Search - Bela Bartok, Pierre Boulez, Chicago Symphony Orchestra :: Béla Bartók: Concerto for Orchestra / 4 Orchestral Pieces - Chicago Symphony Orchestra / Pierre Boulez

A Marvelous Recording

Karl W. Nehring | Ostrander, OH USA | 07/16/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"At times, when I have compared two recordings of the same work, I have found myself agonizing over my conclusions, wanting to be as fair as possible to both recordings, but in this instance I have such a clear preference for one recording over the other that I see no real need to go on and on about both versions; consequently, I will be brief.



For example, the Daniele Gatti release of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra on Conifer, w3hich was released at about the same time as the Boulez recording, is a nice recording of the work. The sound quality is quite good--a bit distant, but warm and rich, with a nice spread to the soundstage. However, after listening to the Conifer CD several times, I really had no desire to listen to it again.



The Boulez performance, on the other hand, is marvelous, a performance and recording that I can turn to again and again. I hear a genuine crackle of excitement, the result of a conductor and orchestra finding true delight in the score. I am sure that much of the credit for the superiority of the DGG recording should go to the CSO, who have made wonderful recordings of this work in the past with Reiner on RCA and with Solti on London. Under Boulez, they have turned in another great performance, and the sound quality is excellent, too--more closely recorded than the Gatti, but still with a good sense of space.



Making the Boulez disk even more of a winner for me is the coupling. The Four Orchestral Pieces are truly fitting and complementary diskmates for the Concerto.



There you have it. The Boulez/Chicago/DGG CD is clearly a wonderful recording, and I recommend it highly."

The Four Orchestral Pieces are the best thing here, but noth

Santa Fe Listener | Santa Fe, NM USA | 03/31/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"In its review of this 1994 release, the Gramophone remakred that Bartok's Four Orchestral Pieces Op. 12 could be taken as a second concerto for orchestra, given the lavish orchestration and wide range of color. An enticing perspective, but the troulbe is that Bartok's imaginaiton isn't fully engaged or his melodic gift as developed as in the famous, much later Concerto for Orchestra.



There's no doubt, however, that Boulez seems more interested in the earlier work. His reading of the Concerto falls flat in the inner three movements. One can put a good face on things (after all, Boulez is the most eminent Bartok interpreter of our time) by pointing to clarity of detail -- DG's engineers cooperate by bringing out inner voices as I've never heard them before. But there's no involvement emotionally, and when Bartok signals broad changes of mood (e.g., in the satiric section in mvt. IV aimed at Shostakovich's 'Leningrad' Symphony), Boulez blandly coasts through. He perks up for parts of the first and last movements, but there are too many great performances of this showpiece to excuse a boring one. Three stars.



I'm not sure that hte Four Orchestral Pieces is all that energized, either. After a melancholy, atmospheric, but indifferent first movement, the fierce seond one abruptly takes off. The CSO's playing is incisive, even biting, and suddenly the listener wakes up. The pastoral third movement feels generic (it's in the style of the Wooden Prince, an impresisonistic work that owes to much to Debussy and twilight Romanticism). The finale is forceful and Bartokian in its menace, but much better was to come in the Miraculous Mandarin; this is barely a tremor compared to that earthquake. For all its shortcomings, the music gets a persuasive reading here. Four stars.



In my experience DG gave Boulez's whole catalog of recordings from Chicago hard, glaring sound, and this is no exception, particularly at loud volume."