Bartok (1881-1945) - Bartok Piano Quintet, Veress String Trio : Lonquich(P)Kelemen, Frang(Vn)Kokas(Va)Altstaedt(Vc)L.Power(Va) - Import CD

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Bartok (1881-1945)

Description:

A co-production between the Alpha label and the Lockenhaus Chamber Music Festival, this album features the German-French cellist Nicolas Altstedt, who has taken over as artistic director of the Lockenhaus from Kremer in 2012, as well as the remarkable Norwegian violinist Vilde Flang, the British violist Lawrence Power, and the Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen and violaist (and violaist) Barnabás Kelemen. The group features the Norwegian violinist Vilde Flang, the British violist Lawrence Power, and the Hungarian violinist Barnabás Kelemen and violist (and violinist) Katalin Kokasz, who will be joined by two important figures in the history of modern Hungarian music, Bartók and Vélémén. Born in 1907 in Korožvár (now Cluj-Napoca, Romania), then a territory of the Kingdom of Hungary, Veresh studied with Bartók and Kodály. After the war, his devotion to the avant-garde of the time led to government repression, and he fled to Switzerland, where he remained active for a long time. For a while he remained a little-known composer, but in recent years he has been attracting attention as an important link between Bartók's generation and those of his students, including Ligeti, Kurtág, and Holliger.The String Trio, which contains many avant-garde elements such as a dodecagonal scale, complex rhythms, and free musical ideas, is an intriguing work that also has an underlying sense of folk music reminiscent of the Hungarian countryside. The Piano Quintet, composed by the 23-year-old Bartók and premiered by himself at the piano, is a work of youthful ambition that is a joy to listen to. The fourth movement even has a Hungarian dance-like theme. Both works have been on Artistic Director Altstedt's list of longtime projects to record, and the members, mostly young musicians, give fresh and lively performances. Naxos Japan

Bartok Collection List