Release Date: 01 May 2005
Label: Naxos / Naxos Classics
Packaging Type: Jewel Case
No of Units: 1
Barcode: 747313599820
Genres: Classical
Composer/Series: BARTOK
Description
Bela Bartok (1881-1945)Piano Music, Volume 4The Hungarian composer Bela Bartok was born in 1881in a region that now forms part of Romania. His father,director of an agricultural college, was a keen amateurmusician, while it was from his mother that Bartokreceived his early piano lessons. The death of his fatherin 1888 led to a less settled existence, as his motherresumed work as a teacher, eventually settling in thepresent capital of Slovakia, Bratislava (the HungarianPoszony), where Bartok passed his early adolescence,counting among his school-fellows the composer ErnoDohnanyi. Offered the chance of musical training inVienna, like Dohnanyi he chose instead Budapest,where he won a considerable reputation as a pianist,being appointed to the teaching staff of the Academy ofMusic in 1907. At the same time he developed a deepinterest, shared with his compatriot Zoltan Kodaly, inthe folk-music of his own and adjacent countries, laterextended as far as Anatolia, where he collaborated inresearch with the Turkish composer Adnan Saygun.As a composer Bartok found acceptance muchmore difficult, particularly in his own country, whichwas, in any case, beset by political troubles when thebrief post-war left-wing government of Bela Kun wasreplaced by the reactionary regime of Admiral Horthy.Meanwhile his reputation abroad grew, in particularamong those with an interest in contemporary music,and his success both as a pianist and as a composer,coupled with dissatisfaction at the growing associationbetween the Horthy government and National SocialistGermany, led him in 1940 to emigrate to the UnitedStates of America.In his last years, after briefly held teachingappointments at Columbia and Harvard, Bartoksuffered from increasing ill-health, and from a povertythat the conditions of exile in war-time could donothing to alleviate. He died in straitened circumstancesin 1945, leaving sketches for a new Viola Concerto anda more nearly completed Third Piano Concerto. Theyears in America, whatever difficulties they brought,also gave rise to important compositions, including theConcerto for Orchestra, commissioned by theKoussevitzky Foundation, and a Sonata for Solo Violinfor Yehudi Menuhin.As a pianist Bartok had had a number of teachers inthe years before his mother settled in Bratislava. Therehe became a pupil of Laszlo Erkel, son of the wellknownHungarian opera-composer Ferenc Erkel, andafter his teacher's death in 1896, of Anton Hyrtl,acquiring from both a knowledge of piano repertoireand of traditional compositional techniques. InBudapest his piano teacher was Istvan Thoman, a pupilof Liszt, and his composition teacher, the traditionalistHans Koessler. From the early 1890s, at least, Bartokhad written music for the piano, a series of works thatremain unpublished, a fate that he might have preferredfor his Four Pieces, published in 1904. He continued towrite for the piano until he left for America in 1940,including among these compositions works for concertperformance
Tracklisting
Dariia Lytvishko
Baltimore Symphony Orchestra; Marin Alsop
Alice Di Piazza; Basel Sinfonietta; NDR Bigband; Titus Engel
Anna Alas i Jove; Miquel Villalba
David Childs; Black Dyke Band; Nicholas Childs
Matteo Napoli
Matteo Napoli
Mary Preston
