Definitive Bartok Recording
John Reager | Berkeley, CA | 06/23/2000
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Yehudi Menuhin's impassioned performance is as artistically sensitive as it is virtuostic. After this recording, most other interpretations seem lacking. While many brilliant violinists have recently championed this monumental concerto, seldom do they match Menuhin's soulful lyricism. Antal Dorati is equally sensitive with the Minneapolis Symphony Orchestra. Bartok fans should consider this a "must have" recording. This is truly one of my favorite records of all time.Sincerely,John Reager"
Still the finest
Mark McCue | Denver | 12/13/2001
(5 out of 5 stars)
"After 43 years, this still sounds like it was recorded last week.
After doing side-by-side comparisons, Menuhin's later attempt, also with Dorati, is scrabbly and and tense.This session lasted from midnight to five a.m. before the subway started running, but you'd never know it--the Minneapolis Symphony, always a crack outfit, sounds as if it had just come in from breakfast to start a day's work. The string tone, carefully matched in bowing and character to the soloist, is especially telling. You must have this in any representative collection on many representative fronts."
The immediat rapport!
Hiram Gomez Pardo | Valencia, Venezuela | 04/20/2005
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Bartok was not only one of the purest and gifted musicians ever born. Despite his music is not easy listening, the enormous sincerity, rapture emotive and eloquent expresiveness catches the most indifferent listener from the same beginning.
So, his musical heritage has no limits. Around him there were musicians of the artistic height of Ferenc Fricsay, Antal Dorati, Sandor Vegh, Gyorgy Sandor, Geza Anda, Annie Fisher, Andras Schiff, Louis Kentner, Joseph Szigetti and obviously Yehudi Menuhin; I mean this special, loyal and profound admiration came from the bottom of the soul in every case.
All of you know the huge love maintained for Dorati about Bartok through his entire life. This CD is an absolute artistic triumph, because it comes far beyond the score: It is not mere casuality that Dorati and Fricsay be the superior names at the moment you made the reduced list of the Giant directors in Bartok's music.
The additional commitment will be immediatly perceived for you from the first bars. You will never have the minimum possibility to loose with Dorati conducting Bartok.
A diamantine record all the way!"
Track Listings (7) - Disc #1