and solicitors if necessary

OOEr! Firstly I accept appeal to Panjandra to remedy heinous offence of usurping prior title and humbly beseech said Panjandra to amend title of latest thread or to amend/move/combine as they think fit, eg merge the posts to mine at the end of yours as if my first was added!!

Meanwhile licence fee set as proposed - but let's keep those lawyers out or we'll both be bankrupt? There's always pistols at dawn.

[Petrushka]

I LOVE the Concerto for Orchestra, Ferney. How can you possibly not like it? I bought the 1974 Karajan recording the day after a TV programme on the BBC called Great Orchestras of the World featured the Boston Symphony under Ozawa playing an excerpt. Apart from the CfO my favourite Bartok has to be The Miraculous Mandarin and then Duke Bluebeard's Castle. I find Bluebeard a deeply unsettling, even frightening piece to listen to but what a great work it is. Incidentally, the Boulez/BBCSO recording is still available and included in a Sony box of the Boulez/Bartok complete recordings: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Pierre-Boule...=bartok+boulez

Most under-rated of the orchestral works is the Four Pieces for Orchestra op 12 which deserves to be heard much more.

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

It's the string quartets that do it for me, especially nos. 4 & 6, though the Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta is the only set work I ever studied that I wasn't turned off (for a while) as a result.

[EdgeleyRob]

My favourite Bartok ? those amazing string quartets.

Edit,snap EA.

[gurnemanz]

Two of my earliest classical LPs were Solti Concerto for Orchestra (mono) and Geza Anda Piano Concertos

Is he a maverick?

[LeMartinPecheur]

Geza Anda Piano Concertos

Gurnemanz: these are an excellent intro - as far as I can tell

I bought a DG Privilege mid-price coupling of 2 & 3 as a student but alas, not an ultra-smoo-ooth German-DG pressing, a really gritty/grotty British one and out it went. (Got the Bishop a.k.a. Kovacevich /C. Davis Philips set instead though)

I was delighted therefore to find a Privilege gatefold 2-LP set of the Andas inc. the Rhapsody (sadly not in the Philips set, though you do get the Sonata for 2 pfs & percussion with second pianist someone called Argerich - who she?) at a Cornish bootfare a while back. But guess what? - gritty/grotty British pressings again