Word: bartok
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Bartok: Mikrokosmos (Gyorgy Sandor, pianist; Columbia, 3 LPs). All of the 153 little pieces that Bartok intended for his son Peter. The music acquaints the player-or the listener-with technical problems of modern music, notably its twisty rhythms and its unpredictable counterpoint, and at the same time with a wide variety of musical expression. Performance: excellent...
...jungly world of music, there is a sort of composers' elite, whose members are deeply respected but relatively obscure. They are the composers who more often than not will be "discovered" by the public after they die, as was Bela Bartok. They get few performances because a) they write few works, b) they are constitutionally unsuited to the rigors of promoting performances, c) their music sounds forbiddingly difficult, and is twice as difficult to play. A member of this elite in good standing is Manhattan's Elliott Cook Carter,* who, at 47, is just coming into...
...countries; his String Quartet No. 1 has been played by several ensembles, including the Budapest Quartet; his Profile for Orchestra has been broadcast by the NBC Symphony. Perhaps the best indicator of success: Lees is published by England's influential Boosey and Hawkes (publisher of Richard Strauss, Bartok, Stravinsky, Copland). The publishers chose him while scouting around for a young man who could deliver successful works as consistently as has the star discovery of their stable, Benjamin Britten. It may well be that Lees is their...
...sacked in 1951 and replaced by Austrian-born Joseph Rosenstock who staged a world premiere (Copland's The Tender Land) that failed, a New York premiere (Walton's Troilus and Cressida) that succeeded, two gloomy but interesting U.S. stage premieres (Von Einem's The Trial and Bartok's Blue beard's Castle). He did only passably well by standard repertory, and the board of directors could rarely agree on just what kind of opera it wanted...
...Bartok: Sonata No. 2 for Violin and Piano (Mercury). A compelling but rarely heard work by a modern master...