Amazon.com: Bartok: Concerto for Orchestra, Music for Strings, Percussion & Celesta: MP3 Downloads: Herbert Von Karajan/Berliner Philharmoniker

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Performers: Herbert von Karajan, Berliner Philharmoniker
Composers: Bela Bartok
Original Release Date: October 24, 2005
Release Date: October 25, 2005
Label: EMI Classics
Copyright: (C) 2005 EMI Records Ltd.
Genres: Classical/Chamber Music, Classical/General
ASIN: B000TETH1U

Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)

Amazon.com Sales Rank: #126,836 in MP3 Albums (See Bestsellers in MP3 Albums)

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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Karajan's Bartok--pinpoint accuracy and no rough edges, May 21, 2006

By	Santa Fe listener - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Bart�k: Concerto for Orchestra; Music for Strings (Audio CD)

Karajan took a narrow view of Bartok's output, giving us only two works, the Concerto for Orchestra and the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, but he was devoted enough to record each three times (once with the Philharmonia in the Fifties, twice with the Berlin Phil. in the Sixties and after.) There is also a concert broadxast of the Third Piano Concerto with Geza Anda from Salzburg.

Critics were not generally pleased with Karajan's ultra-controlled, somewhat bloodless way with Bartok, which seemed far removed from folkloric Hungary--the Gramophone spoke of "Berlin cream sauce" being poured over the music. Certainly there are no rough edges anywhere in these readings, which EMI has remastered in vivid sound, with strikingly wide stereo separation in the MFSP&C in keeping with the composer's precise direcitons about how the musicians are to be placed onstage.

Anyone who wants tangy, angular Bartok won't be happy, but as compensation we get really astonishing virtuosity from the Berliners; the strings' ability to handle Bartok's presto passagework in the finale of the Concerto and the second movement of the MFSP&C is unequalled in my experience. Most listeners will fall back on the familiar recommendaiton of Reiner or Solti in this music, but Karajan provides thrills and a perspective all his own.

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