Stravinsky, Bartok and Martinu were established international figures when they wrote these works for violin, travelling across Europe as well as the United States. With the onset of World War Two, all three composers would ultimately emigrate because of their rejection of fascism. In an age of political upheaval and cultural displacement, each of them found an individual approach to reinventing the language of tonal music, laying down roots in the west without abandoning their Eastern European identities. While the Russian-born Stravinsky was experimenting with possibilities of modern violin technique in his concerto, Martinu took these efforts a step further in his Suite concertante by blending the sounds of his native Bohemia with the colours of French neo-classicism. In the Rhapsodies, Bartok turned to the folk music of Hungary and Romania.

Frank Peter Zimmermann, joined here by the Bamberger Symphoniker and its conductor Jakub Hrůša, continues his exploration of the great violin works of the 20th century after his acclaimed recordings of works by Hindemith (BIS-2024), Shostakovich (BIS-2247) as well as Martinu and Bartok (BIS-2457), a recording unanimously acclaimed by the critics, gaining a Diapason d’or and named ‘Concerto Choice’ by BBC Music Magazine, ‘Editor’s Choice’ by Gramophone and one of Classica’s ‘Chocs de l’annee’.

REVIEW:

With Jakub Hrůša and his super-attentive Bamberg orchestra, Frank Peter Zimmermann trumps the self-confident projection of his younger self. Stravinsky’s framing movements seem defter now, particularly the opening Toccata with its chortling bassoons.

-- Gramophone

Their interpretation of Stravinsky’s Violin Concerto becomes an equally sarcastic and seriously elaborated confrontation. Even in the opening Toccata, taken from the baroque form, the notes buzz and chirp like a summer meadow full of birds and insects. In general, the performers give the work a floating lightness that dispels everything earthly. At no point do you notice the technical demands.

In the two arias, too, the participants maintain the intensity and musical pressure. The concluding Capriccio then gives Zimmermann another opportunity to let his violinistic fireworks leap, jump, and shine in an artfully choreographed manner. He knows he is in the best of company with his accompanists, as they also carry the sarcastic aspects of the score as well as demonstrating the ambiguity with pointed articulation.

Bartok’s rhapsodies are constructed in two parts, like a Csárdás, which has a slow and a fast part. Bartok has retained much of the character of the music here, which he borrowed from folk melodies. The performers know how to show this raw side of the music of the people with verve and well-dosed energy.

The first version of the Suite concertante already had a difficult genesis, as Martinů was, to put it casually, lovesick during its composition. The elegiac music of the meditation therefore has a special depth of expression, which Zimmermann and his accompanists shape with deep feeling.

Martinů created the fundamentally new second version of the suite primarily at the request of the soloist Samuel Dushkin. The Aria from this version links up with Stravinsky’s concerto, as does the same original soloist. Many of the elements that characterize Martinů’s works – references to Czech folk music, vitality, changing rhythmic patterns and a mostly traditional harmony that does not exclude harsh dissonances – can also be found in the suite.

Zimmermann also demonstrates his violinistic skills in the suite, which are characterized by elegance and mastery of the instrument, in an engaging and memorable, yet spontaneous manner, so that the suite shines with fresh brilliance and brings Martinů to the trapeze. Hruša and the Bambergers are still to be found at his side and are audibly at ease with the music of their not only geographical neighborhood.

-- Pizzicato

The basic idea of this album was to play in threes… Not to play 'something', but to experiment 'in threes' with sound worlds as different as those of Bartók, Poulenc and Schoenfield. With his Contrastes, composed in 1938 for Benny Goodman, Bartók broadened his penchant for traditional music and turned it into a more universal work, influenced by jazz. Poulenc was a child of the Paris of the Roaring Twenties, influenced as much by Stravinsky, Ravel and Satie as by cabaret songs and operetta. Paul Schoenfield, born in Detroit in 1947, also likes to combine styles. Each of the movements in his trio is based on an Eastern European Hasidic melody… not forgetting the breathtaking klezmer dances of Romanian Șerban Nichifor. Almost ten years after Take 2 (Alpha211), Patricia Kopatchinskaja reunites with two great accomplices, clarinettist Reto Bieri and pianist Polina Leschenko, for a programme based around trios that celebrate the roots of these three musicians.

The Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra and conductor Lawrence Foster present choral-orchestral works by Béla Bartók and Zoltán Kodály. They join forces with a remarkable group of soloists – including Luiza Fatyol, Roxana Constantinescu, Marius Vlad, Ioan Hotea and Bogdan Baciu – as well as the Junior VIP children’s choir. The album opens with Kodály’s Budavári Te Deum and Psalmus Hungaricus, followed by Bartók’s Transylvanian Dances and culminating in the composer’s Cantata Profana. The latter work, based on ancient myth, was originally conceived in Romanian, but the piece is usually performed in a Hungarian version. This recording reinstates the Romanian original version, retouched by choir conductor Cornel Groza.

In general, this recording by Romanian ensembles of works by Hungarian composers linked to Romanian sources can be seen as an exploration of Romania and Hungary’s shared roots, and of the bicultural nature of Transylvania in particular. Lawrence Foster has a vast Pentatone discography, including several orchestral and complete opera recordings. The Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir & Orchestra so far featured on two Pentatone recordings under the baton of Foster: Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West (2021) and Melody Moore’s solo recital Remembering Tebaldi (2023). Roxana Constantinescu featured on Pentatone recordings of Mascagni’s Cavalleria rusticana and Puccini’s Il tabarro (both 2020), while Marius Vlad appeared on the above-mentioned La Fanciulla del West recording.

REVIEWS:

One can readily detect a national style in this collection of choral works recently issued by Pentatone, each distinctive and individual if, in the case of Kodály, of uneven inspiration.  Of Psalmus Hungaricus Bartók commented that it ‘could not have been written without Hungarian peasant music’.

[Kodály’s Psalmus] is acclaimed as one of the truly great choral works of the 20^th century, and while there’s no shortage of recordings, actual performances today are relatively rare. The Guardian’s Alfred Hickling once observed, ‘Kodály remains a minority taste in this country, lightly dismissed as a kind of low-fat alternative to Bartók’.  A little unfair perhaps considering the emotional punch and drama of Psalmus Hungaricus in which the soloist assumes the role of the betrayed King David, with a supplicant chorus echoing his anguish and indignation.

According to the Kodály authority David Vinden, the Psalmus is a work ‘that sings itself’. Here, the Transylvania State Philharmonic Orchestra and Transylvania State Philharmonic Choir do the work proud. Under the direction of Lawrence Foster (American-born with Rumanian ancestry), the chorus respond fervently to the raging of the persecuted, bitterness giving way to the affirmation of God’s divine retribution. King David’s grievances are articulated mainly by the tenor Marius Vlad, but here his impassioned utterances sound a little too clenched for comfort, and only in the latter stages of the work does a more yielding tone emerge.  While this performance may not achieve the gravitas or emotional intensity of Kodály’s own recording (Hungaroton, 1957), Lawrence Foster’s ear for balance is sure and his tempi well-judged.

Like the Te Deum, Bartók’s Cantata Profana (1930) is another rarity in the concert hall, although moderately well represented on disc. Based on traditional Transylvanian ballads (and sung here in Romanian), it narrates the tale of a hunter’s nine sons who are magically transformed into stags before their integration into the natural world.  The work remains an under-appreciated part of his oeuvre...Bogdan Baciu and Ioan Hotea, as father and son respectively, are impassioned in their solo contributions, manfully facing their extreme pitches.  The chorus are assured and bring considerable energy to their role.

Taking the disc to just over the hour are Bartók’s Transylvanian Dances, orchestral versions of his Sonatina for Piano from 1915 and given characterful performances.  Overall, these accounts are a worthwhile introduction to the composers’ choral works and make attractive couplings that enjoy full texts and translations with excellent sound.

-- Opera Today

Music by two Hungarian composers, and folk-music-collecting friends, performed in Romania conducted by Los Angeles-born (to Romanian parents) Lawrence Foster, makes for an excellent collection, very well recorded at Radio Cluj in May 2022. Kodály’s Budavári Te Deum is lively and exhilarating, with lyrical correspondences to Walton’s Coronation Te Deum, music that speaks directly without artifice, whereas Psalmus Hungaricus is musically of greater intensity and gravitas, performed here with emotional power to compelling effect. Bartók’s orchestral Transylvanian Dances make a flavoursome prelude to his Cantata Profana, recounting a strange tale involving stags, in an atmospheric, dramatic and suspenseful performance. In addition to the choir and orchestra there are, when required, a children’s chorus and five vocal soloists, each of the latter committed to words and music.

-- Colin's Column

The fifth album of Philzuid features works by Béla Bartók, Anders Hillborg and Claude Debussy. Chief conductor Duncan Ward takes you on a journey filled with innovative sounds and with folk music. Bartók developed his own tonal language through elements taken from folk music whilst Anders Hillborg’s surprising tonal language shows the influence of Scandinavian folk music and of Klezmer. Claude Debussy, however, turned Romantic tonality on its head with harmonies and melodies that owed part of their development to Javanese gamelan music.

Magdalena Kožená’s fourth Pentatone album Folk Songs brings together folk-inspired song cycles from across the globe. Ranging from Berio’s Folk Songs to sets by Bartók, Ravel and Montsalvatge, this collection provides a kaleidoscope of twentieth-century orchestral song composition. Kožená performs them together with the Czech Philharmonic under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.

REVIEW:

Kožená is on gleaming form in music that largely suits her voice well, and the orchestra plays fabulously for Rattle.

-- The Guardian (U.K.)

On the occasion of Cambreling's 75th birthday the label SWR Classic releases a 10-disc boxed set of recordings made by SWR between 1999 and 2011.

Sylvain Cambreling was the chief conductor of the SWR Sinfonieorchester Baden-Baden and Freiburg between 1992-2016. When he took up his position at the broadcasting corporation Südwestrundfunk, he knew only too well that he was the successor to charismatic colleagues such as Hans Rosbaud, Ernest Bour, and Michael Gielen. He met with an orchestra that was young, efficient, and enthusiastic, and whose members were eager and willing to fulfill the task the broadcasting corporation had set: a strong commitment to New Music.

Cambreling was and still is enormously hard-working, curious about anything new and complex, displays a versatility that is without competition, and is a great communicator: therefore, he was the ideal cast for this orchestra and its tasks. The hymns of praise, specifically those of the foreign press, regularly (and not without envy) point out the qualities and possibilities of the orchestra and also the apparently reliable sponsorship from the broadcasting corporation. Just as reliable were the invitations from Salzburg, Paris, Berlin, Vienna, Madrid, Lisbon, Lucerne, Aix-en-Provence.

While many great composers did not take into account the musical education of their descendants in their work; there is explicit children’s and educational literature from others. Among the best-known examples are certainly Bach; Mendelssohn or Schumann (Album for the Young). The Georgian pianist Giorgi Iuldashevi quotes from the latter work on his debut album under the name “Simplicity”; with which the young pianist dedicates himself to piano literature for children. Beginning with his compatriot Nodar Gabunia and his work “From the Diary of a Pupil” (1977); excerpts from “For Children; Vol. 1” by Béla Bartók; from György Kurtág’s “Játékok”; from the “Children’s Music”; Op. 65 by Sergei Prokofiev as well as from the “Children’s Album” Op. 39 by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky are played. This selection of these highly varied; simple miniatures for children; far from any banality; reveals what Johann Wolfgang von Goethe; among others; stated: “In the restriction the master shows himself”.

Pianist Pierre-Laurent Aimard joins forces with the San Francisco Symphony and Music Director Esa-Pekka Salonen for a recording of Bartók’s complete piano concertos. A pianist himself; Bartók imbued his three concertos with multiple aspects of his compositional persona; ranging from complex and innovative (the First) to exuberant (the Second) and serene (the Third). The result is a fascinating slice of his musical life. This all-Bartók release marks the first Pentatone collaboration between Esa-Pekka Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony; an ensemble he has reshaped through creative performance concepts and expansive new media projects.

A renowned champion of twentieth-century music; Pierre-Laurent Aimard has released multiple acclaimed albums in his exclusive contract with Pentatone; including Messiaen’s Catalogue d’Oiseaux (2018) and Visions de l’Amen (2022); along with Beethoven’s Hammerklavier Sonata & Eroica Variations (2021). He also joined Tamara Stefanovich in Etudes and Frames (2023); with music by Vassos Nicolaou. Salonen returns to the label for the first time since his recording of Stravinsky’s Perséphone (2018); the San Francisco Symphony previously appeared on the 2005 Pentatone release Young America.

REVIEWS:

You know just within a couple of minutes these recordings are going to be special. As Salonen and the San Francisco Symphony sweep thrillingly into the First Piano Concerto’s Allegro, Pierre-Laurent Aimard luxuriates in the space they leave him on a superbly recorded disc…‘Definitive’ is a daft word to use about an interpretation. How can we truly know? But superlative this absolutely is.

-- The Sunday Times (★★★★★)

Ultimately, then, we’ve got something special here: a fresh take on some canonic works by a conductor and soloist whose bread-and-butter is this very fare. It’s an undertaking that flatters all parties involved musically, technically, and intellectually. Best of all, it draws out the latent mellifluousness of Bartók’s writing, even when, outwardly, that’s at its most hard-edged.

-- The Arts Fuse

In the second concerto I particularly admired the middle movement, with its opening on slow strings – which were silent in the first movement – and the fast toccata-like middle section generated exactly the right kind of excitement.

The third concerto is more different from the other two than they are from each other. It is mainly serene and graceful, remarkably so when one considers that it was written in wartime, in exile and when Bartók knew he did not have long to live...Aimard, slightly to my surprise, provides beautifully elegant phrasing and articulation and shows himself as much at home in the graceful writing here as he did in the much more challenging writing in the first two concertos...The recording is impeccable.

-- MusicWeb International

[Aimard] is aided and abetted every step of the way by the San Francisco Orchestra and its new(ish) music director...Salonen approaches these works as unapologetically modernist, and he has inspired the orchestra to shed the richly upholstered colors they developed under MTT for a less weighty, more severe color palette that ensures laser-like clarity even in the densest contrapuntal passages. The middle sections of concertos 1 and 2’s slow movements are particularly telling, and listen to the wind’s precision and leanness in the first concerto’s opening movement, which gives the music a mechanical brilliance. Pentatone’s engineers ensure the bass drum has plenty of impact. When Salonen conducted these concertos for Bronfman in Los Angeles, the Sony engineering highlighted that orchestra’s cinematic sound. Here we have a quite different sound palette that embraces a greater variety of hues in a true concert hall acoustic. 

Characterful...strongly recommended.

-- The Classic Review

Only one year and a half after their first meeting in Budapest in early 1905, Bartók and Kodály were eager to jointly publish their first settings of Hungarian folk songs. In their foreword to the volume Magyar népdalok (Hungarian Folk Songs), they declare their goal thus: “ … to get the general public to know and appreciate folk songs.” The Ten Hungarian Folk Songs from 1906 (BB 43), Bartók’s earliest and still quite rudimentary but imaginative and very sensitive folk-song arrangements, were collected by the 25-year-old himself mostly in three regions of the Hungarian countryside: near Budapest, Békéscsaba, and the lake Balaton. This set, from which we can listen to four arrangements on this CD, had never been offered by Bartók to be published. Having collected peasant music from regions of the Hungarian Kingdom where significant Romanian and Slovak minorities lived, Bartók immediately became intrigued by the peculiarities – and from his point of view, musical freshness – of both nations’ songs and instrumental dances.

His reverence for the folklore of the Slovaks can be felt in the five arrangements of the Falún (Village Scenes) series (BB 87a), composed in 1924 and based on folk songs from the Zólyom (in Slovakian: Zvolenská) region of what was then Upper Hungary (now Slovakia) he collected in 1917 from village women. These arrangements of bursting energy, enchantingly deep emotionality and transcendence also bear testimony to Bartók’s discovery of Stravinsky’s music which he was galvanized by in the early 1920s. The texts are sung by Katalin Károlyi in Hungarian here, not in their original Slovak-language version.

Before leaving Hungary for Austria and West Germany after the fall of the 1956 revolution, György Ligeti (1923–2006) not only collected folk music in his native Transylvania but also worked for the Institute for Folklore in Bucharest and Kolozsvár in the late 1940s. Thus, in his twenties and thirties, he followed the footsteps of his idols, Bartók and Kodály. In the last months of 1952, Ligeti set to music five poems by János Arany, a leading figure of 19th-century Hungarian poetry. Both text and music are deeply rooted in Hungarian folk songs; indeed, most of Ligeti’s melodies, or parts thereof, could be actual folk songs, just like Arany’s texts from almost a century earlier could be folk-song texts. The last piece is an exception, being a daring musical setting of Arany’s 1868 Hungarian translation of Robert Burns’ humorous song The Deil’s Awa Wi’ Th’ Exciseman (1792).

In masterful arrangements, these four saxophone virtuosos explore the golden '20s and early '30s of the last century and give an exceptional and entertaining performance.

The eminent Martha Argerich is one of the most loved and admired Classical pianists of all time. She quickly gained and maintained world-wide reputation for her exciting performances and This set is the 15th volume of DOREMI’s special series of live performances and broadcasts featuring the artistry of the young Martha Argerich. Most items in this set are First release ever.

Reissue of celebrated LP by one of the world's leading chamber orchestras which won the German Record Critics' Prize and recieved top marks by British Gramophone.

The eminent Martha Argerich is one of the most loved and admired classical pianists of all time. She quickly gained and maintained world-wide reputation for her exciting performances. This set is the 13th volume of DOREMI's special series of live performances and broadcasts featuring the artistry of the young Martha Argerich.

"... They (Bartók and Kodály) wanted not only to put the Hungarian into the light, not to serve a mere colony of German music history, but to study folk music in all its manifestations, moreover - Bartók said in 1931 - to serve the fraternization of peoples. Later they explicitly aimed at "a synthesis of East and West".
This very turn from the Hungarian to the global is nowhere more evident than in one of the last works, the Concerto for Orchestra, which outwardly echoes the Hungarian Pictures as they do the early period of folk music research..." (from the liner notes by Jan Reichow) This recording (like the entire TACET catalog, by the way) not only captivates on first listen, but invites you to savor countless small details, each twist a treasure that András Keller and the musicians of Concerto Budapest bring out as knowledgeably as they do lovingly.

After the premiere recording of Reynaldo Hahn's concerto (released by RH-022), this is another premiere recording by Szeryng: Benjamin Lees's violin concerto. This 2CD set also includes: Brahms violin concerto with Wolfgang Sawallisch, Bach and Szymanowski violin concerto with Ernest Ansermet, Bartok violin concerto with Ernest Ansermet: all never before published recordings.