Customer Reviews

Bartók: Rhapsodies Nos. 1 & 2; Piano Quintet

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Why I bought this disc: the price was right, and I love Bartok. I had never heard of the pieces, but "how bad could it be," etc. After listening: more like, "how great could it be!" By gum, Bartok's star keeps rising with me. Sometimes I feel he's scratching at the door labeled "Mozart": he throws around tons of musical ideas (esp. the Quintet), just like the Master himself. The performance is superb.

A great oppurtunity for Bartok fans to experience a few oft forgotten gems of his early years. The Kodaly quartet seems to know their Bartok very well and, exerting their technical skills, do a good deal of justice to Bartok in their performance. They do fall a little off on the rhythm a few places, but the overall performance is very decent considering the challenge that these compositions put forth.

The folk rhapsodies are charming, and similar themes based on them run throughout Bartok's career (heavily influenced by the folk music of his native area). They aren't as impressive as the more well-known Bartok pieces, but they are interesting to hear.

The piano quintet is the real jewel on the crown. Its more developed than the other pieces and resembles, stylistically, the mature Bartok pieces we all know and love.

I would recommend this to anyone interested in Bartok's music though it isn't essential to anyone's collection.

This is an excellent CD at a very low price. Best are the rhapsodies: complex harmonies and rhythms -- music interspersed with folk-like Hungarian melodies. The rhapsodies are not well known. They are difficult to perform (I've done it on piano), but well worth listening to. The performances on this CD are excellent.

Bartók's early second piano quintet (the first one is lost) is a very fine work, even if the language is more reminiscent of that of Brahms, Liszt or Dohnanyi than his own later style - although there are certainly touches of originality and preechoes of his later style (mostly so in the finale, although the folk touches here are Gipsy rather than Hungarian). It's an ambitious work, but the young Bartók is imaginative and skillful enough to manage to sustain the listener's interest, and while no masterpiece, perhaps, it is certainly a work recommended not only to ardent Bartók fans.

The performances here (I have not heard any alternative ones) sounds committed, and they play with spirit and color; indeed, I find nothing really to complain about with regards to the performances of the quintet. The far more famous and idiomatic Rhapsodies don't quite stand up to the competition, however, even if Gyorgy Pauk again plays with energy and spirit (he loses out somewhat on the music's humor). The early, small Andante from 1902 is a fine miniature worth hearing, however. Overall, this is a very interesting issue with respect to the music, and a very satisfying one with respect to performances. A pity, then, about the sound, which is rather murky and grainy and does the music no service (though not awful). Nevertheless, this is a very recommendable disc for music-lovers in general and Bartók enthusiasts in particular.

Bartók: Rhapsodies Nos. 1 & 2; Piano Quintet is a 1993 Naxos recording starring violinist Gyorgy Pauk and pianist Jeno Jando. One also gets to hear the Kodaly Quartet. Keith Anderson has written the music notes. I very much enjoyed this fine recording. Highly recommended. 5/5.

Bartok as a gift: Wonderful! (Rhapsodies Nos 1 & 2; Piano Quintet). Make your friends happy for Christmas, as I did with my friend for his Birthday...Bartók: Rhapsodies Nos. 1 & 2; Piano Quintet