KVR Audio

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:07 pm

Very OT, I know, but can't keep this in. As a child I loved playing Bartok's easy piano music (For Children, Mikrokosmos) as well as listening to orchestral works such as the (amazing) Music for Strings Percussion and Celeste and The Miraculous Mandarin.

Well, just at present I am rediscovering the full extent of my love for Bartok's music. Alongside Messiaen and perhaps a couple of others, Bartok is truly one of the giants of c20th music.

[discuss][/b]

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:09 pm

totally agree ... i love most his string-quartets 3 and 4.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:12 pm

Not familiar with the quartets, but from reading more about his music I understand they are regarded as one of the high points. Browsing Amazon, is it right to pick up the Emerson Quartet's version - seems to come highly recommended...?

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:22 pm

Yeah, quite good recording, imo.
Another one i like is from
'Juillard String Quartet'
Someone here on KvR recommended another recording, but i can't remember, where i put the paper.

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:38 pm

Bartok is my favourite 20th C composer.

Bluebeard's Castle is awesome too.

If you want interesting and playable piano works try his piano version of Hungarian Folksongs - beautiful music.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:43 pm

I don't know Bluebeard's Castle - another one to check out then!

Part of my current reignited enthusiasm is because I just bought the CD set of his complete piano music, and I'll definitely say +1 regarding his Hungarian Folksong settings. I think it's amazing the way in so much of his work he fuses instantly singable folk melodies with arresting harmonies... and sometimes barbaric rhythms as well! Awesome, as you say!!

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:45 pm

Bluebeard's castle is a very dark, very grand, almost gothic, opera.

headquest · Post by **headquest** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:47 pm

Is there a recording you would particularly recommend?

aMUSEd · Post by **aMUSEd** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:47 pm

btw if you like Bartok try listening to some Kodaly who was one of his contemporaries and collaborated with him for a while. Particularly some of his pieces for solo cello which imho are some of the best cello pieces I've heard - utterly breathtaking.

Stupid American Pig · Post by **Stupid American Pig** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 9:59 pm

My in laws live off of Bartok Bella in Budapest...

robogone · Post by **robogone** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:10 pm

I know Zappa was a real big fan, and I've played some short pieces of his on flute from the music books that I have.

I really need to check out some recordings of his works.

Pantsdown666 · Post by **Pantsdown666** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 10:17 pm

mellotronaut wrote:totally agree ... i love most his string-quartets 3 and 4.

+1

Those two quartets got me "into" classical a long time ago ...

Best versions, to me, are the Takacs Quartet from Hungary,
some previews here:
http://www.amazon.com/Béla-Bartók-Strin ... B0000042GU

mellotronaut · Post by **mellotronaut** » Mon Mar 31, 2008 11:17 pm

Pantsdown666 wrote:
mellotronaut wrote:totally agree ... i love most his string-quartets 3 and 4.
+1

Those two quartets got me "into" classical a long time ago ...

Best versions, to me, are the Takacs Quartet from Hungary,
some previews here:
http://www.amazon.com/Béla-Bartók-Strin ... B0000042GU

yeah, i had the same experience. I was listening to King Crimson and an elder friend told me about the influence of Bartok and especially these two string quartets to 'Larks' Tongues in Aspic'. I began to listen to it and loved it immediately.
Btw., your recommendation seems to be the one i got some months ago here.

Thanks for the link!

m

herodotus · Post by **herodotus** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 12:24 am

This thread makes my heart soar like an eagle.

Bela Bartok is my single most favorite musician of all time.

I always used to get so pissed off when all of the people writing about twentieth century music would refer to Bartok as one of those quaint 'nationalist' composers like Villa-Lobos.

Today it is becoming more and more obvious that Schoenberg Berg and Webern, for all their undoubted talent, were not a beginning but an ending. The rhythmic focus of Bartok and Stravinsky made them much more in line with what music has become than any of the 'Second Viennese School'. And Stravinsky, for all of his talent, could not match Bartok's intensity. Late Stravinsky is charming, but unremarkable compared to works like The Rite of Spring. Bartok's work, on the other hand, never lost it's youthful fire. His last works: The 6th quartet, the Concerto for Orchestra, and the 3rd Piano Concerto, are all major works, filled with the sort of energy most people can't even summon in their youth.

Bartok rules!

Pantsdown666 · Post by **Pantsdown666** » Tue Apr 01, 2008 12:49 am

I think what's also important about Stravinsky and Bartok is that they both looked far outside classical music into other forms of music, rather than intellectualising around the boundaries of defining classical music itself, like the 2nd Viennese school. This is probably why their resonance has carried through into this century ..

I remember searching out Bartok-related material in a library in Berlin about 20 years ago, and I came to a (vinyl) section of Hungarian folk musics, recorded in the earlier half of the century. It was a series where they'd tried to capture some disappearing forms of folk musics. Sound recordist ? Bela Bartok.
Borrowed them and listened through - you could echoes of the (later) string quartets in there ...

In response to an interviewer's question concerning his favorite composers, Stravinsky once replied "The three B's...Bach, Beethoven and Brown — James Brown." According to Hal Neely, former president of King Records, Stravinsky went on to say that James Brown should be considered one of the greatest composers of all time, that he was writing "truly American music and portraying the American heritage."

In praise of Bela Bartok