Dance Suite Bartok

Following their first album for Linn (Dvorák: Legends Op. 59, Czech Suite Op. 39), the WDR Sinfonieorchester and Cristian Macelaru pursue the same folk vein with two orchestral works by Béla Bartók. Based on a rather childish tale (prince, princess, fairies, and of course a happy ending!), the music of the ballet The Wooden Prince - recorded in full here - has all the ingredients of a masterpiece: masterful scoring for large forces, use of musical themes, an effortless amalgam of folk and late-Romantic elements. Composed in 1923 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the merging of the towns of Buda and Pest - alongside commissions by Ernö Dohnányi and Zoltán Kodály - the century-old Dance Suite is a six-movement work that has become one of Bartók's best known compositions. Born in Timi?oara, a short distance from Hungaria, Macelaru can boast an unparalleled understanding of Bartók, as evident here.

A new recording of a work as often recorded as the Concerto for Orchestra should offer something unusual, as well, and this disc does. Kossuth, a 20-minute symphonic poem, was the 22-year-old composer's first major orchestral composition. The conception owes much to Richard Strauss and the style to Liszt, but there are plenty of hints of material that show up in his mature works. The Village Scenes is a particularly exciting choral-orchestral expansion of a work originally for voices and piano, and the Concerto of course, is enormously popular.

This is quite simply one of the most important and consistently superbly executed recording projects of all time. Bartók's piano music isn't exactly overrepresented on disc, being as it is without doubt one of the most important piano oeuvres ever composed, and in the hand of Zoltán Kocsis, doubtlessly one of the greatest pianists alive today, one should expect some superb discs where the works at long last receive the treatment they deserve. In fact, the actual result surpasses any possible expectations.

Zoltán Kocsis performs the complete solo piano music of his fellow Hungarian, Béla Bartók. Completed in 2001, these critically acclaimed, definitive performances are the benchmark against which all others are considered.

Zoltán Kocsis performs the complete solo piano music of his fellow Hungarian, Béla Bartók. Completed in 2001, these critically acclaimed, definitive performances are the benchmark against which all others are considered.

Zoltán Kocsis performs the complete solo piano music of his fellow Hungarian, Béla Bartók. Completed in 2001, these critically acclaimed, definitive performances are the benchmark against which all others are considered.

Zoltán Kocsis performs the complete solo piano music of his fellow Hungarian, Béla Bartók. Completed in 2001, these critically acclaimed, definitive performances are the benchmark against which all others are considered.