Zoltán Kodály’s orchestral output is relatively small but brimming with Hungarian spirit. JoAnn Falletta and the Buffalo Philharmonic (BPO) present one of the composer’s most popular works, the Háry János Suite, alongside Summer Evening and the Symphony in C major. Falletta and the BPO’s acclaimed previous Kodály album is on 8573838.

REVIEW:

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra led by the renown Kodály interpreter JoAnn Falletta gives a superbly idiomatic performance of all three of these works.

Zoltán Kodály was ever occupied with gathering Hungary’s folk music and crafting his method of music education. On the rare occasions when he sat down to compose, he could be immensely original, creating music that was one of a kind, rich in melody, rhythmic, harmonically inventive, and redolent of the spirit of the Hungary he loved so much.

His Symphony in C major, a work long in gestation that took twenty years to complete is included in the Naxos alum, as is his utterly Hungarian idyll for orchestra Summer Evening – an early work evocative, in the composer’s own words, of “… summer evenings, amid harvested cornfields, by the ripples of the Adriatic.”

The Buffalo Philharmonic Orchestra led by the renowned Kodály interpreter JoAnn Falletta gives a superbly idiomatic performance of all three of these works.

-- All About The Arts (Rafael de Acha)