Dance Suite Bartok

Bernard Stevens's Dance Suite, Opus 28, was written in 1957 and first performed in a radio broadcast in 1961 by the BBC Northern Orchestra under George Hurst. Any listener expecting a relaxed sequence of light music will soon be rudely disabused. In choosing his title Stevens may well have been thinking of the Dance Suite of Béla Bartók, like his own, a challenging and substantial work founded on a complex sublimation of national dance-rhythms. The four movements of Stevens's suite create the impression of something more like a concise and vigorous 'dance symphony'; and like ……

This set features every single (known) composition by the great Hungarian master Bela Bartok. From the orchestral works and the choral works to the piano works and the chamber works: Everything is here, including very rare works never before recorded.< Although there are certainly superior performances of singular works, the set, as a whole, is very near a definitive presentation of Bartok's output…

Written as his graduation piece at the Moscow Conservatory, Khachaturian’s brilliantly coloured and atmospheric First Symphony is an excellent demonstration of his orchestral mastery (further enhanced by revisions Khachaturian made in the 1960s following his first-hand experience of conducting the work around the world). Its Caucasian influence is evident in the work’s melodic arabesques and in the quasi-improvisatory style of its woodwind writing (most notably for the clarinets); yet there is an intensity and audacity in its spicy dissonances, together with a rhythmic and contrapuntal sophistication which makes one appreciate why Prokofieff thought Khachaturian such a promising talent.

Written as his graduation piece at the Moscow Conservatory, Khachaturian’s brilliantly coloured and atmospheric First Symphony is an excellent demonstration of his orchestral mastery (further enhanced by revisions Khachaturian made in the 1960s following his first-hand experience of conducting the work around the world). Its Caucasian influence is evident in the work’s melodic arabesques and in the quasi-improvisatory style of its woodwind writing (most notably for the clarinets); yet there is an intensity and audacity in its spicy dissonances, together with a rhythmic and contrapuntal sophistication which makes one appreciate why Prokofieff thought Khachaturian such a promising talent.