# Bela Bartok - Solo Piano Works



## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm finding great inspiration from these, and find them highly creative. I enjoy the short lengths.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

The studies op 18? Charles Rosen was a great champion of these and he recorded them. 

Bartok was a good piano player - it’s well worth hearing his recordings of Mikrokosmos I think.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm finding great inspiration from these, and find them highly creative. I enjoy the short lengths.


Zoltán Kocsis is great in Bartok.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Rogerx said:


> Zoltán Kocsis is great in Bartok.


Yes to this. Just buy the Kocsis set and you'll thank us later.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

I've been enjoying the improvisations on Hungarian songs, he really was a good piano player and the instrument sounds very sweet -- it has that old piano sound of strength and sweetness in all registers (think Edwin Fischer's pianos) 

Bartók plays Bartók -- Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs (selection) - YouTube


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

The Improvisations are great, aren't they! They are one of the large-ish handful of Bartok's piano works that are what I'd describe as "essential".....

To that list I'd add the Sonata, the Sonatina, the Suite, the Peasant Songs, Christmas carols, Bagatelles, ......the list goes on longer than I maybe gave him credit!! That said, there are some chunks of his oeuvre that are experimental, and perhaps don't hold up too well. An opinion as a non-pianist, I hasten to add!

As Mandryka says, Bartok was himself a good pianist, not just in the Improvisations, and there are quite a few recordings of him playing his own stuff out there, well worth hearing. Zoltan Kocsis spent a great deal of time studying these to inform his own interpretations.

Kocsis is God here, as far as I am concerned, and I doubt that's a controversial opinion......but there's also a pretty comprehensive survey done by Gyorgy Sandor, and one by Jeno Jando, the latter is really good, I promise, not Jando tossing out a few more CDs for fun. But a lot of "big names" don't seem to want to touch his music.....weird, that.

Do try and find a Sony CD of Murray Perahia's Bartok, it has an outstanding performance of his piano masterpiece, Out of Doors, and all the other works are played with real panache; and a very enjoyable Sonata for two pianos & percussion ( a major, major work of course), with some chap called Georg Solti the other pianist!


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

I used to play the Bartok "Sonatina" 
It was hard ,just brutal ,that's why I discarded practicing it to put more time into composition.

That is where my username "Bagpipers" is from,the first movement of the Sonatina


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

CnC Bartok said:


> The Improvisations are great, aren't they! They are one of the large-ish handful of Bartok's piano works that are what I'd describe as "essential".....
> 
> To that list I'd add the Sonata, the Sonatina, the Suite, the Peasant Songs, Christmas carols, Bagatelles, ......the list goes on longer than I maybe gave him credit!! That said, there are some chunks of his oeuvre that are experimental, and perhaps don't hold up too well. An opinion as a non-pianist, I hasten to add!
> 
> ...


Helffer also interesting in the improvisations - someone who’s played Barraqué and such like brings out the modern side of the music, which is at least half of it!


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

I'm starting to appreciate more staccato sounds rather than legato ones.


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm starting to appreciate more staccato sounds rather than legato ones.


Bartok did love staccato,I remember that was one of the great challenges of playing him,was all the staccato's,it was murder,this note staccato and then this note not.Very hard


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Even as a Bartók fanatic, I have trouble appreciating the piano cycles _For Children_ and _Mikrokosmos_. Piano works that I love in particular: _Out of Doors_, _Fourteen Bagatelles_, _Eight Improvisations on Hungarian Peasant Songs_, _Dance Suite_ (love the orchestral version, too), _Sonata, Sonatina, Two Elegies, Romanian Christmas Carols and Romanian Folk Dances. I'm sure there's more that I enjoy, but these will do for now. _


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm starting to appreciate more staccato sounds rather than legato ones.


Then maybe you'll enjoy Annie Fischer

Bartók - Romanian folk dance Sz.43/1 - Annie Fischer Moscow 1951 - YouTube

Annie Fischer - Bartók - 15 Hungarian Peasant Songs - YouTube


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## Denerah Bathory (6 mo ago)

I know the Sonata and Suite so far (I assumed there were several, however based on an earlier comment I suppose I've heard the only sonata he did, I typically assume a composer has written 20+ works in each format haha).

Now, I am blown away by the aforementioned pieces, especially the Sonata. I totally see where Keith Emerson got his style from! And I also love staccato rhythms with clashing intervals. 

I look forward to digging into those piano concertos. I'll say this, Slavic composers never cease to amaze me, they're seldom predictable.


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Denerah Bathory said:


> I know the Sonata and Suite so far (I assumed there were several, however based on an earlier comment I suppose I've heard the only sonata he did, I typically assume a composer has written 20+ works in each format haha).
> 
> Now, I am blown away by the aforementioned pieces, especially the Sonata. I totally see where Keith Emerson got his style from! And I also love staccato rhythms with clashing intervals.
> 
> I look forward to digging into those piano concertos. I'll say this, Slavic composers never cease to amaze me, they're seldom predictable.


Excellent! You should definitely give a listen to Janáček's solo piano music next (if you haven't already). Szymanowski and Bacewicz, too, while you're at it.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> I'm starting to appreciate more staccato sounds rather than legato ones.


Sooner or later, you'll appreciate _staccatissimo_ sounds more


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## Captainnumber36 (Jan 19, 2017)

What's a good Bartok piano album?


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Bwv 1080 said:


> on a related note


^this recently motivated me to listen to Op.14 (the scherzo is discussed at around 3:00 in the video)


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Captainnumber36 said:


> What's a good Bartok piano album?


This






Bartók: Complete Solo Piano Music, Various Composers by Gyorgy Sandor - Qobuz


Bartók: Complete Solo Piano Music | Various Composers by Gyorgy Sandor – Download and listen to the album




www.qobuz.com


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

Captainnumber36 said:


> What's a good Bartok piano album?






Bartok: Piano Works

Zoltán Kocsis (piano)

Fantastic.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

Mandryka said:


> This
> 
> 
> 
> ...


I own four sets:

Sandor (Vox)
Sandor (Sony)
Kocsis (Philips or Decca)
Földes (Eloquence - not complete in the strictest sense))

Like Mandryka I prefer the Sandor (Vox) despite the older sound.


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

There is on Youtube I'm not great at posting videos.maybe 1930's or early 40's when he was in New York before he died there is a recording of Bartok himself playing the Sonatina


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

This one, you mean?


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## bagpipers (Jun 29, 2013)

CnC Bartok said:


> This one, you mean?


Yes,old recording but Bartok is very proficient on piano


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## lextune (Nov 25, 2016)

Kocsis and Sandor are both excellent go-to's.


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