# Any fans of Bartok's solo piano musics?



## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

I have always enjoyed Bartok's orchestral works and string quartets, but only recently "got" into his solo piano pieces.

What are your favorite pieces and performances?

In *Mikrokosmos*, I like György Sándor. There are recordings of Bartok himself playing some from Book VI, and they sound much more subtle than how many modern pianists usually bang these pieces out.

*Out of Doors* is such an intriguing piece, but seems to have some interpretive extremes. Again, I would prefer a subtle performance.

Looking for recommendations for the Bagatelles, Sonatina etc. Also, let me know what do you think about Bartok solo pianos style.


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## chill782002 (Jan 12, 2017)

Yes! His "Sonatina" is a favourite of mine, also the piano arrangements of the Romanian Folk Dances and Hungarian Peasant Songs. The series of Bartok's Piano Music on Naxos and played by Jenő Jandó is highly recommended.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

silentio said:


> I have always enjoyed Bartok's orchestral works and string quartets, but only recently "got" into his solo piano pieces.
> 
> What are your favorite pieces and performances?
> 
> ...


I think Jando is a good pianist to explore as indeed is Kocsis.

For out of doors try Ranki here









More generally try to find the Bartok CD by Jerome Lowenthal, and maybe the Bartok that Annie Fischer recorded for the BBC, on an old BBC Legends CD.

















I remember a good recording of the etudes by Rosen. Rosen's comments on the etudes are worth finding and reading -- he rated them very highly.


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## Phil loves classical (Feb 8, 2017)

Yes, I got Georg Sandor's set of his complete solo piano music, and a recording of Bartok's own playing. Some of the pieces I played when i was young, and hated it for its weird harmonies, which is a plus to me now. 
Some fav's:
3 Etudes
2 Romanian Dances
10 Easy Pieces
Mikrokosmos Vol 4, 5, 6

His style incorporates some heavy disonnances Major 7's, Minor 2's to some of his even more straight forward pieces.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

I know that I have a CD containing some of Bartoks piano works, all I have to do is find it


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

Dan Ante said:


> I know that I have a CD containing some of Bartoks piano works, all I have to do is find it


Perhaps that 's a sing, just don't find it.


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## SixFootScowl (Oct 17, 2011)

Dan Ante said:


> I know that I have a CD containing some of Bartoks piano works, all I have to do is find it


This is why I like to have everything ripped to my computer drive.

I do have some of the Bartok piano works too. First two disks of of this set:


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> More generally try to find the Bartok CD by Jerome Lowenthal, and maybe the Bartok that Annie Fischer recorded for the BBC, on an old BBC Legends CD.
> .


Thanks for this one. I just quickly checked Youtube. Ashtray Annie strikes again! What a powerful touch.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Not wishing to hijack someone else's thread but there are some interesting suggestions here
I have the Boulez box set of Bartok and shall look out some of the suggestions above


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Fritz Kobus said:


> This is why I like to have everything ripped to my computer drive.


Oh I have them filed on the PC but its knowing where to look for the little blighter, I might try under 'Bartok' just on the off chance.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

* Got it.*

It is an 'Acrobaleno' CD from the Warehouse @ NZ$4.99 as follows:
14 bagatels Op6. 4 Dirges. Improvisations Op20 and sonata for solo piano.
Diane Andersen Piano.
I can't remember when I last heard or what I thought of it.


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

I like most of Bartók's solo piano output and have a good many favorite recordings, but these are the ones that I listen to on a fairly regular basis …

1907 - *Three Hungarian Folksongs from Csík* • Sándor [Vox] ~ Sándor has a knack for playing and phrasing simple folk tunes in a natural, uninflated manner, avoiding the trap (that Kocsis often falls into) of overthinking them and trying to make them sound more sophisticated than they are.

1908 - *Fourteen Bagatelles* • Lowenthal [Pro Piano] ~ These intentionally avant-garde early pieces find Bartók synthesizing Eastern European folk scales and rhythms with experimental harmonies of a kind that make you think of Debussy. Lowenthal plays them with scrupulous precision and rhythmic fidelity, bringing great clarity to what is new in these works.

1908 - *"An Evening in Transylvania"* (from _Ten Easy Piano Pieces_) • Marik [Arbiter] ~ This nostalgic and, in the end, melancholy little ditty was a favorite of Bartók's, and he played it at recitals throughout his career, but I find Marik's account even more evocative than Bartók's.

1909 - *Seven Hungarian Folk Tunes* (from _For Children_, arr. Szigeti) • Szigeti & Bartók [Columbia '30] ~ I prefer these arrangements for violin & piano to the piano originals, and the seven-minute seven-tune suite that comes of them serves as a sort of «Best of _For Children_» that's more digestible and more satisfying than the original collection as a whole-not that the whole of _For Children_ was ever intended to be played or listened to in one sitting.

1911 - *Allegro barbaro* • Kocsis [Denon] or Frankl [ASV] or Bartók [HMV '29] or Marik [Arbiter] ~ I've yet to find a performance that has the angular volatility and just-controlled barbarism that I'd like to hear in this work-where's Leonid Hambro when you need him?-but the listed accounts each bring something a little bit different to the work.

1915 - *Sonatina* • Bartók [1920 Welte-Mignon piano rolls] ~ Although there are a boatload of other recordings to chose from, no other pianist captures the slightly off-kilter humor of the work as effectively as the droll composer himself does … even via piano rolls, which no doubt fail to capture much of the subtlety/nuance of the playing. It's not an ideal recording, then, but it's my reluctant favorite nonetheless.

1915 - *Six Romanian Folk Dances* • Kocsis [Denon] or Bartók [1920 Welte-Mignon piano rolls] or (arr. Székely) Szigeti & Bartók [Columbia '30] ~ This popular work for piano is perhaps even more popular as a work for violin & piano. I've no need to chose between the two versions, as I'm wealthy enough to own recordings of both.

1916 - *Suite* • Bartók [HMV '29] or Kocsis [Philips] ~ The Suite is one of Bartók's few works of this period not to derive from existing folk song, but it has a folk-y feel about it much of the time even so, with an Arabic bent in the third movement. Speed and momentum builds through the first three movements as the music grows generally more chromatic/borderline atonal, setting you up for the unprecedentedly thrilling finale … which, of course, is a beautiful, even sorrowful, slow movement of much milder harmonic character. Of Bartók's popular and "important" solo piano works, this one interests me least for whatever reasons.

1918 - *Fifteen Hungarian Peasant Songs* • A. Fischer [BBC, live '61] ~ Of all the recorded performances that I've heard of Bartók's relatively folk-y works, I'd cite Annie Fischer's intensely earnest performance here as by far the most compelling. The depth of tone, the idiomatic phrasing, the unflagging focus & concentration, the strength of characterization … all contribute to the gravitas of her playing and the spirit of the noble peasant that she evokes. (The coupled account of the Brahms op. 5 sonata from the same recital is astonishingly good as well.)

1918 - *Three Studies* • Lowenthal [Pro Piano] ~

"I cannot play the three Études. I haven't played them-ever or anywhere-since 1918." (Béla Bartók in a letter from some twenty years on)

The First Étude has a chromatic blizzard of alternating seconds and thirds and ninths and tenths that result in a wonderful, oscillating sense of harmonic struggle and instability: Kocsis' relatively suave and forgiving manner tends to assuage that sense, while Lowenthal's relatively angular and severe manner tends to exacerbate it. The Second Étude features a beautiful chromatic melody and a wide array of ever-changing arpeggios. It has something of a "night music" atmosphere about it, with all manner of insidiously sophisticated harmonic transformations taking place in the glittering chromatic moonlight. Kocsis simply takes it too fast and kills the mood, while Lowenthal totally captures the atmosphere even as he plays with uncanny touch and precision-very Michelangeli-like. (György Sàndor, in his Vox recording, does the very opening of this Étude more beautifully than anyone, but he struggles a bit elsewhere.) The Molto sostenuto section of the Third Étude features a perpetually moving left hand laying down a foundation of fast-moving sixteenth-notes played in complex irregular rhythms, with time signatures changing almost every measure. This constant regrouping of notes results in an ever-changing pattern of accentuated notes, which results in an ever-changing pulse. While all that is going on, the right hand plays irregularly and asymmetrically spaced staccato chords that hop, skip & jump across the sixteenth-notes like a cat on a hot tin roof. (That's my dubious understanding of what's going on after reading all the descriptions of the Étude that I could find. For the most part, however, it remains magic to me.) Lowenthal's temporal exactitude pays big dividends here, as he's able to produce the most discernible "ever-changing pulse" of anyone I've heard.

1920 - *Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs* • Perahia [CBS] ~ I was slow to warm to this subtly sophisticated and elusive work, which takes existing folk material and subjects it to all manner of harmonic and other improvisation. Superficially, the work sort of sounds like an evolved descendant of the early Bagatelles. I'm not sure that I have an actual favorite recording of this work, but Perahia's is one of the most interesting accounts.

1926 - *Piano Sonata* • Argerich [EMI, live '78] ~ The Piano Sonata is tough to play and tough to pull off interpretively: if you play it "straight" as it were, it can easily become repetitive, relentless, and monotonous; if you vary it significantly, you risk undermining the work's structural appeal. Argerich comes nearer to playing it straight than overdoing it, but she executes the bejesus out of it and commands your attention by sheer dint of her personality.

1926 - *Out of Doors* • Kocsis [Philips] or Lowenthal [Pro Piano] or Hambro [Bartók Records] ~ With Kocsis, you get the sense that he's taking the titles of the movements to heart and playing up the programmatic nature of the music; with Lowenthal, you get the sense that he's playing them abstractly, as "pure" music. Not surprisingly, then, Kocsis generally paints the more recognizable scene, but Lowenthal compensates by more deliberately and uncompromisingly revealing the rhythmic quirkiness and internal contrast and conflict of much of the music. I tend to favor Kocsis on the whole, but I like Lowenthal about as much, maybe more, in the first three movements. Lowenthal's rather severe and angular "With Drums and Pipes" is compelling for the sense of controlled menace it conveys. His "Barcarolla" and "Musettes" are wonderfully tense and abstract (and a bit menacing too). In "The Night's Music," Kocsis focuses on and draws your attention to the underlying atmosphere of the music while dispatching the many and varied pointed effects/night noises in a sort of subtle slight-of-hand manner that gives them a "they're there and gone before you can quite catch a glimpse of them" quality-very effective. Lowenthal, on the other hand, slightly overplays the effects and makes them a bit too blatant and conspicuous, robbing them of their fleeting and sneaky "What was that?!" quality. His account is still very effective in its way, but Kocsis's more vividly atmospheric account wins out. Lowenthal brings out the inner goings-on of "The Chase" more powerfully, but Kocsis generates an uncanny sense of motion that I've never heard equaled-and the acceleration to chase speed at the start is perfectly built. Hambro is the best representative of the primitive/percussive/severe school of Bartók playing, and he gives the work a good old-fashioned pummeling through and through-this is my favorite account when I've been drinking heavily, which is to say much of the time.

1926-1939 - 34 excerpts from *Mikrokosmos*, including (6) Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm, "Boating," "Bagpipes," "Merry Andrew," "From the Diary of a Fly," Whole-tone Scale, Free Variations, Subject and Reflection, Minor Seconds and Major Sevenths, Ostinato, March • Bartók [CBS '40] ~ The first time I heard these recordings (back when severe, percussive Bartók playing was the norm), I was surprised at how much Bartók's playing of these pieces made me think of Debussy. Bartók was slightly past his playing prime in 1940, but these are my overall favorite mikrokosmos performances for the sheer savvy of the playing, particularly from a rhythmic standpoint. It's also the choicest selection of mikrokosmos that I've found, as it includes pretty much all of my favorite pieces and very few non-favorites.

1939 - *Dances in Bulgarian Rhythm* (from _Mikrokosmos VI_) • Lowenthal [Pro Piano] ~ Bartók's 1940 accounts of these demanding dances are rhythmically enlightening and undeniably charming, but the playing isn't otherwise as taut and precise as it might be. Lowenthal's playing, on the other hand, _is_ as taut and precise as it might be, and he's as rhythmically veracious a pianist as you'll find, but his playing isn't quite as flexible as it might be and the result is perhaps more impressive than charming. Still, Lowenthal's is the most convincing recording of the dances that I know.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

I also quite like some of Bartok's piano music, I second the recommendation of Jando's Bartok on Naxos I remember in particular liking the _Sonatina_ and _Romanian Christmas Carols_. Frankly I spend more time listening to Bartok's orchestral and chamber music and there is still a decent amount of the piano music I haven't really delved into, but I started piano with the first few books of his _Mikrokosmos_ which I really enjoyed and I still play some pieces from Books II and III daily as part of my warm up routine.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Richter played the Hungarian Peasant songs in the 1970s and it was recorded for Meldodyia, I like what he does very much because it has an introspective quality sometimes.









I just noticed that Charles Rosen's recording of the Etudes has been transferred very well here









I also want to just mention an album which used to be a great favourite of mine, for some wonderful use of piano as percussion, by Ranki for Hungaroton.









Kovacevich recorded Bk 6 of Mikrokosmos, it's well worth hearing, never commercially transferred from LP, but if anyone wants my transfer they can PM me and I'll send them the files.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Big fan of Zoltan Kocsis' Bartok. Great pianist.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Tallisman said:


> Big fan of Zoltan Kocsis' Bartok.


Yes he's very good,


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Kovacevich recorded Bk 6 of Mikrokosmos, it's well worth hearing, never commercially transferred from LP, but if anyone wants my transfer they can PM me and I'll send them the files.


You'll be happy to know that Kovacevich's recording of _Mikrokosmos VI_ made it to CD a few years ago, but you'll be unhappy to know that the CD is buried in a limited-edition 25-CD box set: «Stephen Kovacevich ~ The Complete Philips Recordings».


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

The tragically late Zoltan Kocsis Is the man for me in the Bartok solo piano music, better than the other relatively comprehensive survey that Gyorgy Sándor did, which is a bit straight-laced in comparison, for me, anyway. Jando is excellent as well, I just don't feel the recording quality always does him justice though.
Murray Perahia did an excellent Out of Doors and the Improvisations too, and a very exciting Sonata for Two pianos and percussion with Georg Solti! Worth getting, that! However, the best one I know is Kocsis And Dezso Ránko, a live recording on Hungaroton
The old Hungaroton Bartok Edition had some pianists doing bits and pieces, amounting to a full survey. Anyone ever hear any other recordings by the likes of Gabor Gabos, Erszebet Tusa? These were ok, stopgaps, but not a patch on Kocsis. Sadly the New Edition has simply repackaged Kocsis' Philips recordings, so nothing new out of Hungary for a while. Disappointing, that.
The piano works are a bit like peeking into Bartok's laboratory. A lot of experimentation going on, quite a bit that doesn't stand up to his very best and most rounded music, a handful of real masterpieces, though. Ignoring the S2P&P, the best is probably the Sonata, the Improvisations, Out of Doors and the last book or two of Mikrokosmos. I have a big soft spot for the folkdances too, and the Romanian Carols!

Fantastic post from Dirge this morning, by the way, a pretty comprehensive recommendation!


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The problem with recommending Kocsis in this thread is just that in the opening post, the post which gives the thread its raison d'être, we read



silentio said:


> György Sándor . . . Bartok himself playing some from Book VI, and they sound much more subtle than how many modern pianists usually bang these pieces out.
> 
> . . . I would prefer a subtle performance.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

I am surprised, that I have not seen Andor Foldes mentioned in this thread.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I know, I was going to mention Foldes but I wanted to give myself a bit of time to listen again to the performances.


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Dirge said:


> I like most of Bartók's solo piano output and have a good many favorite recordings, but these are the ones that I listen to on a fairly regular basis …
> 
> 1907 - *Three Hungarian Folksongs from Csík* • Sándor [Vox] ~ Sándor has a knack for playing and phrasing simple folk tunes in a natural, uninflated manner, avoiding the trap (that Kocsis often falls into) of overthinking them and trying to make them sound more sophisticated than they are.
> 
> ...


Oh wow Dirge! That is an impressive list.

I am thinking about getting that Iren Marik disc from Arbiter, but feeling a bit hesitant. I got the historical Brahms pianists disc from Arbiter before. While the materials are extremely intersting and musically rewarding, I cant say I am happy with the remastering at all (not on par with Marston and Pristine for sure). What do you think about the sound quality of the Marik CD?


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## silentio (Nov 10, 2014)

Now that Dirge brought up the name of some "historical" pianists, I learned about *Etelka Freund* from an anthology of Brahms' pupils and colleagues.

Freund was a protege of Brahms and a friend of Bartok. Her playing is highly musical:


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## millionrainbows (Jun 23, 2012)

This Perahia recording is equal to or better than anything else I've heard. It seems to focus on the "meatier" Bartok, more avant-garde sounding pieces, such as the Suite, Sonata, and Improvisations.










Some of the stuff on Vox, the Sandor, seems to suffer from some mastering transfer problems, as if it was recorded in Dolby and had tracking problems and dropouts of frequency on the mastering playback deck, which is a common problem with Dolby recordings. Look for a second, different version of the piano concertos on Columbia as a reissue.


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

premont said:


> I am surprised, that I have not seen Andor Foldes mentioned in this thread.


I very nearly mentioned Földes, not for his well-known 1950s Bartók recordings on DG, but for a live 1980 recital on Hungaroton, which includes a very varied and obsessively pointed account of the Piano Sonata-it's fascinating if busy sounding in effect. Fans of the Sonata might want to check it out on YouTube:





 (tracks 19-21)


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Phil loves classical said:


> Yes, I got Georg Sandor's set of his complete solo piano music, and a recording of Bartok's own playing. Some of the pieces I played when i was young, and hated it for its weird harmonies, which is a plus to me now.
> Some fav's:
> 3 Etudes
> 2 Romanian Dances
> ...


re : Sandor is that the correct way to spell his first name? I usually see it as Gyorgy


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## Dirge (Apr 10, 2012)

silentio said:


> I am thinking about getting that Iren Marik disc from Arbiter, but feeling a bit hesitant. I got the historical Brahms pianists disc from Arbiter before. While the materials are extremely intersting and musically rewarding, I cant say I am happy with the remastering at all (not on par with Marston and Pristine for sure). What do you think about the sound quality of the Marik CD?


Sound quality varies from tolerable to pretty good, but without having heard any of the source material, it's hard to say how much credit/blame lies with Arbiter for the results. That said, I get the impression that the transfers/processing were carefully managed, even if the high frequencies sound a bit overfiltered to my ears-a criticism that I level at the vast majority of historical transfers. On the whole, I'm satisfied with the sound and don't regret my purchase at all. (My favorite sleeper from the set is the account of Kodály's Dances of Marosszék-superb.)


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