Bartók: Sonata for Two Pianos & Percussion, BB 115, Sz. 110

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.

This CD pairs two major works of the 20th century. Stravinsky’s groundbreaking ballet score Le Sacre du Printemps appears in the composer’s own arrangement for two pianos, whilst the other work on the disc is Bartok’s Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. The keyboard players are Frank-Immo Zichner and Frank Gutschmidt, and the percussionists in the Bartok piece are Dominic Oelze and Torsten Schönfeld.

While the full score of Stravinsky’s ground-breaking 1912 ballet Le Sacre du Printemps experiments with novel playing techniques and highly innovative orchestration, in the composer’s own arrangement for two pianos, recorded here, it is the rhythmical aspects of the music that are prominent. The Hungarian composer Béla Bartók became acquainted with “Le Sacre” through this version in the 1920s, and it greatly influenced his composing technique. Although Stravinsky moved away from folk music after his Russian period, it played an important part in Bartók’s music throughout his life. The Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion incorporates a synthesis of the stylistic developments of his own time and folk music.

The basis for this interpretation of The Rite of Spring was Stravinsky's own reduction of the score for piano for four hands. These musicians have adapted it for the broader possibilities of two pianos and then added the timpani and percussion parts from the orchestral version.

Bartók wrote this sonata in 1937, having already written his epoch-making Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta. Rihm’s work is dated 1993/2007. It enjoys a successive development of discrete musical events and attenuated sounds, transformed into a space filled with echoes and resonances.

An addition the DECCA Originals range to mark the 70th birthday of Stephen Kovacevich [17 October].

The original LP release containing Bartók's Sonata for two pianos and percussion with works by Mozart & Debussy won a Gramophone Award in 1978 for Best Chamber Music recording.

Stephen Kovacevich's recordings of Bartók have long been regarded as reference recordings, and also included in this reissue are his acclaimed performances of the Sonatina and Out of Doors.

Booklet contains an appreciation by David Gutman.

This fourth and final volume of the Géza Anda edition of recordings from the archives of the WDR, issued by Audite, culminates in music by Béla Bartók to which Anda was devoted from the beginning of his career.

Bartók’s piano concertos, the first two of which are presented here as impressive live recordings from 1952 and 1957, both with the Cologne Radio Symphony Orchestra, achieved their final public breakthrough thanks to Anda’s efforts.

His enthusiasm for chamber music as well as his gift in performing together with world-famous Hungarian colleagues are revealed in two recordings from 1953.

To bring this edition to a close, Géza Anda can be heard once more as a soloist in a rousing performance of the Suite for piano Op 14 from 1955.

The current program provides a fascinating overview of Bartók's chamber music for multiple pianos. The composer's own arrangement of the searing, expressionist score for his ballet, "The Miraculous Mandarin" reveals the audacity of Bartók's creative vision with a clarity that is often lost in the popular orchestral version. This rare recording of the two piano version will delight Bartók fans everywhere. Next, the Hernádi/Mocsári Duo is joined by a pair of percussionist in a thrilling performance of the Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Arguably, one of the greatest chamber music pieces of the 20th century.

Recorded in 1952