Bartok Music For Strings Percussion And Celesta

Following his 2012 Chandos release of the numbered rhapsodies and sonatas of Béla Bartók, James Ehnes presents a second volume that presents the masterful Sonata for Solo Violin, BB 124, along with less significant works for violin and piano. The sonata was written in 1944 on a commission from Yehudi Menuhin, and as Bartók's last composition for the instrument, it reflects his accumulated knowledge of string writing and the organic development of ideas over his lifetime. Indeed, listeners familiar with the indispensable six string quartets and the Music for strings, percussion, and celesta may well recognize certain expressions, motives, forms, and techniques, as if this solo work in all its compression and austerity was actually a distillation or final working out of those works' essential material.

Following his 2012 Chandos release of the numbered rhapsodies and sonatas of Béla Bartók, James Ehnes presents a second volume that presents the masterful Sonata for Solo Violin, BB 124, along with less significant works for violin and piano. The sonata was written in 1944 on a commission from Yehudi Menuhin, and as Bartók's last composition for the instrument, it reflects his accumulated knowledge of string writing and the organic development of ideas over his lifetime. Indeed, listeners familiar with the indispensable six string quartets and the Music for strings, percussion, and celesta may well recognize certain expressions, motives, forms, and techniques, as if this solo work in all its compression and austerity was actually a distillation or final working out of those works' essential material.

Bartok's Music for Strings, Percussion and Celesta (1936) enjoyed right from the beginning a roaring success, being praised by critics as a masterpiece. It was also the composer's last work published by Universal-Edition in Vienna. A fierce opponent of National-Socialism, he stopped co-operating with his main publisher soon after. The Divertimento (1939), though definitely not a “lightweight”, does hardly give any indication of the political circumstances and events at the time it was created. The piano works on the present recording, arranged for percussion ensemble, are in their original form miniatures whose strong rhythms almost predestinate them for percussion arrangements (Bartok himself experimented extensively with percussion instruments and was familiar with them). Pietari Inkinen is one of the noted rising stars on the international conducting scene. His comprehensive experience in both opera and symphonic repertoire enable him to shape various repertoire into powerful, convincing interpretations. As chief conductor of the Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, he achieved superb performances.

The Boston Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is an American orchestra based in Boston, Massachusetts. It is one of the five major American symphony orchestras commonly referred to as the "Big Five". Founded in 1881, the BSO plays most of its concerts at Boston's Symphony Hall and in the summer performs at Tanglewood. Andris Nelsons is the current music director of the BSO. Bernard Haitink currently holds the title of conductor emeritus of the BSO, and Seiji Ozawa has the title of BSO music director laureate.

The 2nd of September 2010 marks Maestro Seiji Ozawa’s 75th birthday. This new 11-CD set presents Seiji Ozawa in a wide variety of symphonic repertory with the orchestra’s with which he has been most closely associated since the early 1970s – from the San Francisco Symphony in 1972 in a programme of music centred round Romeo and Juliet, through his twenty-nine years at the Boston Symphony, to the Vienna and Berlin Philharmonics and the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Japan – a celebration of a truly international Maestro.

How, you might ask yourself, could Béla Bartók's concertos take up three whole discs? After all, he only wrote three piano concertos, two violin concertos, and a viola concerto, and altogether they'd take up pretty much exactly two discs. So how did the artist and repertoire people at EMI manage to fill out three discs here? In a word, they cheated. They've added not only the Concerto for Orchestra, arguably a fair call considering the nature of the work, but the Suite from The Miraculous Mandarin and the Music for Strings, Percussion, and Celesta, as well.

Nikolaus Harnoncourt The Complete Sony Recordings brings together for the first time Harnoncourt s complete recordings from 2002-2015 with his Concentus Musicus Wien, the Wiener Philharmonike, the Chamber Orchestra of Europe and the Symphonieorchester des Bayrischen Rundfunks. The Sony Classical edition features his famous symphony recordings of Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven and Bruckner, alongside his celebrated performances of great choral works such as the Verdi, Brahms and Mozart Requiems and Haydn's Die Schöpfung, as well as Mozart's opera Zaide, Haydn's Orlando paladino and Gershwin's Porgy and Bess. Also included are previously authorized but unreleased recordings of J. S. Bach s Cantatas Nos. 26 & 36, Beethoven's Christus am Ölberge and Dvorák's Stabat Mater.