Composer: Bela Bartok
Performer: Erwin Ramor
Orchestra: London Symphony Orchestra, Philharmonia Hungarica
Conductor: Antal Dorati
Audio CD
Number of Discs: 1
Format: APE (image+cue)
Label: Mercury
Size: 320 MB
Recovery: +3%
Scan: yes
01. Concerto For Orchestra: 1. Introduzione
02. Concerto For Orchestra: 2. Giuco delle coppie
03. Concerto For Orchestra: 3. Elegia
04. Concerto For Orchestra: 4. Intermezzo interroto
05. Concerto For Orchestra: 5. Finale
06. Dance Suite: 1. Moderato
07. Dance Suite: 2. Allegro molto
08. Dance Suite: 3. Allegro vivace
09. Dance Suite: 4. Molto tranquillo
10. Dance Suite: 5. Comodo
11. Two Portraits, Op.5: 1. ‘Ideal’
12. Two Portraits, Op.5: 2. ‘Distorted’
13. Two Excerpts From ‘Mikrokosmos’: 1. Bourree (No. 117, Book IV)
14. Two Excerpts From ‘Mikrokosmos’: 2. From The Diary Of A Fly (No.142, Book VI)
A notable contribution to Bartok’s Concerto!
To be true, there are many works that have attested the cruel human condition under the opprobrium and the terror regimes in the fear ‘s Century according Albert Camus. This Concert must be understood under the whole meaning of the term exiled. That ‘s why the most of conductors who have triumphed with this performance have been precisely newcomers to the New World such as the Hungarians Fritz Reiner, Ferenc Fricsay and Antal Dorati, the Russian Serguei Koussevitzky. Something similar (and keeping the adequate distance) happens with respect Shakespeare ‘s spirit at the moment to be played by an American Ensemble. Orson Welles stated more than once: he needed to explain what it means the terms of kingdom, proud and honor, terms absolute unknown for the North Americans who have always lived under democracy.
The mythic journey is done by Bartok in this work of undeniable virtues. It represents the experience through a kaleidoscopic parade of feelings, livings and sorrows, but Bartok fortunately crowns this heartfelt tribute with a song to life in the Last Movement. If he would have remained just in a tragic mood, the work probably had finished as Tcahikovsky ‘s Sixth or Mahler ‘s Ninth.
Antal Dorati got to express the minimum facets of the Concerto to London Symphony members with such conviction and commitment that it can be perceived easily by the listener. After the painful Wartimes, the musical core of this piece seems to have vanished being simply played without that second intention beneath the score.
Something similar is happening with Shostakovich ‘s works and that is definitively a blunder, because these are composers who were exception ‘s witnesses and simply reflected in music that hell of oppression and horror.
Dance Suite is magnificent played too. Two portraits and two excerpts of Micro Cosmos are expressed with severe realism without fireworks in the line of let ‘s say Rafael Kubelik with the Chicago Symphony or Mr. K with the Berlin Philharmonic, for instance.
The sound is impressive but the approach is even better.