Bartók: Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, BB 114, Sz. 106

Béla Bartók’s Concerto for Orchestra, one of his greatest works, was written in the United States after the composer was forced to flee Hungary during World War II. It is not only a brilliant display vehicle for each instrumental section but a work of considerable structural ingenuity that unites classical forms and sonorities with the pungency of folk rhythms and harmonies. Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta explores darker moods through a score of marvellously poised symmetry.

This release follows Marin Alsop’s ‘riveting’ (Gramophone) Baltimore Symphony recordings of Dvořák’s symphonies.

This has long been a popular coupling of works by Béla Bartók, but this new release rides on the crest of a wave of previous successes and will occupy a leading position amongst the competition on the quality of its recording and performance. Marin Alsop and the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra have a synergy which has made their Dvořák symphonic recordings sound ‘as fresh as when Dvořák put pen to paper’ (BBC Music Magazine on the Symphonies 7 and 8, NBD0010). Of Dvořák’s New World Symphony (8570714) BBC Music Magazine also wrote, ‘it is rare to be able to say that a performance forces one to listen to a work anew, but this is exactly what Alsop’s reading achieves.’

The rhythmic excitement and plangent melodic shapes of Eastern European folk music come together in perfect balance in the works of Bela Bartók's maturity, where the range of colour and drama cover an entire world of experience and emotion, life-enhancing and deeply satisfying.

Ernest Ansermet's view of Bartok was a lyrical one and his incredible ear brought out lines, sonorities and shape in this music that have rarely been equalled. Here, collected together on CD for the first time, are his complete Bartok recordings for Decca as part of the ongoing 'Decca Ansermet Legacy' and they include some of his most famous orchestral works, with a first release on CD of the Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta, and a first international release of the other orchestral works. The Piano Concerto No. 3, released as part of the Ansermet volume in Decca's 'Original Masters', features Julius Katchen as soloist.