Customer Reviews

Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta; Hungarian Sketches

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I adore this CD, and I greatly admire Bartok as a composer of music and a music scholar. I first heard a recording of Charles Dutoit conducting the Concerto for Orchestra with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra. That performance was also great, but at the time I really only enjoyed the finale. When I got this recording, I was ready for the other movements. This Fritz Reiner recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra is from quite a long time ago, yet it sounds like it was made yesterday. It's presence and atmosphere keep you immersed in the music. Reiner has an unbelievable knack for conducting Bartok. Reiner was also a tremendous supporter of Bartok and one of the first conductors to champion his works. Both the Concerto for Orchestra and the Music for Percussion, Strings, and Celesta contain all that is best in Bartok's work. (Also check out his three piano concertos, which are equally remarkable!) Bartok's compositional style alternates between extraterrestrial melodic beauty and flashes of angular, barbaric rhythms. The climactic moments frequently jump at the listener like a crack of thunder, yet underlying it all is a supreme logic and a sense of balance. The Hungarian Sketches are lively examples of Bartok's dedication to bringing folk traditions to orchestral music. Since Reiner ranks among the 20th century's greatest conductors, and since Bartok brings a supreme scholastic energy to his music, I recommend this recording highly.

There are plenty of enthusiastic reviews that attest to the quality of this performance, so I can only add, emphatically, that this is the greatest recorded performance of one of two of the greatest pieces by one of the greatest Modern composers. That being said, CD buyers are often wary of the sound quality of early stereo recordings remastered on CD. To them I would say that this is also one of the very best sounding CDs you will ever own of any music, recorded in digital or analog. Absolutely full, rich and clear sound, simply beautiful to the ear. One of the great classical recordings ever made.

Most people do not know the circumstances that made the Concerto possible. Bartok had just come to this country, an impoverished musician and composer from his native war-torn Hungary in 1944. Years earlier, a close friendship had developed between his student, Fritz Reiner, while Reiner was still at the Budapest Academy. After graduation and a brief European stint, Reiner came to the U.S. to further his career as a conductor. In the intervening years, Reiner and Bartok maintained a close and regular correspondence with each other. It was during Reiner's tenure at the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra that Bartok came to the U.S., financially ruined, ill, and devoid of the desire to compose. Reiner, by now well-off financially and successful, took his former teacher under his wing and helped him financially as well as spiritually. During Bartok's convalescence, Reiner and other U.S.-based musicians arranged for Bartok to receive a commission for a composition from the Boston Symphony. This was the creative spark needed to fire Bartok's compositional talents once again, and resulted in the Concerto for Orchestra. The first performance was by Kousssevitzky and the Boston Symphony in 1945; the first recording was by Reiner and Pittsburgh by Columbia Masterworks that same year.

But improvements in recording technology and music directorship of an ensemble much superior to that of Pittsburgh resulted in Reiner again committing the Concerto to tape for RCA in Chicago in 1955. The result is a performance and recording much superior to the earlier Pittsburgh one. This recording gives the Chicago first chair musicians opportunity to "strut their stuff." The later recording of "Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta" is nonpareil in its own right.

Despite the Concerto having the so-called "hole-in-the-middle" that afflicted early stereo recordings, this problem had been solved by the time of the Music for Strings recording in 1958. Nevertheless, both recordings sound great for their age, and authority of performance is no way in doubt here. Buy this recording with absolute confidence and need to look no further.

If my house were on fire I'd run into the burning building just to rescue my copy of this recording. Fritz Reiner (Friendly Fritz to his musicians!) was a former student of Bela Bartok's at the Budapest Conservatoire and remained a life long friend and supporter of the composer, particularly when he was living in exile in America during World War 2, in fact it was in no small part due to Reiner's effort that The Concerto for Orchestra was commissioned in the first place, so who better to play it? But even with that in mind, Reiner rises to the occasion brilliantly. When Gramophone magazine reviewed this CD, they compared it to Boulez's 1992 recording made in the same auditorium and commented on the uncanny realism of Reiner's recording, especially in the quiet passages. This is particularly telling at the beginning of the second movement, the decaying echo of the solo percussion is exceptionally realistic. Wonderful though the interpretation of the Concerto is, the "Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta" coupled with it on this CD set recorded two years later (in 1957), is even better.

Although many people will say that Ferenc Fricsay's recording is perhaps more in keeping the spirit of the music, for me Reiner will always have the edge, he simply lets the music speak without ever letting it get out of control. I can give him no higher complement than that.

After all these years two recordings from the '50s still command the field: #1 the disc at hand - Reiner/CSO, #2 Dorati/LSO on Mercury.

I've followed these recordings of the Concerto and the Music for... through various issues (RCA and Victrola lp, initial CD and now the current -- excellent -- reissue). No other recordings have matched the fire and ice(and heart!) of these.

I even love the cover art: 1950's "moderne" which carries me back to the days of vacuum tubes and blond speaker cabinets with grills that looked like upholstery.

These two Bartok works are indispensable to any collection of twentieth-century masterpieces. CONCERTO FOR ORCHESTRA is Bartok's most popular work. It is quite literally a giant virtuosic "concerto" in which the "soloist" is the whole orchestra. Bartok gives every section of the orchestra a chance to shine and to show off their virtuosity. I read that the jazz theme in the brass in the last movement can be read as a token of gratitude to the Americans, who were advancing on Nazi Germany at the time of the work's composition. Place it up there with Stravinsky's SYMPHONY IN THREE MOVEMENTS (last movement) and Profofiev's Fifth Symphony as a great work written under the impetus of that momentous occasion of victory in World War II. MUSIC FOR STRINGS, PERCUSSION, AND CELESTA is less popular in style than the CONCERTO, but it too is a masterpiece and a piece which one can grow to love. Let it take you on a remarkable sonic journey, from the eerie opening fugue to the ghostly "night music" to the exhilarating finale.

Many other reviewers have praised this recording as one of the definitive versions of these pieces. There is no doubt that all sections of the orchestra are masters of their instruments, and that the strings are on top of the rhythmic difficulties in the MUSIC, while conveying great passion and drama as well. This CD should belong in EVERYONE's collection.

I've listened to Bartok for over 30 years and have greatly admired and loved his Concerto for Orchestra during that time. I've always loved Ormandy's recording with the Philadelphia and still do, but this recording just knocks my socks off!! It's hard to believe that it was made in 1955! Reiner.. the Chicago Symphony.. Lewis Layton (legendary sound engineer during RCA's Golden Age)... it has it all. Get it. You will not be disappointed if you love and appreciate great music

The recordings of works by Bartok were supposedly made by mid 1950s. What surprised me by first listening is the clarity and the ambience of the recording. Even rivalled by most high quality DDD recordings, I suppose this recording is one of the finest stereo recordings in existence.

Fritz Reiner is supposedly a top-notch taskmaster of orchestras. This recording proves the hype about him. The precision and control is no-nonsense and I recognise the characteristics that of "Reiner" trademark. This is the first recording of Chicago Symphony Orchestra for me that is lead other than Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim. Chicago's brasses are precise, distinguished, controlled and has unbelievable power that led Chicago Symphony to have the reputation of having the best brasses in the world. No wonder under Solti, I was to believe the hype about Chicago's brasses were nonsense! I am no fan of Bartok, admittedly, but this recording definetely is a gem.

The "Concerto for Orchestra" was the first composition by Bela Bartok I ever heard. I originally had a recording Karl Ancerl and the Czech Philharmonic, probably on the old Parliament label (actually taken from a Supraphon recording), and enjoyed it very much. Then I heard Fritz Reiner's October 22, 1955, recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra on the RCA Victor label and I knew this was the version to have. This was part of RCA's early experiments with stereophonic sound, initially released to customers on reel-to-reel tapes, but more widely distributed when RCA began issuing "Living Stereo" discs in 1958.

The recording still has amazing sound; it doesn't sound dated at all, a tribute to the RCA engineers working in Chicago's Orchestra Hall. The performance is outstanding throughout. Reiner knew Bartok, even studied with him, and the close relationship between conductor and composer is preserved in this recording. The "Concerto" was an amazing achievement because Bartok had been terribly ill, close to death, and he rallied when given the commission by Serge Koussevitsky (music director of the Boston Symphony from 1924 to 1949) to write some very imaginative, inspired music, even including a biting satire of Shostakovich's "Nazi" march from that composer's seventh symphony (which Bartok heard performed on the radio by the NBC Symphony under Arturo Toscanini).

In much of the work, one is struck by the haunting, mysterious qualities; this is a unique musical world, which culminates in a sentimental look back at Bartok's native Hungary and then the changes he has experienced since coming to America at the outbreak of World War II. There is even a hint of jazz at the end! The Chicago musicians were in top form here, driven obviously by their exacting, autocratic conductor.

Reiner also achieves excellent results in the music for piano, celesta, strings, and percussion, as well as the orchestrated versions of some of his piano works (the "Hungarian Sketches"). These were all recorded on December 28 and 29, 1958, in Chicago's Orchestra Hall.

This is clearly a definite version of some of the best orchestral music by Bela Bartok (1881-1945), highlighted by perhaps the best performance ever recorded of the "Concerto for Orchestra."

One can certainly make the quite reasonable argument that the Boulez recording has set the standard for the Bartok Concerto. It might have the edge over Reiner based on sound quality. Definitely, any admirer of Bartok has to have both Reiner & Boulez in his or her collection. It is only an a question of which is primus inter pares.

The fact that Reiner, after all these years, has only Boulez to rival him is amazing, in and of itself. One really doesn't long for the "good old days" of the tyrannical, fear-inspiring conductor, but when one hears a recordings such as this, one appreciates that such an approach did have positive results.

If the Reiner's Concerto is rivalled only by Boulez, then his Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta is so far out in front of the pack that one wonders if anyone will ever produce a recording that will begin to rival Reiner. I have never heard any other version that comes anywhere close.