Bartok (1881 - 1945)

[gurnemanz]

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

Coming in from rock music aged about 18 or 19 I can remember just finding them so exciting when I didn't l know that much 20th Cent classical music at all.

[Beef Oven!]

My older brother was keen on Bartok, he even named our pet tortoise Bartok!

I took to Bartok immediately even though I was only about 9!!

Stones, Beatles, Beefheart, Velvet Underground, Henry Mancini and Bartok were popular in my household, along with all the other 60s stuff.

Later on, it was the Concerto For Orchestra, Music For Strings, Percussion And Celeste, and the string quartets that sealed it for me.

I also love The Miraculous Mandarin and the Four Orchestral Pieces, which could be viewed as the closest he got to a symphony.

[jayne lee wilson]

I seem to have carried Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra with me, somewhere in the back of my mind, through my life - probably because of my early passion for the LSO/Solti LP, one of the first borrowed from the local library, with that stunning abstract painting on the Decca sleeve (repro in the Legends reissue). I first played it at dusk, just home from School on a March evening, my sister's first baby crying distantly somewhere. Concerto for Orchestra is one of my inner icons.
I don't play it much now though.

I've been obsessed with the Piano Concertos for just as long, starting with the Fricsay/Anda LPs. They're still alive for me now, usually with Donohoe/Rattle on the EMI CD (brilliant red cover with swirling keyboard), or the wondrous Bavouzet/Noseda in 24/96 on Chandos (surrealistic swan/shadow on deep green background, like moss on a black river - Tuonela - Bartok does tend to inspire great cover art!).

Soft spots for Wooden Prince, and the Divertimento for Strings (but think I've worn that out through overplay)... Quartets currently off the playlist after obsessive replay of Takacs and Vegh, back to them in my 70s perhaps...

[rauschwerk]

Fired up by a recording of the Miraculous Mandarin Suite, I seized a rare opportunity to see the ballet. It was outstandingly well done at Covent Garden in the 1960s by the Royal Danish Ballet, choreographed and danced by Flemming Flindt. An extraordinary story and hardly to the taste of most balletomanes (I am not one). I hardly think that any company would touch it nowadays.

[Pulcinella]

For me too, after the Music for SPC, it was the SQs (Fine Arts Saga recordings, now bought on CD) and the gatefold Anda piano concertos/rhapsody.

I have a soft spot for the viola concerto, and like the Naxos CD with the two versions (Serly 1949 and Peter Bartok/Paul Neubauer, 1995) on.

Does anyone remember a staging in London in the late 1980s of all three stage works (Wooden Prince, Bluebeard, and Mandarin)? A foreign company I think. Can't remember where, but I DO remember being impressed!

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

I LOVE the Concerto for Orchestra, Ferney. How can you possibly not like it?

Just one of those things, Pet. I have tried - Kubelik, Solti (both of 'em), Karajan, Reiner, Fricsay. It's not that I dislike the work, but it just doesn't get my pulse racing as does the prospect of hearing the 4tets, or the solo Violin Sonata, or the Mandarin or Bluebeard, or the (solo) Concertos, or MfS,P & C, or the piano Music.

[aeolium]

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.

I agree, and for me Bluebeard is the greatest of all Bartok's works. Not only is the music so powerful and disturbing, the whole opera is rich as a psychological and philosophical work, an astonishingly prophetic creation from before the European catastrophe of the First World War. George Steiner even titled his 1971 book of lectures commenting on Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture, "In Bluebeard's Castle" and in the concluding pages made these remarks alluding to the conclusion of the opera: "We cannot choose the dreams of unknowing. We shall, I expect, open the last door in the castle even if it leads, perhaps because it leads, on to realities which are beyond the reach of human comprehension and control. We shall do so with that desolate clairvoyance, so marvellously rendered in Bartok's music, because opening doors is the tragic merit of our identity."

[visualnickmos]

Just one of those things, Pet. I have tried - Kubelik, Solti (both of 'em), Karajan, Reiner, Fricsay. It's not that I dislike the work, but it just doesn't get my pulse racing as does the prospect of hearing the 4tets, or the solo Violin Sonata, or the Mandarin or Bluebeard, or the (solo) Concertos, or MfS,P & C, or the piano Music.

Try Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos - he might put a smile on your face! or even Bernstein..... where next?

[Ferretfancy]

For me too, after the Music for SPC, it was the SQs (Fine Arts Saga recordings, now bought on CD) and the gatefold Anda piano concertos/rhapsody.

I have a soft spot for the viola concerto, and like the Naxos CD with the two versions (Serly 1949 and Peter Bartok/Paul Neubauer, 1995) on.

Does anyone remember a staging in London in the late 1980s of all three stage works (Wooden Prince, Bluebeard, and Mandarin)? A foreign company I think. Can't remember where, but I DO remember being impressed!

It was at the Coliseum, I think with members of the Royal Danish Ballet. An extraordinary evening encompassing all three stage works, it was the only time I've seen the Wooden Prince, having listened repeatedly to the Dorati recording with the LSO.

After quite a few years I'm still obsessed with Bluebeard's Castle and look forward to seeing another concert performance in March. It's surely the most perfect one act opera.

[Pulcinella]

It was at the Coliseum, I think with members of the Royal Danish Ballet. An extraordinary evening encompassing all three stage works, it was the only time I've seen the Wooden Prince, having listened repeatedly to the Dorati recording with the LSO.

After quite a few years I'm still obsessed with Bluebeard's Castle and look forward to seeing another concert performance in March. It's surely the most perfect one act opera.

Thanks! That makes sense.
Note that Bluebeard is part of a double bill Live from the Met on 14 February (some Valentine), possibly at a cinema near you.

[ferneyhoughgeliebte]

Try Rafael Fruhbeck de Burgos - he might put a smile on your face!

Good idea - I didn't know he'd recorded it, and I usually greatly admire his work.

or even Bernstein..... where next?

Done him.

[visualnickmos]

Good idea - I didn't know he'd recorded it, and I usually greatly admire his work.


Done him.

With Fruh, you get Kodaly's Concerto for orchestra as well; Brilliant Classics label - LSO is the orchestra

Done Bernstein - there must one recording out there somewhere that will convert you! If this quest for the elusive CfO is ultimately successful, I wouldn't mind betting that it's a relatively unlikely combo, that finally 'hooks' you..... sometimes that's the way; keep us posted!

[richardfinegold]

MFSPC was one of the first pieces that drew me into music. I also developed an early affection for PCs 1&3 (Barenboim & Boulez). Jean Pierre Rampal performed an arrangement of the Suite Hongroise in a concert that riveted me.

[Nick Armstrong]

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

Hello did I miss a call....?

Has whatever the issue was been resolved?

I've steered a bit clear of this thread... as the Bartok Question is a tricky one. I fear I shall be in a minority of one (with ferney coming to visit occasionally )

I've been listening to 'classical' music for knocking on 35 years now. Early on, the orchestral works really got to me - Ozawa conducting Mandarin and MSPC was one of my favourite cassettes at University. But I find that they and most other pieces have had a relatively short 'shelf life' in my brain. I find I know how they 'go' and no matter how good the performance, they sadly leave me cold now.

I find generally that music whose main attributes are (to my ears anyway) colouristic, rhythmic, 'pictorial', mood painting... that's the music that I tire of over time. Or maybe I just don't 'get' it - perhaps others find lots of emotional or psychological content in the Concerto for Orchestra. I don't. I'd say the same, though, of even 'Rite of Spring' and a lot of Stravinsky - it doesn't repel me, but no longer (and I feel pathetic saying this about 'Rite of Spring') interests me very much, certainly in recorded or broadcast form. I'd be interested to hear those sorts of pieces in live concerts, for the sonic excitement of a great orchestra at full chat - although other pieces would be more likely to get my wallet and me out and into the hall.

I've never 'got' the string quartets either, despite heartfelt attempts by musical friends. And all those Folk Song suites and arrangements are I'm afraid - one reason I steer clear of the 'playlist' programmes in the morning, as they seem to be perennial favourites, understandably as they are compact and ear-catching... another reason I think I'm not the natural audience for those programmes any more.

As often with me, the closest to my affections are the piano concertos. No 3 with Sir András at the Proms the other year was electrifying.

[Richard Barrett]

for me Bluebeard is the greatest of all Bartok's works. Not only is the music so powerful and disturbing, the whole opera is rich as a psychological and philosophical work, an astonishingly prophetic creation from before the European catastrophe of the First World War.

Yes indeed. I was just looking through this thread to see what had already been said because on Friday evening I was at a concert performance of Bluebeard and my previous must-get-to-know-it-better attitude to the work suddenly expanded into a much more intense involvement, and now it seems to be time for me to immerse myself in Bartók's work for a while, which I've never really done. My knowledge of his piano music is extremely sketchy and I've never got to grips with the string quartets or the first two piano concertos. On the other hand the Music for..., the early Four Pieces for orchestra, the Sonata for two pianos and percussion (and its orchestral version, which Boulez makes a very convincing case for I think), the 3rd Piano Concerto and about 50% of the Concerto for Orchestra have been among my favourites for as long as I can remember. I was strongly affected early on by reading Ernő Lendvai's analysis of proportional systems in Bartók's music. Yesterday I listened to Boulez' second recording of Bluebeard (preceded by his Four Pieces) and was bowled over again.

So here goes. I think Pierre Boulez, the Hagen Quartet and Zoltán Kocsis will be my guides.

A few more words about Bluebeard. To my mind none of it is "happening", and the fairytale serves as an "archetypal" structure through which a confrontation between an individual and the seemingly autonomous contents of his (and it could just as well have been her) subconscious is enacted and eventually left (once more) unresolved. I guess a similar thing might be said about Bartók's other stage works, but that will require some further thought and listening.