Customer Reviews

Murray Perahia Performs Béla Bartók (Piano Sonata; Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs; Suite; Out of Doors; Sonata for 2 pianos & 2 percussion)

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Having made his career on the gentler side of the sound spectrum with Bach, Mozart, Chopin, and Schubert, Murray Perahia applies himself forcefully to some of Bartok's greatest piano music. The composer single-handedly reinvented piano sonority, famously using the piano as a percussion instrument, sometimes brutally, and employing it for stark melodic lines underpinned by hammering ostinato rhythms.

For someone like me who doesn't regularly listen to Bartok's piano works, there's a range of tough modernist expression here, from the relatively easy listening of the Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs to the fierceness of the Out of Doors set and the Suite. I find myself attracted most to the Sonata (1926), which strikes a balance between the assaultive and emoitonal accessibility. Perahia doesn't hold back in any of the fiercer passages, so I wouldn't recommend trying to sit through the whole CD at a stretch, but the piano sound is natural and clean.

These solo recordings pair disparate performances on one CD with the great Sonata for Two Pianos and Percussion. Perahia's partner is Georg Solti, doing a respectable if somewhat tame job together. The real stars are the percussionists, particularly the now-famous Evelyn Glennie. Sony has given them good sonics with a carefully set up sondstage that follows Bartok's precise demands for how the players are to be seated. The sonata is quite tricky to record with so many percussive sounds, and the thrill of a live performance is extremely hard if not impossible to duplicate. Even so, this is one of the best-sounding recordings, and the new DSD remastering helps remove some of its former sting.

I turned on the radio one night and Bartok was playing, piano music. It took me a few seconds to recognize the piece: the Improvisations, Op. 20. The performance was scintillating: I listened on the edge of my seat. When the performance ended the DJ identified the pianist as Murray Perahia.

Next day I bought the disc from Amazon. I have a previously issued CD with the same performance of the Sonata for 2 Pianos and Percussion, with Solti on the other piano, so I wasn't surprised to hear Perahia play Bartok, nor to hear him play Bartok with fire.

But the quality of the playing on this CD is inspired. I own many recordings of Bartok piano music: performed by Bartok himself, Sandor, Kocsis, Jando, to name a few. The closest comparison I can make is that Perahia plays (almost) as well as Leonid Hambro did on his stunning and possessed performance of "Out of Doors", on the original Bartok Records recording of that work. (If you see that LP on Ebay, buy it!) And Perahia maintains this level of excellence on every piece on the disc.

I don't agree with a previous reviewer that the Sonata is the best piece on this disc. For originality, "Out of Doors" and "Improvisations" are tops. The Suite comes close on their heels. But it is important to note that Perahia has chosen his material with unerring sensitivity: these are the pieces one would want to hear him play. (If he's taking requests, Murray, play the Second Piano Concerto!)

If you are a fan of Bela Bartok, buy this disc. If you are not but want to know why this was a great and fearless composer, buy this disc. If you like your music familiar, or pleasant, or nostalgic... beware!

I have always admired Perahia, and on this CD only one thing is really annoying: The piano sound. Which is the usual thin CBS sound of the time, except here it sounds as if played on a really cheap audio cassette player from the sixties or seventies; the effect is called flutter, and seldom heard on CD. The original tapes may have deteriorated, perhaps? Try out track 6 before buying.