A warmly anticipated new release in the critically acclaimed Hungaroton Bartok series, featuring the award-winning conductor Zoltan Kocsis.
The three works on this CD share an interesting peculiarity. For all three, Bartok composed an alternative ending (as he also did for the Concerto for Orchestra). Whilst concert practice in the past decades has come to prefer one or another of these alternatives, it is both unique and enlightening to listen to the different versions side by side.
Rhapsody No.1 "Lassu"
Rhapsody No.1 "Friss"
Rhapsody No.2 "Lassu"
Rhapsody No.2 "Friss"
Violin Concerto No.2 L
Violin Concerto No.2 Ll
Violin Concerto No.2 Lll
Rhapsody No.1 "Friss" 2nd Ending
Violin Concerto No.2 Lll 1st Version
Rhapsody No.2 "Friss" 1st Version
May 2011
****
“Barnabás Kelemen takes the finger-crippling demands of the concerto in his stride, hoisting Bartok's soaring cantabile aloft at every opportunity, while ensuring that the music's often abrupt changes of mood make a startling impact.”
June 2011
*****
“Not only does Kelemen possess all the necessary technical brilliance to master every aspect of of Bartok's fiendishly difficult writing but he also has an instinctive and idiomatic understanding of the musical language...Kocsis and the National Hungarian Philharmonic offer astonishingly vivid support to Kelemen's rollercoaster playing, bringing a raw incisive edge to the orchestra acccompaniment”
October 2011
“Kelemen lunges at both [Rhapsodies] like a man possessed: his bow knows no fear and his orchestral collaborators are with him all the way. An exceptional disc.”
Click on any of the works listed above for alternative recordings.
Rhapsody No.1 "Lassu"
