11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Marketing Mayhem, October 24, 2000
This review is from: Martha Argerich ~ Bartok - Contrasts · Prokofiev - Quintet Op.39 · Liszt - Concerto Pathétique (Audio CD)
Well, here's a very interesting bit of marketing--this CD, released in Hong Kong, does not contain the Prokofiev performance. Same cover, same performers, slightly different programme. Instead, the Kodaly Duo for violin and cello is included, in a stunningly wonderful performance. Programming concerns make the Hong Kong choice much more interesting--the parallels between the three Hungarian composers who don't, at first glance, seem to quite belong together, provoke thought from the audience. Bartok, Liszt, and Prokofiev--I wonder what the programming concept really is here, other than the not terribly profound Eastern European connection. Bartok, Kodaly, and Prokofiev would have made sense as three contemporaneous composers.
The Bartok work included is his three-movement suite for violin, clarinet and piano called Contrasts, which he wrote for himself, a violinist friend Josef Szigeti, and the American jazz clarinettist Benny Goodman. This piece hints at developments later in Bartok's career; for example, the chorale writing in the second movement and the swirling texture of scales in close imitation in the third. Both these ideas are developed much further in Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra. One wonders what Benny Goodman made of this. He also commissioned Stravinsky to write the Ebony Concerto for Clarinet and Jazz Band--and frankly neither of these pieces are really the composer's best work. The Bartok, as enjoyable as it is, has small ambitions. I rather think that Goodman was hoping for something more like Rhapsody in Blue. That said, though, this is a terrific performance, rhythmic and energetic and exciting. It is much more musical, in fact, than the recording that Bartok himself made with Goodman and Szigeti.
The Liszt Concerto pathetique is something else altogether. While the Bartok has small ambitions, this piece aims high. So high, in fact, that it exists in four different versions--one for solo piano, the one presented here for two pianos, and two arrangements for piano and orchestra; all prepared by Liszt himself. This is the Liszt we know and love, a forward-looking composer unafraid to engage in bombast and pathos when necessary--but so thrilling and emotional for just that reason. Although I can't speak to the performance of the Prokofiev, I highly recommend the performances of the Bartok and Liszt.
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