Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; etc.

Bela Bartok, Fritz Reiner - Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; etc.

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; etc.
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CD Details

Artist: Bela Bartok, Fritz Reiner
Edition: Music CD
Audio: English (Unknown)
Format: Hybrid SACD - DSD
CD Release Date: 2004-09-14
Music Label: RCA
Soundtracks:
  1. Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 127: Introduzione: Andante non troppo; Allegro vivace
  2. Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 127: Giuoco delle coppie: Allegrotto scherzando
  3. Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 127: Elegia: Andante non troppo
  4. Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 127: Intermezzo interrotto: Allegretto
  5. Concerto for Orchestra, Sz. 116, BB 127: Finale: Pesante; Presto
  6. Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114: Andante tranquillo
  7. Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114: Allegro
  8. Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114: Adagio
  9. Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta, Sz. 106, BB 114: Allegro molto
  10. Hungarian Sketches (Magyar képek), for orchestra, Sz. 97, BB 103: An Evening in the Village
  11. Hungarian Sketches (Magyar képek), for orchestra, Sz. 97, BB 103: Bear Dance
  12. Hungarian Sketches (Magyar képek), for orchestra, Sz. 97, BB 103: Melody
  13. Hungarian Sketches (Magyar képek), for orchestra, Sz. 97, BB 103: Slightly Tipsy
  14. Hungarian Sketches (Magyar képek), for orchestra, Sz. 97, BB 103: Swineherd's Dance

Music reviews of Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; etc.

Music Review: The Gold Standard for these Bartók works.
Rating: 5 Stars

I suppose I could well have waited a few more days, until the turn of the New Year, to be able to say "Now, 50 years later, Bartók's Concerto for Orchestra as it must have sounded to the engineers in the studio." After all, this "classic of all classics" does date from 1955. (The other two works on the album have recording dates from 1958, and I sure don't plan to wait *that* long for a silver anniversary!) Actually, I have been listening to this hybrid SACD release for at least a few weeks now, but it was only this past weekend that I had my first opportunity to listen directly to the SACD layer; previous hearings were of the "redbook" CD layer only.

So, I'm jumping the gun as regards the 50 year celebration, but for good reason. The newly-mastered DSD sound from the analog master tapes, as heard in the SACD layer, are enough of an improvement over the redbook CD sound to justify my impatience. And the redbook CD layer is already excellent as it is!

At this late date, there is little left to be said about how significant these performances are. By now, anyone interested in these Bartók works probably already knows that Fritz Reiner had two things in his favor in these performances that make them as authoritative as they are: His close personal friendship with the composer, and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in one of its most glorious periods, almost without equal (thanks of course to Reiner). Not always apparent (particularly in some of the many earlier releases of this work in less than excellent sound in years past) was the contribution of the RCA engineers in those very early days of stereo. But it all comes together, in sound better than ever thought possible, thanks to DSD (Direct Stream Digital) processing of the original analog master tapes and SACD technology for converting the sound back to analog, giving us the nearest thing to "perfect analog"; the closest possible replica of the original tapes.

The Concerto for Orchestra is, by far, Bartók's best-known and most popular work, immediately accessible in a way that many of his other mature works are not. (His very earliest works, such as "Kossuth" and the "Orchestral Suite No. 1," written largely in the style of Richard Strauss before he began his studies of Hungarian and Rumanian folk music, are also immediately accessible, if hardly of the quality of his mature works.) Reiner, being as close to Bartók as he was, knew this work "inside and out" and committed a performance for the ages in this session. He of course was also aware of the reason why Bartók chose to parodize the "invasion" theme from Shostakovich's 7th Symphony in the fourth movement of the Concerto, and plays this loopy parody, complete with its growling trombone raspberries, for all it is worth. But the work is of course much more than this oft-mentioned parody, and Reiner's interpretation is as good as any, and now - with DSD/SACD technology - fully competitive to versions recorded decades later.

If the Concerto for Orchestra is Bartók's most popular and accessible work, then Music for Strings, Percussion and Celeste ("MfSPC") is probably his greatest masterpiece in respect to incorporating his studies and usage of Magyar folk music into "serious" works. Here, Reiner and his Chicagoans are, if anything, even better than in the Concerto. Their execution of the work has a hair-raising "snap" that many other performances fail to achieve, and the sound - three years newer (1958) than the session at which the Concerto had been recorded - is even better.

The final work on the album is his Hungarian Sketches, again exhibiting the results of his musicological studies as incorporated into a unique personal style. It - like the MfSPC - was recorded in 1958 sessions, but, like that work, sounds as if it had been recorded just yesterday. For those coming upon this work for the first time, don't expect to hear ersatz "ethnic" music in the vein of Liszt and, say, Enescu. Not that assimilating the five movements is in any way difficult, but it is really only in the final movement ("Swineherd's Dance") where the music approximates what we generally tend to think of as "Hungarian folk music." But clearly tinged with the unique piquancy that was Bartók.

This is an album that always had been famous for its performances. Now, fifty years after the fact, thanks to DSD/SACD technology, it can also be appreciated for having the sound quality that had been there all the time on the original master tapes, but never quite realized with this level of perfection in its earlier reincarnations.

An essential album if ever there were one!

Bob Zeidler
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